How do you spend your weekend? Relaxing? Watching TV? Well your missing out because you could be experiencing the 48 Hour Film festival. What is it exactly? One weekend every year, 40+ teams of (crazy) filmmaker join together to achieve one common goal: To produce a short film, in a specific genre (comedy, superhero, even musical western!) in less than 48 hours. Starting Friday night, every team gathers at a local restaurant to pick a genre, afterwords the teams discover the character name, line of dialog and prop that they all have to use. For example: last year all the movies had to have the character name “Jarod Puller”, use a “bouncy ball” as a prop, and must use the line “I’m just not sure about that” in the movie. Now go watch my movie to see if you can find them!
I first entered the 48 Hour Film Fest. 2 years ago with two of my friends. We now call ourselves “The Posse” and continue to do projects together. We were featured in the River Oaks examiner last year, so be sure to check out our press! This year the 48 Hour Film Festival will be in June (exact time not known yet) but if you would like to find out more information, visit http://www.48hourfilm.com/
Join Houston artist all star Spacetaker as they celebrate David Brown (one of our favorite art nerds EVER) and the entire Houston arts community with an evening of revelry, food, dance, music and so much more.
What: Spacetaker’s 6th annual Apocalypto gala When: Saturday, March 20th 7-11pm Where: Winter Street Studios (2101 Winter St.) URL:www.spacetaker.org/apocalypto
The Tendenci crew is pushing out a shiny new newsletter editor / WYSIWYG ('what you see is what you get') tool for you to more quickly and easily add content to your newsletters. Keep an eye out for it later this week!
Here are a few features to look forward to:
New and intuitive user interface – Based on common desktop editing tools, the editor will be familiar to you from other software that you use regularly, but cleaner and easier to use than our old editor.
More powerful image uploader and manager – The new editor makes uploading and managing your images a snap. You'll really like this new interface!
Collapsible toolbar – Keep your editing area as minimal as you'd like it to be by expanding and contracting your editing toolbar at will!
The SXSW festival (or ‘South by Southwest – think Hitchcock, but geekier and in color) is an annual event that interactive, film and music enthusiasts all the world over look forward to with great excitement!
This year, as in years past, the Schipulites will have a small contingent joining thousands of other marketing and technology nerds in Austin for the Interactive portion of the SXSW festival. And… to say that we are excited would be the greatest understatement of the year 🙂
Here are the Schipulites that are attending SXSWi this year and some of the panels we are most looking forward to! Keep up with ALL of our SXSWi-related content on our shiny new Storme site at: www.storme.com/sxsw
What panels and events are you most excited about? Hope to see you there!! Be sure to say howdy if you walk on by – even if we’re busy Tweeting / blogging / video-ing 🙂
The Schipul family has grown this week with the addition of three new interns: James Nguyen, Chris Minor and Mark Francis will be helping out the next couple of months so let’s all give them a warm welcome and watch their intro video above!
Well, just so happens there is something pretty dang cool to do this Saturday afternoon… The Live Oak Friends Meeting Peace Festival. Think music, art, dancing, fun and food… Quaker Style.
Peace Festival: March 6, 2010
A day of celebration and networking with local and national organizations working to improve our community!
We’ve all come across email SPAM, but that is only where the annoyance begins. If you have a blog, a website that takes comments, or even a contact form, then you have probably seen some SPAM there, too. It used to be easy to identify, but spammers are becoming craftier at their game. Learn how you can fight back.
SPAM can pile up in your blog. Learn how to get rid of it.
Why people Spam
Before diving into the problem of comment SPAM, I’d like to answer this question: Why do people SPAM? The biggest purpose of comment SPAM is SEO-related. One of the things Google and the others factor into their algorithms is linkbacks. A linkback is any link from an external site back to your website. In many comment forms on blogging platforms there is an option to include a website, which is then linked to your name when you leave a comment. This is a way of telling people who it is that is leaving the comment. Spammers use this opportunity to link to trashy SPAM websites that make pennies per visitor. If they rank higher in the search engines for keywords like “free viagra”, they can drive more traffic and make more pennies. Pennies turn into dollars which turn into Benjamins, and you get the picture. However, this doesn’t work very well for the spammers.
While most of the blogging platforms include comments and do send links, they include a little piece of code that prevents linkbacks. It’s called a “nofollow” link. It tells Google not to count a link as a linkback. Google doesn’t follow the link, so that website isn’t given any benefit. It’s an optional setting, but it is turned on for professional blogs as well as Blogger.com and WordPress.com hosted blogs. We don’t use nofollow links on this blog so that we can pass along benefits to our commenters. However, spammers don’t know that we do this, and they don’t seem to care much either way. Even with nofollow links, the spammers will still attack your site. Now that we know the why, lets look into the “what” of comment SPAM.
What Comment SPAM looks like
Most people can identify the obvious SPAM very quickly. It is riddled with links to ED drugs or other pharmaceuticals, or in some cases it is written in Russian. This kind of SPAM is automated by the spammers and can be caught by filters. The other types of SPAM are much harder to identify. They look more like real comments. Here is an example (the link doesn’t work):
From Investment Ideas: Great Post! I stumble by this blog from Google and your content really speaks to me. You are an expert in your field and this post is proof. I am now subscribing to read more.
At first glance this looks like a very nice comment. It is probably one you would be proud to have at the bottom of your posts. Unfortunately, it is SPAM. The “name” of the commenter is used as a keyword to create a linkback to the URL, which in this case is also about investment ideas. The text sounds very nice, but it would probably sound very nice on any of your posts. These types of comments have a few things in common, and you can become a pro at identifying it and removing it.
How to Identify and Stop SPAM
Unfortunately, this kind of SPAM is not caught by the filters because it looks genuine. In many cases it is even entered by a real person (often overseas). They copy/paste a snippet on many sites as fast as possible. But, you can spot it when moderating your comments. Here is three-item test to identify the tricky SPAM:
The name looks like a description and not really a person’s name. In the example, it is Investment Ideas.
The link goes to a site very similar to the name. It may also include several hyphens, which are sometimes used in spam URLs.
The text of the comment is very generic. It doesn’t reference anything in the post and can probably apply to almost any of your posts.
Those three quick tests can help you to identify most comment SPAM. After reviewing the fake comment above, you will see that it includes all three of the regular pieces of SPAM comments. You may come across some comments that just say “Great Post!”. To determine if these are SPAM you should pay close attention to the name and link. If it is a person’s name and goes to a personal site or blog (like JMO), then it is probably not SPAM.
You will have to use your own discretion when deciding which comments are SPAM on your blog. Comments are great places to have a bit of further discussion about posts. They can add to the “conversation” in many cases, so blocking SPAM is even more important to keep the conversation fluid. While comment SPAM can’t hurt you directly, it can look ugly on your blog.
While some sites have turned off comments all together to prevent this, you may still want to keep comments on your site. Using nofollow links can help prevent the spammers from gaining anything with their garbage, but it will still pile up in the back and can clutter your real comments. Moderating your comments regularly and having a keen eye for SPAM can protect your site from the evils of comment SPAM.
UPDATE:
I have decided it to let the SPAM comments show up on this post so you can see some examples of what we get. I will neuter them by removing the link, but the text and name of the commenter will be left alone (unless it’s profane). Our first winner is “Affiliate Network”.
UPDATE 2:
Many more SPAM comments have rolled in to the mix. I’ve removed links on all of them, but the text gives you an idea of what they may look like on your site.
When I was 21, I decided to move to Los Angeles. Out of the blue. I’d never expressed much interest in permanently relocating out of Ohio before, but following a semester in Washington, D.C., by golly, I felt invincible enough to do just about anything.
My mother, understandably, was flummoxed. She posed every question in the world that a parent could possibly conjure. “Where will you live?” “Where will you work?” “What if something happens to you while you’re out there; you don’t know anyone…?” “What if you hate it there?” “What if you miss home?” “What if your car breaks down on the way?” “What if Gael Garcia Bernal decides he wants to marry you?”
Okay, no, she didn’t ask that last one. Duh. It’s obvious that he does. He responded to me on Twitter once. I still think it was real, no matter what his official account says.
Anyway, the thing is, my mother never once said, “Don’t go, Fayza.” Despite her unanswered questions and despite her personal fears. Do you know why? Because she knew it was good for me. As hard as it was to see her eldest daughter pack up her inconsistent-at-best 1989 Honda Accord with everything she could stuff into it and head off across the country to inhabit a city she’d never even visited, my mom knew it was the right move for me. To date, it was one of the most pivotal life decisions I’ve ever made. In a good way.
Why did I tell you this story? Because. Because I like stories? Well, yes, but there’s a point; I’ve become very sage over the years, dontcha know. The moral is this: Sometimes, it’s hard to let a member of your family fly. But spread their wings they must. Because fly they should.
And taking flight from the family nest I am, again. For today, with both a smile and a sigh, I turn in my Schipulite badge and bid the roost adieu.
“But what now?” you ask. Don’t worry; I’m not dying. Nor am I leaving the city of Houston. I know, right?
If you couldn’t tell, I’m quite passionate about writing. This hunger knows no bounds (and, some would say, no boundaries). I also happen to be a Twitteraholic and a Facebook fiend. And when a position as the Social Media Editor at CultureMap was staring me in the face, I knew it was my time to flap ye olde wings again.
But I don’t do goodbyes, yo. Because the strangers who became my sisters and brothers at this company are people who will remain in my life for years to come. And the knowledge I’ve earned, the skills I’ve learned, and the client experiences that I’ve had will stay with me and fuel my growth ’til my brain can’t hold no more. I’ve been a lucky little person, that’s for sure. And I take that luck with me in my pockets. Like office supplies. Um, did I just say that? Ignore me.
So this is not a goodbye, ’cause HEY! Here I am, loud and clear, still kickin’! And so are you. It’s a see-you-later, at best, and a now-we’re-gonna-have-to-make-lunch-plans at worst. ‘Cause you knowwhere to findme. So please do.
Katie Laird – Communications Manager + Cupcake Lover
Jonti Bolles – All Star SEM Manager + Fitness Geek
David Stagg – Creative Guru + David Beckham lookalike
JJ Lassberg – Brilliant Brilliant Project Manager + Earth Mama
Courtney Pemberton – Sales Gal Extraordinaire + All Around Peppy Gal
Caitlin Kaluza – Social Media Project All Star + Cat Lover With a Wii Problem
