Author: John
It’s Almost Thanksgiving ?!!
ALMOST Thanksgiving? Might as well BE Thanksgiving. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – the universe is undergoing time compression at an accelerated rate. Sure, it’s slow enough you don’t notice it from day to day. It’s like your kids growing up. They look the same today as they did yesterday, but suddenly you realize they’re a whole lot different from a year ago. You have be like grandparents to experience the shock effect of the difference between grandchildren today and the last time you saw them. “Oh, my! How you’ve grown!”
Anyway, there’s no dispute about Fall (Autumn) being here, as far as I can tell. Here in the Midwest it’s relatively mild. Last weekend was like late Spring, temperature in 70’s. This past week I think I recall temps in the low 40’s around sunup. Oh, that doesn’t look right. Is it sun-up? I’m sure it’s sundown, not sun-down. Can’t possibly be sunnup. Let’s call it dawn.
I just finished upgrading all the blogs (Attorney, Chappells, BlackStar, Bandolero) to latest WordPress version. The HarpShot blog is automatically updated since it’s a WordPress account blog. Bandolero’s Blog was down all day due to some problem at the host (DreamHost). Later tonight the database is supposed to get consolidated onto the same database server as other databases associated with other websites I have on DreamHost. I posted a new article on Bandolero’s Blog, as well as adding Chapter 2 to the Bandolero Memoirs. I fired off emails to all the porn sites that idiot opened accounts on with my bandolero gmail address. They haven’t had any effect yet.
KU Football has turned into a bust. Fortunately, KU Basketball looks like the real deal. First time in a long time I haven’t felt like their initial ranking (#1) was a tad (or more) higher than reality.
I did some searching on CraigsList and other things for potential California employers. I guess the next thing to do would be actually contacting some of them. In fact, I should be writing letters instead of blogging, eh?
Beware Email Address Theft
BEWARE, people. Some jerk (or maybe just idiot if allowed the benefit of the doubt) has been using, and trying to hijack, my bandolero email address. He’s been using it as the “contact email” for accounts he creates on unsavory (though some would say titillating) “social” websites, and also when ordering “toys” from advertisers on such websites and other online sellers. He’s also been trying to get Gmail to give him my password by means of the “I forgot my password” link. He’s also stupid, as I have acquired his name and address, and even had a look at his house from street level courtesy of google maps.
But here’s the warning: on some sites where he set up such accounts, his profile included links to my FaceBook and MySpace pages, where my bandolero address is supposedly only visible to “friends” and “friends of friends” according to my privacy settings. Whether there is more sharing among social sites than they let on, or more hacking between them than they’d care to admit, I don’t know. But, it was somewhat surprising to see my FaceBook photo and Gmail photo (he’s apparently uglier than I am though claiming to be only 40) next to photos of his (or should I say “my”?) admirers that were, well…, I’ll just say I’d have preferred seeing pictures that at least aspired to Playboy standards.
Okay, okay, I know what you’re dying to say, but don’t, I’m serious here. A couple of security newsletters I get have recently warned against FaceBook and Twitter accounts. I border on paranoid when it comes to guarding “personal information” but the focus is usually on things like account numbers, SSNs, passwords, etc. Theft of one’s email address used to mean seeing it forged on a gazillion spams. But now we also need to think about how much personal info somebody can get and use to our detriment by stealing just our email addresses, even without stealing our email accounts.
Think about it, and be prudent. I don’t think I’m ready yet to abandon FaceBook and LinkedIn, though I should’ve ditched MySpace a long time ago. On the other hand, I’m beginning to think again about chappells.us or something like it as a better vehicle for sharing things we’d really like to share but which it would behoove us to protect.
Next Up: Christmas
November 28, 2009
Genealogy, General
2 Comments
John
Last time I wrote it was almost Thanksgiving. Now Thanksgiving is history and next up is Christmas. Incredible.
Just thought I’d post a reminder about the Chappell’s Google Sites Home. It’s sort of a duplicate genealogy site, not as complete as the Ancestry section of the regular Chappells Site, but different and kind of interesting. In the left column there are some day counters, one of which shows how many days since Izzy was born.
Good grief. I thought Kansas might be gonna win the “Border War” but with less than two minutes left it appears they’ve blown it. If a miracle happens, I guess I’ll log back in and edit this.