So Tired Of It...

Who really cares?  I mean, are there people out there who need to know this information and, if they don't, their lives are incomplete?

That's right, I'm about to rant.

Do I really need to know all about Brooke Shield's wrinkle erase cream?

Do I really need to discover Megyn Kelley's little off-show OR on-show secrets?

Do I even need to know what pill Mark Cuban is taking? Or why? OMG!

OR why one of the Kardashians is having a rough go of it? I know, life is so mean to millionaires.

Everyone is screaming their Internet is slow, it takes too long to load this video or that video. Really? You're going to watch a video about what pill Mark Cuban is taking so you can order it? If you want the pill, does it really matter if Mark Cuban is taking it? Does his decision decide yours?

If we could get rid of all the stupid SPAM - not the canned meat type - that is cluttering our networks, just think how much faster the Internet would be.

I'm a 70+ married white male with four children, ten grandchildren and currently, five great-grandchildren.

The last thing I need in my inbox is...

1. A secret date with some cougar. I'm not looking for a 80 to 90 year old woman.
2. A secret date with somebody's wife.  I have my wife, why do I want somebody else's?
3. A prestigious position within the Business Women's Society or some such crap. I'm a guy!
4. Seeing naked photos of supposed "nearby" women who need to be satisfied.
5. To save $1500 on a walk-in tub. If I'm saving $1500, the tub is too expensive.
6. Be involved with a Zuckerberg venture and/or Facebook.
7. Discover ways to enhance my manhood. At this point in my life... does it matter?
8. Anything about Gwen Stephani and/or Blake Shelton. What they do is their business.
9. Any of the new diet pills and/or weight-loss fads. I'm fat; I'm happy - so leave me alone.
10. I don't need medicinal anything - drugs or pills. I'm 70+, I've learned to cope so far without it.
11. A total stranger's hoo-ha. Imagine my shock with the email that read "You Want This?" and when the email came up, it was a close-up shot of some woman's vagina. One of my grandchildren could have went to my computer and seen that since I leave me computer on 24/7 and usually have my email up, running during that time.
12. An opportunity to send somebody $5k so I can get $150 million to assist in a transaction from Africa (or Europe, South America, Far East) of an extremely wealthy spouse of a slain official.
13. And the list goes on and on.

Just think, if just the above type emails didn't clog the Internet, we could all probably run on a 56K modem - no, not really. I'm kidding. BUT, we'd all see things happen a lot faster.

WHY?

ISP (that's your Internet Service Provider) wouldn't need to attempt to go through all the email coming to your email box and attempt to eliminate as much as possible before sending it on through to you.  I know, I have my own domain and establish SPAM rules to eliminate a lot of email for my domain(s) I handle. You won't believe all the stuff that still manages to get through.

Spammers are smart.  They use things like "Bootilicious," Booty Licious," "Bootie Licious," Booty-Licious," Bootie.Licious," and the list goes on and on with variations.  Oh, and they also attempt this method "BoOtY LiCiOuS."  And, yes, variations on it, too.

As it has been stated in the past, it is difficult to make something totally idiot proof because idiots are so ingenious.

I remember the good ol' days (he sighs) when I could be on the phone and send an email to the person on the other end and almost instantly they'd say "Got it!"  Now, with all the way-stations and spam filters in place, it can take upwards of twenty minutes to get that same email.  The sending ISP will check the mail for viruses and attempt to ascertain that it is not spam, and depending on the route taken, a couple of other places will also test the email for viruses and spam.

The sad part, if you put into your email, say to a client or customer, the following sentence:

Yes, I said it was FREE!

That sentence alone could flag it as spam. You capitalized the word "free" which for some spam filters, is a flag to be counted.  If your email letter gets too many flags, it is considered spam and goes into the spam box and the world may never see it.

The truly sad aspect of spam - real mail may get stopped and tossed away while the crappy spam email comes through, totally unscathed.

Some spam filters look at the content size and if the flags count up... but the text size is large, it is allowed through.  Hence the emails of spam now filled with useless garbled blurbage at the end. It gets the text count up to offset the flag count. As I said, idiots are so ingenious.

What can be done? Really - nothing.  Like my friend who despises the canned meat known as SPAM, even if you ignore it, it still remains on the store shelves, indicating that somebody somewhere is buying it.

I guess the same is true for all the other spam - out there in the great web of cyberspace, somebody is clicking on the link to discover the "truth" about Brooke Shield's wrinkle cream... or wanting to enhance the size of his manhood.

We all have our dreams... I dream of an Internet without spam.

Until next I ramble on...

Ego-surfing

There is an old, old song by Carly Simon which has the phrase: You're so vain, you thought this song was about you. Sometimes it is necessary for one to actually be somewhat vain. Of course, I mean that in only the nicest of ways.

BTW, here's a link to a remake of Carly's song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ly2TiqbkT7Y

Years ago, while I was in the service, at a duty station, one of the secretaries told my buddy he was vain to which he replied: That can't be. Vanity is a fault and I have none.

Nonetheless, give it a try, be a little vain — in other words do some egosurfing, auto-googling, egosearching, a vanitysearch ... whatever you want to call it.

Using your favorite browser — Google, Internet Explorer, Safari, etc.  Type in your name, hit "Enter" and see where your name appears. You might be surprised!

On a whim, I did this the other day and discovered I was all over the Internet.  A pleasant surprise — okay, I'll admit, my head did swell just a tiny, tiny amount, if you're comparing it to Jupiter.  I'm amazed I didn't soar with the other hot-air balloons in the area that day.

Discovering your name at this website or that website can make a person rather proud. Of course, what is even more exciting, to find your name at a site you didn't know your name was going to show. Imagine my surprise, years ago when I did this to find one of my "paintings" at a website to honor John Carter. I'm a big fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs and his writings, including the John Carter of Mars series. I'd created a 3-D image, rather bland in shades of reds, blues and lavenders. With the soft plateaus and hazy plains, I envisioned it as Mars. I need to have that website updated, too. LOL.

http://www.erbzine.com/mag9/0989.html

But, I digress. When I did the search the other day, being coerced by PCH (Publishing Clearing House) to use their search engine to enter the drawing, I entered "Bob Nailor" to see what would display.

To quote Gomer Pyle: Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!

I discovered on one of MY personal web pages, the data was a tad out of date, by about three (3) years!!  Of course, I was able to immediately go into my domain and correct the offending page(s) as needed with more updated information.

I also discovered that my information was out of date at several other web pages including Google+, Good Reads, Amazon and, color me red, too many other places that I had some control over but had not kept updated.

Therefore, don't feel it is vanity to search for your name. Do so and find out if you are inadvertently being publicized on a page you'd rather not have your name plastered on, or discover, as I did, that your data is out of date — which could be worse!

Did you catch that?  On a page you'd rather not be on? Imagine finding yourself on a web page, which in and of itself can be considered an honor, but it's a website that you'd rather not have your name associated with.  For instance, a raunchy romance web page with an image of your book cover and your name.

I found my latest book cover, The Secret Voice which is an Christian Amish novel on a gay site with the following blurb: One hot dude. I sent a letter to the web owner with a simple request, either post a review of the book or remove the cover since I was quite sure the original photographer would be upset.  I had no issue with it being on a gay website but I didn't want it the cover to be used as sensual endeavor.  I can't control who reads my books or who reviews them or how they review. The web owner was very nice and explained that other people could post to his page and he would take it down since the object of the page was to invoke sexual responses.  Not all website owners will be as nice, but if you approach them nicely and professionally, most will respond politely.

The bottom line to this ego trip is simple. Find out where your name is listed.  Is it correct? If not, can you correct it or have it corrected?

Go forth, my friends, and EgoSurf.

Until next I ramble on...