Fishy, Phishy, Suspishy
Several Ravelry members have recently gotten email or a blog comment that's a tad suspicious. It's--
Oh, wait. ::holds up a hand:: One thing first, just take a sec...
Hey, ccr in MA - I haven't archived this sucker yet, but one program I've read about for doing it is ljArchive. It only works for LiveJournal blogs and ones running off similar (LJ clone) blogging software, though. I have no clue about such for Blogger, alas. I'd either check Blogger's help, or Google for any info. There must be some archive programs out there; I'd think Blogger's too popular not to have any programs to archive with.
If you move your blog elsewhere and switch to new blogging software, like WordPress or TypePad, lots of those say they'll import your old blog with no problems...but I'd still want to back up. There's always the really slow way; save every entry as a complete webpage, so you get pix and comments. Yah, glacial...but you'd have everything. Dunno about using that to restore an entire blog, but you should be able to get something back up, anyway.
Really, that's about all I know. I'm not an expert on this, a'tall. All I do is post on mine. I can't even modify a layout to change the looks of it, beyond the very basic options they make easy to do, like changing colors, adding a background image, header and so on. Anything else, I'm stuck. (And the LJ code manual is less than transparent for coding beginners. You can't even download it, last I looked. Like, what? You have to refer to every page online, or save them to your HD, so you can actually study with some chance of getting to understanding S2. Which pfui, I don't want to learn the coding that badly! Especially something that isn't going to help in, say, coding web pages in general. If I have to learn code from scratch, I'd go with HTML and so on, not piddle around with S2. Screw it. )
Sorry, not much help there. Good lucking finding something!
Ok; so back to this mysterious email-or-comment. I got it myself, as a comment back on my November 9th, 2008 entry. It sounds innocuous enough until you notice a few points:
Hey
(Anonymous)
1/19/09 01:47 pm (local)
First, let me say that I’m a huge fan of your posts. You’re on my List Of Ravelry Favorites, and I often share your stuff with my knitting friends.
I am writing everyone on my Favorites List with a couple of questions. If you can answer them for me, it would be a HUGE HUGE HUGE favor. Really HUGE.
Thing is, I am writing a piece on Ravelry for my college magazine. Topic is WHY Ravelry is such a huge success. I need opinions from fellow Ravelers like you to back up this claim I am making.
These are the questions:
1) Why did you choose to join Ravelry?
2) How did you learn about Ravelry?
3) What does Ravelry give you that other sites don’t?
4) Absolutely anything else you’d like to share with me on this subject.
My quandary is this: I love the site and come here almost every week to look for knitting tips and ideas. (I haven’t joined yet, as I am too shy to talk of my own work…)
I want to understand why others do the same. Each person must have his or her own reason and I am very curious to understand this trend.
Once I write the piece, I intend to send it across to Bob the dog. Maybe, he will post it on the site to encourage newcomers or even use it for other promotion purposes.
Thank you in advance
Keep writing, keep sharing, keep creating
Warmest regards
Cynthia
My Email address is:
(deleted)*
(Poster IP address: deleted)*
*However, you can see both of these in the original comment if you wish to go back and check.**
**Wups, you can see the email, not the IP addy; I'm the only one who can see the last, but the email was left in the comment. Details, details... ;)
Aside from the odd grammar and writing error, which would be rather unfortunate in a college student hoping to get an article published...(Do colleges publish magazines???)...any Raveler will instantly spot the glaring error in the following, which I am not going to define. No sense giving hints on exactly how they've goofed to a suspect.:
"...I love the site and come here almost every week to look for knitting tips and ideas. (I haven’t joined yet, as I am too shy to talk of my own work…)"
Riiiiiiiiiight.
And the mention of sending it across to Bob the dog is hilarious. I also love the gushing flattery at the beginning. That always makes you feel embarrassingly good, before the Suspicious Bastard part of your brain kicks in and says, "Um, if you like my stuff so much, why is this the first time I've heard of it? Coincidentally when you have a bunch of questions? Oh, sure. This is in no way meant to appeal to my ego and make me eager to do what you're asking."
Balls.
The college student attitude is a leetle overdone, too.
This has been reported to Casey, and he's verified it isn't some Ravelry member going off the rails. (Well, you can tell that, if you do belong to Ravelry.) A discussion thread has been started about it, and people are sharing info on any developments, just in case. It's not really a phishing scam, because it's not asking for personal info. But something's fishy. Whether a rather tackily-handled attempt at market research (and I'm not about to answer anyone who lies to me in a survey; especially clumsily enough that I can spot it, forsooth); the beginning of some scam; or umpteen other possibilities - it stinks.
Cynthia, hon - whoever you may be - I sincerely doubt everything you've said in your comment. I did so even before finding the same thing had been sent to numerous others. There are a bunch of people suspicious of you. If you're a firm or another site doing a market survey or other research; or someone studying social sites; or anyone doing anything semi-legit--I'd suggest coming clean and apologizing, if you want any info.
If you're doing something else, ghu knows what - ixnay, the jig is up, the lid's blown, you've been made, flee, all is discovered! Buh-bye!
Oh, wait. ::holds up a hand:: One thing first, just take a sec...
Hey, ccr in MA - I haven't archived this sucker yet, but one program I've read about for doing it is ljArchive. It only works for LiveJournal blogs and ones running off similar (LJ clone) blogging software, though. I have no clue about such for Blogger, alas. I'd either check Blogger's help, or Google for any info. There must be some archive programs out there; I'd think Blogger's too popular not to have any programs to archive with.
If you move your blog elsewhere and switch to new blogging software, like WordPress or TypePad, lots of those say they'll import your old blog with no problems...but I'd still want to back up. There's always the really slow way; save every entry as a complete webpage, so you get pix and comments. Yah, glacial...but you'd have everything. Dunno about using that to restore an entire blog, but you should be able to get something back up, anyway.
Really, that's about all I know. I'm not an expert on this, a'tall. All I do is post on mine. I can't even modify a layout to change the looks of it, beyond the very basic options they make easy to do, like changing colors, adding a background image, header and so on. Anything else, I'm stuck. (And the LJ code manual is less than transparent for coding beginners. You can't even download it, last I looked. Like, what? You have to refer to every page online, or save them to your HD, so you can actually study with some chance of getting to understanding S2. Which pfui, I don't want to learn the coding that badly! Especially something that isn't going to help in, say, coding web pages in general. If I have to learn code from scratch, I'd go with HTML and so on, not piddle around with S2. Screw it. )
Sorry, not much help there. Good lucking finding something!
Ok; so back to this mysterious email-or-comment. I got it myself, as a comment back on my November 9th, 2008 entry. It sounds innocuous enough until you notice a few points:
Hey
(Anonymous)
1/19/09 01:47 pm (local)
First, let me say that I’m a huge fan of your posts. You’re on my List Of Ravelry Favorites, and I often share your stuff with my knitting friends.
I am writing everyone on my Favorites List with a couple of questions. If you can answer them for me, it would be a HUGE HUGE HUGE favor. Really HUGE.
Thing is, I am writing a piece on Ravelry for my college magazine. Topic is WHY Ravelry is such a huge success. I need opinions from fellow Ravelers like you to back up this claim I am making.
These are the questions:
1) Why did you choose to join Ravelry?
2) How did you learn about Ravelry?
3) What does Ravelry give you that other sites don’t?
4) Absolutely anything else you’d like to share with me on this subject.
My quandary is this: I love the site and come here almost every week to look for knitting tips and ideas. (I haven’t joined yet, as I am too shy to talk of my own work…)
I want to understand why others do the same. Each person must have his or her own reason and I am very curious to understand this trend.
Once I write the piece, I intend to send it across to Bob the dog. Maybe, he will post it on the site to encourage newcomers or even use it for other promotion purposes.
Thank you in advance
Keep writing, keep sharing, keep creating
Warmest regards
Cynthia
My Email address is:
(deleted)*
(Poster IP address: deleted)*
*However, you can see both of these in the original comment if you wish to go back and check.**
**Wups, you can see the email, not the IP addy; I'm the only one who can see the last, but the email was left in the comment. Details, details... ;)
Aside from the odd grammar and writing error, which would be rather unfortunate in a college student hoping to get an article published...(Do colleges publish magazines???)...any Raveler will instantly spot the glaring error in the following, which I am not going to define. No sense giving hints on exactly how they've goofed to a suspect.:
"...I love the site and come here almost every week to look for knitting tips and ideas. (I haven’t joined yet, as I am too shy to talk of my own work…)"
Riiiiiiiiiight.
And the mention of sending it across to Bob the dog is hilarious. I also love the gushing flattery at the beginning. That always makes you feel embarrassingly good, before the Suspicious Bastard part of your brain kicks in and says, "Um, if you like my stuff so much, why is this the first time I've heard of it? Coincidentally when you have a bunch of questions? Oh, sure. This is in no way meant to appeal to my ego and make me eager to do what you're asking."
Balls.
The college student attitude is a leetle overdone, too.
This has been reported to Casey, and he's verified it isn't some Ravelry member going off the rails. (Well, you can tell that, if you do belong to Ravelry.) A discussion thread has been started about it, and people are sharing info on any developments, just in case. It's not really a phishing scam, because it's not asking for personal info. But something's fishy. Whether a rather tackily-handled attempt at market research (and I'm not about to answer anyone who lies to me in a survey; especially clumsily enough that I can spot it, forsooth); the beginning of some scam; or umpteen other possibilities - it stinks.
Cynthia, hon - whoever you may be - I sincerely doubt everything you've said in your comment. I did so even before finding the same thing had been sent to numerous others. There are a bunch of people suspicious of you. If you're a firm or another site doing a market survey or other research; or someone studying social sites; or anyone doing anything semi-legit--I'd suggest coming clean and apologizing, if you want any info.
If you're doing something else, ghu knows what - ixnay, the jig is up, the lid's blown, you've been made, flee, all is discovered! Buh-bye!