Feeling a little overwhelmed
Thu 13 Apr 2006, 9:02 am
[Warning: whining and complaining ahead. -SL]
I’m feeling a little overwhelmed by:
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Comment spam. Like Walt Crawford, I’m getting hammered with stupid comment spam. It isn’t the amount as much as it is the seemingly innocuous nature of the spam is making it past my filter. I want to make it so that if you have commented here before, your comments are published right away, but if you haven’t, they get moderated. It looks like I can’t do that without enabling icky TypeKey, which I won’t do. But I have tweaked the SpamLookup settings to try to put into effect a “guilty until proven innocent” setup where all spam is presumed junk unless it gets credit for email and URLs matching previously-published comments. Let’s hope that does it.
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HigherEd BlogCon. I should have known that putting together a few two- to five-minute screencasts with audio would be a lot harder than it seemed. My problems are compounded by the fact that I use a PowerBook, and there doesn’t seem to be an acceptable screencasting program for Macintosh. So I’m doing the video in Camtasia on random PCs around work, and recording the audio in Audacity on the Mac. Tune in last week of April to see if it is a total train wreck. After HEBC, I have two reviews that I have signed on to do, then no more extra-work commitments for me for a while.
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The sniffles (and worse). I can’t remember the last week when one of my children wasn’t sick with something, necessitating my wife and I to miss some work to take care of them. And now the allergy season is coming on strong.
Sigh. When I started this blog, I told myself I wouldn’t do “sorry I haven’t been posting much lately” posts. But that’s what’s going on with me. See you in a week or two.
- License:
- File under: Navel gazing
- Comments? 11
Sorry to hear all this. My spam story seems to have a happy ending, at least for now: Taking the excellent advice from a trio of readers and installing Spam Karma 2 seems to be doing the job, even at default settings. That won’t help you, though: It’s a WordPress plugin.
(It’s fascinating to read Spam Karma 2′s comments on the “questionable” cases, e.g. the “Flash Gordon was here!” note when a comment’s submitted too rapidly for it to have been legitimately entered.)
Comment by walt — April 13, 2006 @ 9:58 am
Walt, the fact that SpamLookup pulled the velvet rope aside for your comment is a good sign. Let’s see if it bounces the bad guys now.
Comment by Steve Lawson — April 13, 2006 @ 10:47 am
Okay, I just had to see if I was cool enough to get past the velvet rope, too, or if I’m going to be consigned to hanging out outside the club being glared at by the bouncers. . . .
In all seriousness, though, I’m surprised you haven’t felt overwhelmed before this–I think somebody wrote something about life trumping blogging once upon a time.
Comment by Laura — April 13, 2006 @ 12:38 pm
Of course you are cool enough, Laura! As a frequent See Also poster, you have a +3 Sword of Commenting to get past the Spam Dragon. (Actually, if that makes any sense to you, you are just a big a geek as I am).
And I suppose I have felt overwhelmed before, I just haven’t felt moved to comment on it before.
Comment by Steve Lawson — April 13, 2006 @ 1:38 pm
Several weeks ago, I spent an entire day highly stressed and short of breath… and realized that was the day I had to say “no” and mean it. I keep repeating it. No, I can’t do X. No, I’m sorry, I’m not attending Y. No, I’d like to, but Z is out of the question. I just did that again today. Yes, I would like to see ABC on the MNO committee happen, and I know if I do it that it will happen faster and the way I like it… but I need to let that go.
Good luck–I know once you’ve committed you’re the sort that follows through. You’ll weather this storm. But remember the magic “no-word.” Remember also that those seemingly small tasks loom very large once the deadline actually hits!
Comment by K.G. Schneider — April 13, 2006 @ 7:00 pm
Hmm… one of Hokusai’s famous views of Fuji? ^_^
Comment by Carlos Ovalle — April 13, 2006 @ 8:55 pm
Well, the good news is that my old UT Austin schoolmate, Carlos, has shown up. The bad news is that his comment *should* have been blocked, since this is is first time here, I believe. Hi Carlos! Welcome! And yes, I should have titled that image. It is Hokusai’s “In the Hollow of a Wave off the Coast at Kanagawa,” and is indeed one of his views of Mount Fuji.
There is also this version from the design team Kozyndan. Perhaps I wouldn’t feel as overwhelmed if I was swimming in bunnies:
http://www.kozyndan.com/new_portfolio/GR28left0.html
Karen, thanks for the kind words and good advice.
Comment by Steve Lawson — April 13, 2006 @ 9:54 pm
Thanks! I found a link to your blog through your comments elsewhere and then I started seeing you referenced all over the place. Glad to see you’re doing well. ^_^ I am back at the ol’ alma mater working full time.
My wife is a big fan of Ukiyo-e in general, as well as Hokusai, so I recognized that particular image.
Comment by Carlos Ovalle — April 14, 2006 @ 5:45 am
P.s. This isn’t whining and complaining; it’s a valuable reminder to all of us. I know your presentation will go great. Welcome to Justsaynoistan. ;-)
Comment by K.G. Schneider — April 14, 2006 @ 9:26 am
I am clearly not as big a geek as you, as I am afraid the +3 Sword business makes no sense to me whatsoever–but then a few of us need to stay on the not-total-geek side of things so as to be able to communicate with the non-techie natives.
The bunnies are quite impressive, although I’m not sure I’d want to be washed in them, either.
Comment by Laura — April 14, 2006 @ 1:57 pm
Laura (and others who may be answering “¿quien es mas geeky?” questions at the reference desk), here is a handy chart to find where people rank in the geek hierarchy:
http://www.brunching.com/images/geekchartbig.gif
It mostly concentrates on science fiction/fantasy fandom, so maybe we need to create a new geek chart for librarians.
Comment by Steve Lawson — April 14, 2006 @ 2:05 pm