I think someone is going to come up with a scheme to bring blogs to email inboxes soon. It seems to be the next evolution in spamming to me. The content management side can’t be beat. But, it is still static. People have to come to you in order to be spammed. How disappointing. Of course they have come up with all sorts of sneaky ways to mislead people into coming for a look. But, once readers realize they’re being splogged they leave and don’t come back. So, emailing it to them is the next step. After all, how many times a day do most people check their email? More than a few for most.

You will get a bloated email full of spammy goodness but that won’t be a problem since mostly everyone has gone out for HTML email. Only a few have kept it to text only. (Mainly because I am still opposed to bloated HTML emails that make me sit and wait for them to spam me). I think some of the blogs coming to your email will have scripts to make them scroll once they are opened. That way they have more chance of snagging your attention before you delete them. Surely they can sell you on something before you hit delete.

I’m writing this cause I would love to see the spammers find some other tool and leave blogs alone. Email spam used to be the biggest problem (and maybe still is for some people) I find splogs to be the worst thing online. They steal content, pollute the blogosphere and they are leaking into what would otherwise be personal blogs worth reading. Get paid to post sites are popping up all over and they are getting clever about their scams too. One offers to pay $20 and up for you to review a commercial website in your blog. Very clever that one. But, do you see that money? Does it just roll right in? I doubt it. All it really does is lose your reader’s attention and bring your blog down to their level of splogginess. Think before you pollute.

PS- I think of any blog with more focus and space given to selling something than original written, drawn or otherwise creative content as spamming. If I didn’t come to your blog to be sold condoms, pills, software, etc then I don’t want to have them stuck in front of my face. If I want ads I can turn on the TV or pick up a magazine. Blogs need a shot of zine spirit when they really were free press and indie publishing. I resent a commercially focused blogger who tries to sneak and trick their way into the free spirited writing atmosphere which blogs used to be.

I’m going to buy a new computer. Ding dang the bells are going to shine…! Consider that musically inclined and it will make more (some) sense.

I just received part of my income tax return and I am going to spend it on a new PC. My current PC is an IBM NetVista, about fix (five or six, at this point it doesn’t matter it’s just OLD) years old. I have my beady little eye on the HP Pavilion I’ve been drooling over at a few computer shops. But, I am limited to spending about $700 including taxes and that’s Canadian bucks. I actually think I can do it. I’ve been looking at the flyers and there is hope.

But, it has been awhile since I’ve been computer shopping. I used to think the most essential thing was to get double whatever they offered in RAM. Now I think I also want to get the dual core processor puppy. It sounds good. Does anyone have advice?

I know I want to go with a PC, Macs are more expensive (must be that ad campaign costing them a bundle and I’m not helping them pay for their PC bashing). I would like to partition the hard drive and add Ubuntu as my main OS and yet keep Windows for other programs I have gotten used to having around. So whatever PC I buy will have to be adaptable to my mad science experiments. Also, a yearly reformatting of the hard drive, much like the geese flying south, it’s just something I have to do.

I joined MyBlogLog awhile ago. I’m feeling frustrated with it. Not because it’s hard to use but three things bother me in general use. One is the friend thing. Another is having to click so many times before I actually get outside of MyBlogLog and land on the site I actually wanted to see, a few clicks ago. The third is the level of splogs versus sites with content. But, that is all over the Internet it just bugs me more when I’m part of a community where I kind of expect to find real people, not advertising.

The thing about friends was what started me writing this blabber today. Everyone on that network seems to assume that any contact at all is worthy of instant friendship. That bugs me. I am choosy about who I bookmark and who I mark as a site I like. I don’t like feeling I have to add every blogger who clicks my blog. It is expected there. People post to your profile and say something nice and request to be made a friend. They don’t even know my name. In a few cases I noticed that they had not even bothered to actually go to my site. They didn’t care, they just wanted to pimp their splogs. It’s aggravating and that’s why I joined BlogCatalog and BlogWoods, cause I hoped they would be different.

The other annoying thing which is the same for all three of those sites is clickage. If you see someone has visited your blog and want to return the visit it takes a minimum of four clicks to actually get to their blog. It’s not that my finger is wearing out, just that I don’t see the need for it. I guess it gives extra hits to their Adsense meters. But, it just gives me that waiting for an elevator or a bus feeling, you know what I mean. It’s great to have the journey but some journeys just make you wish Scotty could beam you up already and get on with it.

Anyway, as a social thing I like these networks. However, MyBlogLog is too much of a splogfest. I’m more interested in BlogWoods and BlogCatalog now. Though they are clones at least Yahoo didn’t buy them so they have hope of not being clogged by junk, at least not right away. It all depends on the people who use it really. So, sploggers, stick with the Yahoo bunch and leave us the little networks to be social and friendly, in a real, sincere way, not because we feel we have to.

The newest addition to my Firefox web habit is Groowe, a toolbar which has replaced the Google toolbar for me. It has the two important features I need and a bit more.

The first thing I like about it is setting it to open a new window when I want to search Google for something. It really bugs me if I have to backtrack or remember to open a window first each time. I like to keep the site I was on. I want to look at all the links before I lose that window. Groowe, just as the Google toolbar before it, does that very well.

The second thing I like about Groowe is the reason I am no longer using the Google toolbar. Groowe works with my older operating system which runs my older computer. I know it’s illegal to run a PC which hasn’t been taken over by Windows XP at the very least but… some of us are just rebels at heart. We keep the old PC and it’s working friends until we can splurge on a new one. Even if it takes years. So, when Google’s toolbar outdated itself right out of my system I went looking for something else. I found it with Groowe. I also like Groowe cause it lets me add searches other than Google. It’s like seeing old friends I had forgotten about for awhile. I do remember looking at Altavista, Excite and Yahoo long before Google was a word.

Three issues for computer users are cleaning, using and dumping them when they die.

Cleaning your computer is more than just dusting it off, weeding out garbage files and backing up your data. It’s detangling all those wires, cables and plugs and getting rid of old discs too. Check an electronics store if you want to spend some money on a cable reel. Or, just pull your desk out from the wall an extra inch and organize them behind it. Bundle up long cords rather than leaving them hanging and crawling over the floor. If you have hardware like a printer, scanner or anything else bulky get a small, sturdy table to set it on nearby. Keep your desk top as clear as you can. That includes coffee cups, hairclips, vitamins, pens and all the other clutter that builds up quickly if you spend a lot of time sitting in front of that screen. Don’t forget to dust off the back of your tower too. If you have a lot of gunk in the air, like pet hair, consider cleaning inside the tower too.

For ergonomics, I always have my monitor raised higher than the desk surface. If the bottom of the screen is at my chin level I’m ok. Anything too high or low will make the back of my neck go numb and give me headaches. They say it’s good to sit with your feet raised but I haven’t done that. Sometimes my feet do get a bit swollen if I am putting in hours and not taking a long break between.

There are no really great recycling options when it’s time for your computer to die. Face it, few people are interested in a computer three or more years of age. Software stops working on them as new operating systems come out. Older computers can not function with the software coming out now. I know from personal experience trying to run a 5 year old PC running on Windows Me. You might try Linux. See how much that can add to your mileage but that brings up the problem of what to do with all your old software which can’t be adapted to run on a Linux OS.

Look online for some options about recycling your tech trash. Nothing will be totally great as you can’t compost plastic. But, there are some options, better than adding all that hardware to the landfills. Don’t burn your computer, please. It’s a bad idea.