Always Different, Rarely Better

I'm Tired of Website Changes for Change Sake

Am I the only person who only goes to a website once a year (or so) and hate to find everything different? It makes it difficult and some times impossible to find what you need to do. Why are website designers always changing websites? I never feel like it makes anything better, just slower and easier for ads.

Could it be that this is the way the justify their existence, and paychecks, for the companies that always need a newer website? Or is it the fault of the company? They don't think they had such a good quarter last go and so of course, a newer image -- or at least website -- will fix everything.

When at all possible, I use this as a good excuse to stop using that website all together. For example, Multnomah County Libraries updated their website with loads of fanfare promising that it was going to better for everyone.

But here is the basic fact, after the new website was unleashed on the public it had tons of problems, programming was not even finished yet, so then they told us to wait -- it would get better -- eventually.

But after months and months, my queries only seemed to get slower and slower. When I finally was able to search for and place holds on three items on the Washington County Cooperative Library Services system in the time it took to just get my hits on Multnomah County's site, I said, "I'm done." I haven't been back since. I tried to tell them what was going on, but all they cared about was the little pictures and the ability for people to "rate" items. Oh boy! Such pretty little pictures, but it takes hours to place a hold! What a deal!

Seems there are some benefits to living in Washington County. I made sure and emailed my experiences to the webmaster out here and VIOLA! when they updated their system, we didn't lose our functionality just to make things prettier. I don't mean to take credit for that since the webmaster emailed back something which might possibly imply something like he agreed with me -- though I'm sure he really couldn't make any such statement officially or in any way that would be felt unprofessional.

No. We live in a decrepit age where change for change sake alone rules the day. Just wait, people will vote for one of the two Democrats left for just this reason...

Spammers New Attack

Well, it seems that spammers neither die nor go away. No, instead they find new ways to target people.

I'm very leary of all unsolicited email these days. Take the following:

Good day,

My name is Edward Johnson and I am looking to buy links from good websites as yours (xjs.com). I will be glad if I can have a text link or a text box 120x60 or 125x125 on your site. Please advise what what will be the price for each of these ads, if it is placed:

1. On your homepage only
2. On all site pages

I will be very thankful to you if you take into consideration my requrest.

Kind Regards

Edward Johnson

Hmm. I actually have a relative named "Edward Johnson" but he'd never send this email to me. Additionally, the from field of the email says "Stacia Hatfield [ahmed_hassan202000@yahoo.it]". Wow! That's three names and two different genders, and one might think multiple nationalities though it's hard to tell for certain.

But I remember I used to get a lot of email from a "Stacy Hatfield" back in the old days before I got cagier with my email address. What do you want to bet these are one and the same since no other spammer would use such an easy flag.

The other approach is to say that they want to buy my domain name. I'm sorry, but I know that at least half of these "offers" and "enquiries" are just trying to confirm an email address for spammers. The message is simply to vague to be treated as credible, but alas, I don't have any saved. I wonder why?

But this one is more troubling:

Hello,

I recently found your website: http://www.xjs.com/xianjiro/blog/xjvrl.html online for other good blogs. I run my own blog Bayareakicks.com, and I am trying to link to other blogs I think my visitors might like to visit once they are done on my site.

Since my website is visited by 1,000's of blog readers daily, I am positive many of my visitors would be interested in visiting your web blog once they leave mine. I figured you wouldn't mind if I link to your site since we are not competitors, and both have similar internet viewers on our sites. Please let me know if this is OK with you? Do you think you can link back to my website Bayareakicks.com? Thanks.

Murris

Hmmm. He's actually included the real link to the page where I used to write about movies and books, but let's see, my last entry was April 9, 2006 and it was titled "Am I Still Interested?" Gee, given the dates, one might think the answer was "NO!"

I just bet this one is really spam as well. He uses the same email address that spammers get off the domain name whois query. But this one is much slier and works on everyone's desire for an easy link. It uses flattery well and then just waits for me to confirm the email address or better yet, reply from another, real email account.

Nope, it looks like it's time to change that nasty spam-bait email address I have to provide the domain name host. What a pain! But at least this way it takes a lot longer for the spammers to find the email address and now that I know one is spreading through their nasty databases, it's time for a change.

Webcam Directory Updated

Oregon WebCams Updated

I've had a webcam page on my website for some time, but like many things, I've just never seemed to get around to updating it until yesterday. What moved me into action?

I got an email from "Bill" that didn't say "thanks for trying, but many of the links have changed or died" or even "thanks anyway" but instead whined something like "none of your webcams work." Hmmm. Does "Bill" really think that I run the hundreds of webcams in this state? Or was he just whining that I hadn't updated the link he cared about.

Clearly, this is type of statement that passes for communication in our culture these days. Rather than stating what the problem really is -- none of your cams feature some cute, hot, young thing getting nasty so I can watch for free -- you get something like "your cams suck."

Oh well. At least broken links have been updated or deleted. I've left a couple entries without links hoping maybe someone will get me a new link they might know of that I haven't found (Medford and Sprague River). I'd also like to include more cams from Eastern and Southern Oregon.

Visit Oregon WebCams now.