Comments and CAPTCHA

We all love to receive comments, but unfortunately, spammers know that, and they often flood our blogs with spam that is thinly disguised as a comment, but is actually designed to advertise their websites. One way to avoid spam is by implementing word verification. A person who comments must solve a CAPTCHA before the comment will publish.

Most of us don't do that because it is a nuisance to our readers. In Blogger, the spam filters are very good at detecting spam comments, and Blogger puts these comments into the Spam folder before they ever reach your posts.

However, there has been a change at Blogger HQ. In order to thwart the spammers more severely, a new rule has been enforced. The new rule only impacts readers who wish to leave a comment anonymously. Here is what happens.

A person with a Google account who leaves a comment while logged on to that account will see this.

The reader enters a comment which is published with no further fuss.



If, on the other hand, the potential commenter chooses to comment anonymously:

that reader will then be presented with a CAPTCHA to solve.

But it doesn't happen every time. If you have a Google account and are logged on to that account, then choose to post an anonymous comment, you won't see the CAPTCHA. If you don't have a Google account, or have one but are not logged on to it, you will see the CAPTCHA.

Got it? The confusing part is that this happens regardless of whether or not the blog owner has word verification turned on. So if anyone tries to leave an anonymous comment on this blog and runs up against two illegible words, it isn't my doing. Blame Blogger and Google!

Read your blog backup

Because of the recent threat from Google to remove adult blogs that receive money from advertising adult site,  many of us who use Blogger  have been backing up our blogs in the event that we have to move our blogs elsewhere.

If you haven't done that yet, here's how.  Settings, Other, Export Blog then choose a place on your computer to save the file. This will create a backup file of your blog in .XML format, ready for importing into another Blogger blog, or into a blog on a different platform. Go on, do it right now. I'll wait...

Unfortunately, the backup is unreadable by humans; it is meant for machines only. Or is it?

If you have the browser called Opera installed on your computer, you can actually read your backup file and see your blog posts, pictures and comments, even if it has (shudder!) been deleted.

If you don't have Opera, go to http://www.opera.com/ and choose your operating system (Windows, Mac or Linux).

Click Download. Follow the instructions on your screen, and you're done! Open Opera by double-clicking on the icon on your desktop or by clicking on it in the Start menu.

Now go find the backup file that you created and saved on your computer. You remember where you saved your backup file, right? It looks like this: blog-01-01-2013.xml but the date would be different for you.

Right-click on the file and select "Open with..." Choose Opera, and voila! You will see the inner contents of your mysterious backup file. The template comes first, and all the details about it. Skip past that.

Then you will see comments that go with the post that you will see if you keep scrolling down. A little upside-down, but at least you will be able to read your precious blog.

Spank that Robot

From time to time we see various machines that are designed to spank humans. Now the tables are turned. Reuters News reports that a Japanese inventor has created a robot that responds to spanking.

Nobuhiro Takahashi called his creation "Shiri" which means "butt" in Japanese. Shiri responds with different emotions to different human touches.

The inventor hopes to use the prototype to develop responses that can be applied to other parts of a robot's body, in particular the face, to help with non-verbal communication. He decided to develop his technology with a bottom because its movements are large and make it easier to convey emotion.

"I wanted to try and use a butt to reflect emotions - fear, joy and relaxation," he explained.

To get a robot to show fear, Takahashi spanks it.

"Fear is a very human - very living - emotion, so it's expressed with force, with a spank." The robot bottom responds by quivering. A slow wobble is the sign for relaxation, while a gentle stroke causes clenches that signal pleasure.

See for yourself.  It's pretty amazing!

No one can see what you're reading

Or can they?

Joey wrote a hilariously funny account of the book being discussed at a family gathering. I have also heard the book being discussed in a most unlikely place. You'll see where when you read my comment on Joey's post.

By their cheeks you will know them

“Facial recognition technology is growing rapidly, both in the consumer world and among police, but privacy advocates are troubled by the potential for intrusion and misuse,” California Watch reports.

“… India’s government is working on an ambitious plan to biometrically identify each of its more than one billion people, and Mexico in 2010 signed a contract with Pennsylvania-based Unisys Corp. to build a large database of fingerprint, eye and faceprint information belonging to millions of people there. Officials in the United States already collect biometric data on international travellers wishing to enter the country. …

Researchers are also looking at the way we walk and even at human buttocks as possible unique identifiers for the future.”

There's an app for that

The Magic Butt is an interactive wallpaper for Android that lets you imagine you’re touching - and spanking - a lady’s bare bottom.

For Spanko Geeks

Add this code to any convenient bottom. It works with all popular browsers including Firefox, Internet Explorer, Flock, Chrome and Safari.

Get Back to Work!

It's back to work today, after a long weekend break. But it's not so bad. Working in technology does have its benefits!

Tips from the Techie

There are many great spanking blogs on the interwebs, but sometimes the good ones are overlooked for a very simple reason. The font used on blog is too small to read.

If you're like me and have trouble reading tiny text, here's a very simple solution that will work on most computers. If you have a mouse with a roller in the centre (between the two buttons that you click), hold down the CTRL key on your keyboard with one hand, and with the other, roll the roller. The text will get bigger or smaller depending on which way you roll.

Once you have adjusted the font size to your liking, your computer will remember the setting, so the next time you visit the blog, it will be readable and you won't have to resize the text again.

I hope this tip is helpful. It's saved my eyes numerous times!

And here's another quick tip. Have you ever wondered how to get to the home page of a blog when you happen to be on a page that's displaying only one post, but you want to read some more posts? Usually, you can click the heading at the top of the blog, and that will take you home. For example, on my blog, if you click on "Hermione's Heart" (in big letters at the very top) you will be taken to my home page.

Tomorrow we return to our usual subject of spanking.

Naughty Blogger

I realized that my blog had some technical difficulties when I tried to respond to comments on yesterday's post.

"Page Not Found" was the response I got from Blogger. Nobody could leave comments on any of my posts, including me. A quick search on Blogger Help told me that other folks are also having comment problems.

I solved my dilemma by changing the way comments are displayed, from a popup window to a full page. That cured the problem, and you may now feel free to leave comments if you are so inclined.

(For any of you who are also experiencing problems, the change I made was made by going to Dashboard, Settings, Comments tab, then choosing Full Page for Comments Form Placement.)

Welcome to My World

Dedicated to those who struggle with technology, and those who struggle to help them.

Enjoy!