From December 25th through December 29th I received 56 spam comments on this blog.  The great majority of these were for online casinos.

Wordpress has a feature that enables the blogger to moderate comments before they are posted, then once a commenter has been approved, any further comments will automatically be approved.  It’s a system that seems to work very well.  There is also an anti-spam plugin that I could use that would automatically handle most of the spam, but being such a small blog, I didn’t see the need and figured I would cross that bridge if I ever came to it.

So my question is, are there bloggers that actually do not moderate their comments, such that “comment spam” is really a worthwhile form of mass marketing?  A follow-up question is if anyone came across a comment that advertised a casino, would you click on the link?  That second question is as perplexing to me as its equivalent in the realm of email spam.  Why would anyone click on an unsolicited link in their email?  I don’t care if you do need a bigger penis, talk to a doctor not some anonymous spammer.

Merry Christmas and I wish everyone a blessed New Year.

Have you noticed this icon in the address bar of your web browser?

If you’re not using the Firefox browser, you may not be familiar with that icon.  But if you do, you’ve probably noticed it once or twice, perhaps with more frequency, and may be wondering what it means.

“RSS” stands for “Really Simple Syndication“, and basically refers to a live feed of article headlines which can be published by the owner of a particular website.  If you “subscribe” to a syndication, you will recieve a constantly updated list of headlines that are available on that website.

RSS is non-intrusive – you don’t see the list unless you want to, it doesn’t involve pop-ups or tickers or any such annoyances.  If you use Firefox, you simply save the syndication as a “Live Bookmark” that sits in your “Bookmarks” menu, and when you select the bookmark the menu  expands to show you individual bookmarks to each of the (usually 10) latest stories or articles on that website.

I provide an RSS feed on this blog of my latest entries.  If you have subscribed to my “feed” by clicking on the RSS icon and creating a “Live Bookmark”, you can see (usually within minutes) when I have posted a new entry just by checking your Bookmarks menu.

This is a great way to get news from websites you visit regularly.  Now you don’t actually have to go to the website to check the latest news, you can just see a list of headlines.  If something interests you, then you can click the headline to go read the article.

I have several feeds that I monitor regularly.  Maybe some of  you might be interested in these as well.  By visiting these websites and clicking on the RSS icon pictured above, you can save a live bookmark yourself.

I, Cringely – Inside insight from the tech industry – new article once every Friday.
John C. Dvorak – Often amusing, sometimes off-the-wall opinions from another IT industry expert.
I4U News – Tech Gadgets and stuff
Slashdot – Geek-related news stories
AnandTech – Hardware news and reviews
Tom’s Hardware – More hardware news and reviews

There are RSS feeds for ALL different topics and subject matter.  Pay attention next time you’re on your favorite websites, and look for that RSS icon.

Since I started keeping my own blog I have been doing a lot of blog reading as well.  One particular brand of blog has me mystified.

I’m sure you have all seen these blogs.  The aren’t exactly rare.  The author simply quotes the first sentence or two of an article and then links to the original article.  No commentary at all, just a link.  No explanation of why he linked there, just the link.  I can understand a one-off post like this occasionally, as if “I don’t have time to type anything right now, but I thought my readers might be interested so here’s a link.”  But most of the blogs I’ve encountered that incorporate this style of blogging are filled with only this type of post.

Are these things helpful?  Do people use them?  I get frustrated when I come across one.  I read a blog to find out the author’s perspective.  If I simply wanted to find an article, I would use Google.  I use Technorati to find “commentary” – hopefully good commentary that sparks conversation.