Ever since I learned blogging and the beauty that goes with it, and lots of learning and modifying around, I learned also that there are parties happy to take advantage of and/or abuse your blog! This can be found in many forms such as copying your content to advertising in your post with good google page rank or better link juice. I wanted commenting easy for my readers, and to do that, I put the comment to be too easy... but leaving easy commenting also attracts a lot of unwanted comments and spammy comments. I actually disabled moderation and removed the "word verification" test for comments but it was a test and the result's not so good.

Below is the video of Monty Python defining Spam... whether you like it or not, spam's there!

What I did to prevent unwanted commenters or spammy comments
is lock the possibility of having "anonymous" or even "name + url"
commenters. I know this limits the volume of commenters but it's also a
good measure and I may now auto publish the comments without
a need of moderation and word verification. 

What's spamming anyway? According to wikipedia, spam says below:

There are several popular false etymologies of the word "spam". One, promulgated by early spammers Laurence Canter and Martha Siegel, is that "spamming" is what happens when one dumps a can of Spam luncheon meat into a fan blade. Some others are the backronym stupid pointless annoying messages." There was also an effort to differentiate between types of spam. That which was sent indiscriminately to any e-mail address was true spam while that which was targeted to more likely prospects.

Spam is the use of electronic messaging systems (including most broadcast media, digital delivery systems) to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately. While the most widely recognized form of spam is e-mail spam, the term is applied to similar abuses in other media: instant messaging spam, Usenet newsgroup spam, Web search engine spam, spam in blogs, wiki spam, online classified ads spam, mobile phone messaging spam, Internet forum spam, junk fax transmissions, social networking spam, television advertising and file sharing network spam.

Lucky that blogger.com has the "detect spam" service but honestly, it does not detect EVERYTHING.

Spamming remains economically viable because advertisers have no operating costs beyond the management of their mailing lists, and it is difficult to hold senders accountable for their mass mailings. Because the barrier to entry is so low, spammers are numerous, and the volume of unsolicited mail has become very high. In the year 2011, the estimated figure for spam messages is around seven trillion. The costs, such as lost productivity and fraud, are borne by the public and by Internet service providers, which have been forced to add extra capacity to cope with the deluge. Spamming has been the subject of legislation in many jurisdictions.

Amy Winehouse is dead. That is the hot headlines all over the Internet and even in TV reports. How news travels, it's really fast. Amy Winehouse is too young! She's just a year older than me, and yet, may her soul rest inpeace. Reading from CNN, "Singer Amy Winehouse was found dead at her apartment in London Saturday, the UK Press Association reported. She was 27."

Amy had severe problem with drugs as cited in most articles about her. "Winehouse's battles with substance abuse were the subject of much media attention. In various interviews, she admitted to having problems with self-harm, depression and eating disorders. In 2005, she went through a period of drinking, heavy drug use, violent mood swings and weight loss. People who saw her during the end of that year and early 2006 reported a rebound that coincided with the writing of Back to Black. Her family believes that the mid-2006 death of her grandmother, who was a stabilising influence, set her off into addiction. In August 2007, Winehouse cancelled a number of shows in the UK and Europe, citing exhaustion and ill health.".. That's according to wikipedia.

Yes, technology at its best! I just read an inspiring story of how Internet helped those victims in Mumbai deadly blasts. Some people can be admired by/with their courage and ingenuity, just like Mr. Nitin Sagar of New Delhi. He's NOT even physically in Mumbai. What Mr. Nitin Sagar did was to use Twitter in asking for voluntary help for those poor victims of the blasts, whether direct victims or those indirect victims who thought their loved ones and families and friends might have been victims. He used Twitter and of course, it became viral and his Google docs spreadsheet for those who volunteered for help, and this reached hundreds after around 30 minutes! Can you imagine? Internet, with the help of Twitter, Google and Mr. Nitin Sagar himself, helped in finding individuals who vluntarily "donate blood, provide shelter, help transport people or help in any way they could" according to CNN.

An image from theInternet on Mumbai Explosion

This is only a single story... and for sure, there are thousands more...and the power is within our reach this time, it just needs kindling a little bit from our side...our initiative and the urge.

An article in Forbes indicated Mr. Sagar as an "accidental hero" but who cares? He did hispart in helping.

Mr. Nitin Sagar???

Interested for the entire story? Visit CNN's article on this.

Google's way to challenge and to offer a social media to its users is in. I was late to include myself in trying in but it's okay, I tried to be at least in the waiting list. The name Google+ is quite strange as it is not actually Google Plus or GooglePlus but just Google+ with that "plus-sign". Is Facebook in danger? What do you think? The services Facebook and Google are actually not totally packaged the same so I think it would depend on the user to decide. I am also a facebook user but it would depend which is better the moment I start using Google+ if ever it will be released publicly. They did this same thing when they started gmail, a smaller circle and now look at gmail or now, googlemail! But also, not all Google's new products and services are successful solet's wait and see! How about you, will you be interested in joining Google+ once out???.

Go to "http://.draft.blogger.com" or "draft.blogger.com" alone to access the favicon upload button such as what you see in the image below. There are other ways but blogger offers the easiest ways of them all once they provide the service. I have my favicon already but would like to update it as quicker and as easier as possible and would like to share the experience with you. Easy adding of .icon file is available directly through blogger in draft upload now! No need to go to the html codes to do it! Finally it's here!

Would you like to have your personal logo be in the url of your blog? I was really taken aback when I discovered that creating a favicon via blogger is now as easy as uploading an image and saving it!. Make sure your favicon is not bigger than 10 kilobytes though. And I tried editing my own favicon but it's not working! Did yours work? I tried all relevant file extension such as .ico (dot ico), .jpeg (dot jpeg) and .png (dot png) but not functioning at they should be! How did you make yours? I will repost once I discover. -> Yes I did! The tips and procedures are below:

I successfuly did it and following are the procedures and the results:
1. Go to "www.draft.blogger.com"
2. Generate the favicon for the image you like at any favicon generating site or do it alone. I did mine at http://www.iconj.com
3. Download and/or rename you favicon file
4. Upload it to blogger through the favicon button upload
5. Once successfully uploaded, the blogger favicon (the orange B) should be replaced by your own and new favicon;
6. According to Ratty in the comment below, it takes a day or two so have patience and wait for your favicon to be updated (yes, my existing favicon did not change right away, but it's okay, it's already a customized one so i don't bother, i just wait and see once updated....patience is a virtue!)
7. ENjoy your customized/personalized favicon!

1. Configuration of the favicon: no errors should be there and the favicon image should be updated (see the change fromorange B to black W?).. My apologies since my lappy is Italian.... 

2. It should have the replaced favicon image everytime you go to your dashboard for that blog... no more orange B's!