Leefe rates the world... » Web sites

Pruning wiki users, is there an extension for that?

Leefe — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 11:52:25 +0000

If you manage any wiki you know that spamers love them. They just drop by, register a new users, and add some link spam.

Now, there is an extension for MediaWiki wikis to remove all the spam pages, Nuke. But what do you do about all the spam users? Is there an extension for bulk blocking users?

I would like one that does he following:

Lists all users
That aren’t blocked
With how many posts they have made
And a check box to add them to the bulk block list
Then select the duration, reason, and click bulk block

Once you have cleared out all the spam pages you need some way to mass block all the zero post users that will just post link spam again in the future.

I found the MediaWiki Extensions Matrix/user rights page, but there is nothing there that seems to fix my purpose.

Any suggestions on what extension to use?
Or will I just have to write it myself?

VodafoneAU – Don’t URL me, I’ll URL you (vfau.me/dcg4n)

Leefe — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 13:29:59 +0000

Received an SMS purportedly from Vodafone today.

Upcoming correction to data charges from 08.07.11 may affect your service. Please head to: http://vfau.me/dcg4n for more information

Following the link you end up at the page http://i.three.com.au/VFMarketing/2011Q2/DataUsageCommsGp1011 and a 404 error message.
So they are going to change the way they charge for data, but don’t really want to tell you what they are changing it to? And why do I get a Three URL?

Doing a whois of the vfau.me domain I see that it was registered to Vodafone Hutchison Australia Pty Limited in March 2011. So probably is legit.

I can see that this domain is running Yourls, the open source URL shortener. And, interetingly, looking at the admin URL I see that it is called Brody’s cuddly URL shortener.

So, who is the afore mentioned Brody? And, thought I think their bear is kinda cute, is this really what you might expect on a corporate site?

Can a VHA person please explain what this message is about, and fix your URLs.

Notes about this from other people:

What R U Up 2? (Geordie Guy, 2011.06.29)
Simply breathtaking new development (Vodafone forum)
Upcoming correction to charges from 08.07.11?? (Vodafone forum)
Data usage (The url it is probably meant to redirect to)
Changes to data charging (Discussion on Whirlpool about the change)
Vodafone Glitch Made BitTorrent, VoIP Data Free (Gizmodo, 2011.06.28)

100 contacts on LinkedIn, how 1337

Leefe — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 03:37:42 +0000

Got my 100th contact on LinkedIn. Oh, how 1337.
(For those not in the know, replace the numbers with letters and you get ‘Leet‘)

A bit of synchronicity?

LinkedIn’s April Fools day joke

Leefe — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 05:08:28 +0000

Logging into LinkedIn today I noticed an interesting selection of People you may know.

As these people will probably all disappear after today, I took screen captures for you to have a look at in the future. You can find the PDFs below.

(Yes, I wrote this in April, thought I should go through and post drafts worth posting before the end of the year.)

Albert Einstein | LinkedIn (100.39 kB)
Ernest Hemingway | LinkedIn (127.92 kB)
Groucho Marx | LinkedIn (99.09 kB)
J. R. R. Tolkien | LinkedIn (105.07 kB)
John Watson | LinkedIn (96.96 kB)
Robin Hood | LinkedIn (113.83 kB)
Sherlock Holmes | LinkedIn (111.57 kB)
the Hatter | LinkedIn (100.58 kB)
Werner Heisenberg | LinkedIn (112.68 kB)
Wizard of In | LinkedIn (95.05 kB)

Vodafone SIM only Caps advertising double data allowance

Leefe — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 02:46:10 +0000

I have been a Vodafone customer for a while. Most recently as pre-paid. When a friend game me their old iPhone I had the need to move to a plan with data allowance. And the Vodafone SIM only plans looked good for someone not needing a phone.

That was until I received my first bill with charges 3 times what I though my monthly cost would be.

One third for the month just been. One third for a month in advance (and I though this was post-paid). The last third though is what I have the big gripe about.

I found that my data allowance was half the data allowance advertised on their site!!!! And that I was being charged for excess data that I believed was included.

With a bit of research I found that all the SIM Only Caps are advertised at double the data allowance mentioned on the plan details pages. (Which are hard to find as the ‘Help’ section of their site needs work.)

Below if a table of my finding, with links to the pages the data comes from:

Stated on advertisement page					Stated on plan details page
Type	Cost per Month	Value included	Data	VF to VF/3	Data
SIM Only Cap	$20	$150	100MB	$200	50MB
SIM Only Cap	$35	$350	500MB	Unlimited	250MB or Blackberry 500MB
SIM Only Cap	$55	$550	1GB	Unlimited	500MB or Blackberry 1GB
VF Cap 12 Month	$29	$180	200MB	Unlimited	50MB
VF Cap 24 Month	$29	$180	200MB	Unlimited	50MB

As you can see, the 3 SIM Only Cap plans only give users half the advertised data allowance. And the 2 Vodafone Cap $29 plans give the user one quarter the advertised data allowance.

So, is this a problem with the advertising department? Or the people setting up the details pages?

I hope it is the latter. I do want the data allowance I was sold.

Vodafone Billing options don’t give you enough digits

Leefe — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 12:25:24 +0000

This is more a complaint about bad web design than Vodafone itself.

I was looking in the MyVodafone site. Needed to check billing info. And noticed this silly error on the Billing options page.

As you can see from the screenshot, the Notify me when bill is ready option is pre-filled with 614. But if you fill out the text box with number, the last digit will not fit.

The problem is that the text box is set to only allow 10 characters/digits. The html says maxlength=”10″.

This would be alright if you entered you number as ’04′. But putting ’614′ add an extra digit. So a 11 digit number does not fit in a 10 digit space.

The person(s) responsible for designing the Vodafone site should really have thought of this.

Vodafone Data Addon 500MB $9.95, 1GB $9.95

Leefe — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 23:45:56 +0000

Looking at the Vodafone site I noticed that there are some strange combination of pricing.

Take for example the Plan Add Ons page.

Here you can see that, when you get to the 12 month contract data addon sets, you can pay $9.95 for 500MB per month. Or the same $9.95 for 1GB per month.
(Click the Terms & Conditions link under one of the data add ons.)

Rent this studio, comes with man peeing

Leefe — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 10:00:43 +0000

When taking photos to advertise your rental property, remember to think about what the other people in the shot are doing (or look like they are doing). It is good to know that all facilities work, but we don’t need a demonstration.

ie Don’t put a photo of someone going to the toilet in Domain.com.au

Apartment, 1 bathroom, no bedroom

Leefe — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 02:54:48 +0000

Perusing Domain.com.au I noticed the perfect apartment for someone that doesn’t spend much time at home. Who just drops in occasionally to freshen up. Then off again.

1 bathroom and no bedroom. And close to public transport on Marrickville Road. Perfect for a person always on the go.

(Of course, the agent my have put a 1 in the wrong box. It is still a funny listing.

And Delicious.com went berserk…

Leefe — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 11:59:52 +0000

So you try for some self promotions. Set your blog to automatically post to Delicious and twitter. And since you submit links to Delicious you want them posted daily to your blog.

And them Delicious goes berserk.

Deciding to post every hour, or more often, the links for the last day. Feeding itself to a greater frenzy. With links to all its posts.

Worse than the runaway Delicious. Now more like a runaway freight train.

So I had to pull the plug. No more delicious link posts. At least not for the moment. Maybe again in the future when I have time to keep an eye on it.

I apologise to all the people reading my blog, twitter or facebook for all the extra spam.