February 26, 2004

Credit Card Statements and Evil Links

Happy Friday everybody,

After my last entry, several readers from the UK pointed out that in their country, the punctuation mark known in the U.S. as a “period” is called a “full stop”. That strikes me as funny, don’t know why. It makes me think of coming to the end of a Disney World ride, and the announcer’s voice – “please keep your arms and legs inside the ride vehicle until it comes to a full stop”. Except I think they say, “comes to a complete stop” – probably so as not to confuse visitors from the United Kingdom, who might be looking for punctuation at the end of the ride.

I’m surprised I didn’t know that one – I spent several months back in the early days of OD doing a contract programming job for a UK Internet startup to make ends meet (back in the days when there was time for anything other than OD). I worked with several British and Welsh programmers every day, to the point that I was saying “crisps” when I meant “chips”, and saying “chips” when I meant “fries”. To this day, I often type “favourite” when I mean “favorite” – and I sometimes leave it that way because I like how it looks.

The startup was a classic Internet-company-goes-bang story, with cellphone- and laptop-jockeying executives flying all over the globe, staying in first class hotels, and building facilities for a company that hadn’t earned a dollar (or a pound) – a burn rate so stratospheric it could make your ears bleed. In the end, they left a slag heap of laid-off employees, unpaid bills, repossessed equipment, and contractors who never got paid.

Long story for another time – it would make a good book if I ever had time to write it.

I hope you’re all enjoying the end of your week.

I’ve had a couple of OD Plus members write to me with a concern. Having recently renewed their subscriptions with the new credit card payment screen, they were unhappy when they received their credit card statements and the business the payment was made to was listed as “www.opendiary.com”.

This is something that hadn’t occurred to me, but I can certainly understand their concern. Many of our members don’t want other people in their households to find out about Open Diary, for the sake of their own privacy. To the members who wrote, I apologize if our indiscretion on their card statement caused any problem in their households. The last thing I want is for OD to introduce any additional trouble into anybody’s life.

In any case, I’ve put through the paperwork with our credit card company to have the name that appears on customers’ statements changed. This is more complicated than it sounds, with a lot of faxing of legal papers, talking to their Risk Analysis people, and various other exercises to prove that we are who we say we are, and that we’re not trying to siphon a bunch of fraudulent credit card transactions off into the ether. So they tell me it should be accomplished in 3-5 business days (it seems that there are only three timeframes in life anymore – overnight, 3-5 business days, or 7-10 business days. What happened to six business days? Or two?).

So, after sometime next week, credit card statements will say nothing about Open Diary or http://www.opendiary.com – they will only show our business name, the same one that is used for PayPal and mail transactions. This name offers no clues about what sort of business this is, or what site it might be affiliated with.

Again, I apologize if anybody’s diary cover was blown by this.

As a small side note, I’ve heard from several diarists who have found mysterious links appearing in the text of their entries, where they had not placed them. For instance, a sentence a diarist wrote about cookies might inexplicably contain a link that would take the reader to http://www.macaroons.com when it was clicked – a site that the author had never heard of. I’ve received several enraged messages from people who are convinced that OD is embedding these links in their diaries, as part of an evil money-making ploy.

Let me assure you, I have nothing to do with these links – they are being placed there by your own web browser. This is a technology that Microsoft (watch me pass the buck) had originally included in the first releases of Internet Explorer 6. Last I had heard about it, the public outcry against this form of advertising was so great that they removed it from subsequent releases. Either there are some people still using those earlier releases of IE, or this technology has reappeared in some other insidious way. Sorry I don’t know more about it, but I do know that it’s not my fault (feels good to say that once in awhile).

Addendum: Once again, our diarists come through and tell me something I didn’t know. There is spyware that does this evil underlinking trick in your browser. If you don’t know what spyware is, go to Google and check it out – it is almost guaranteed that if you browse the web, you have some spyware on your computer. I use AdAware on our computers to scan for and remove spyware – you can find it for free to download from several sites on the web.

Addendum addendum: Many members have written to say that the best anti-spyware defense is to run both AdAware and a program called SpyBot (also free). Apparently they complement each other in what they catch. I haven’t tried SpyBot personally, but I think I will.

The DiaryMaster

there is actually spyware that does it too. if people see that they need to run adaware which they can get free online to find the spyware and get rid of it.

oh..and spending time online with UK diarists i have started to say prig a lot.

Just a comment that for the first time, I am getting annoying pop ups (ok, just one big one) when I try to sign on to the site (I am a paying member) I didn’t mind the header ads when I signed on, but really feel the pop ups should only hit non paying members. Also wanted to say I have been here a long time and really like the site. Thanks Designer

I’ve spent a lot of time in the UK as well – and still do the chips/crisps thing to this day 🙂 However, I am Canadian, and so I always put a ‘u’ in words like favourite, colour, etc!

I am sad to see Gattaca leave us, even for a while. Diarist Brian (Hicks) harrasses and persecutes him endlessly, and while it’s up to G-man to ignore bad behavior, after several years it becomes wearing. He is a good man, and does not deserve Hicks’s relentless cruelty. Hicks has been a blight to this site for years. If only he could be removed from here for good. “Good” is the right word here.

Just a useful tip. Not only should you use Adaware but also try Spybot. Trust me. That program catches a heck of a lot more than Adaware does. Plus, you can set it to scan deep into the drives. Just fyi!

Oh no!!! I just renewed a few days ago(Feb.24, I think). If my statement comes with http://www.opendiary.com, my goose is cooked. My husband thinks the internet is evil and he will freak out if he finds out that I have a diary here. I am going to worry myself sick until I get my bill. I should have sent a money order like I have always done. 🙁

adaware and spybot search and destroy, each used in conjunction with the other, are fantastic. both can be downloaded – you already know about the adaware one, and spybot from http://www.spybot.com. it has a redirect link that will take you to the free download page.

hahahaha brilliant. it’s great to know that od isn’t completely americanised…. americanized…… hahaha. rock on…

My fiancee still loves being able to pay for mine. Our bank card just got turned into a dual bank card/mastercard and it was the first time we were able to use it. It seemed so much easier for us AND you. Isnt adaware great? We’ve used it for several years on all the computers we own and it has been a life saver at times. Well a frustration saver at least!

and BTW, I like your “Boxes”. I think it gives the people who come here a chance to have a little insight into you and what you think about from time to time. You always put the most interesting tidbits in them. I didn’t know that about the period either. Like you, I sometimes forget to write the english versions of words. When you make friends with those around the world you tend to pick up bits

Damn! I wish I had seen this entry before I renewed my subscription yesterday. Thank you for changing the name for us… I just wish my timing was better.

Mine used to do that–it came with Windows XP. I was able to disable it, but I can’t remember how I did it now. I was confused at first, too!

P.S. Punctuation errors drive me nuts, and it seems that nobody nowadays knows that periods and commas go inside the quotation marks. Drives me crazy when I see it. Unless someone has changed the rules on me again.

ok i’m loving the sidebars now. :o)

Lol yeah, here, ‘period’ is used either to mean ‘of time’, or the unpleasantness that turns us members of the fairer sex into raging hormone monster machines once a month. Or whenever we feel we need an excuse to be mean. So yeah, I always giggle when I see ‘period’ mentioned by American people because I automatically think red and gooey. Sorry, too much information. Great site, btw. Thanks.

The rides at Diseny World say… “Please keep your arms and legs inside the vehicles until we come to a full stop.” There are a few now that say “complete stop”. Being a pass holder, you tend to know those things… 🙂

Every time I open the OD front page only the top half loads…the Logo and the menu loads thats all. I then have to go to another page (most recent entries) to log in. Even when I am logged in the front page still wont load.

i give a thumbs up for spybot.. i’m actually running it right now!

How would one suggest a circle theme> I would like to start a circle for “Cool Links” There are a lot of groovy sites out there, dood.

It is nice to actually see personal stuff in your diary as of lately! =D

I didn’t want to bother you with this one. but I was looking for a page somewhere the shows the benifets of having a paid Open Diary or a Free one, I was sure there was a link somewhere ont he main page, but my blind eyes can’t find it. So help?

it looks like u got addendum happy today. HAPPY FRIDAY TO U TOO MR DM!! have a great weekend. isabel

Had a feeling you might drop by my diary and read the entry regarding my lack of communication from the support staff. Sorry if I ripped into it a little too hard, I was just severely piqued when I sat down to my diary to access it and I couldn’t. At any rate, the old diary name is “firebabe” and I THINK I changed the password to “peanuts” or “pickles” or something like that. (cont)

(cont.) however I might have also changed it to “Station105” which I’ve used before. To be perfectly honest, I simply can’t remember it very clearly as I was in a hurry when I changed it. Ideally what I’d like to do is retrieve my “firebabe” diary and transfer the payment for the “Firebabe II” diary to it…so as to keep continuity. Whatever you can do, I’d appreciate it.

i’m having trouble with getting paragraph breaks into my diary. i used to be able to hit ‘enter’ and it would show up in the finished entry as a paragraph break. that doesn’t seem to work anymore. i’ve started manually inserting the html paragraph tab. it works, but it’s kloogy as all heck. any help? thanks hothunk

period is menstuation..full stop.. thats wat we say in australia.. “fries” huh? u mean chips? americans confuzzleness me!

Thanks for the info about Spyware- it never ceases to amaze me the lengths that people will go to in order to use MY resources to advertise THEIR product(s). Along those lines, spam faxes are another serious irritant of mine. But I digress. I wanted to tell you again… I love your sidebar comments. Keep ’em comin’.

spybot is a touch more for advanced users and you can do damage to your computer if you don’t know what you’re doing with it, so you might want to warn them of that. As well ad-ware is based off the spybot engine and if you have both installed at the same time spybot will prompt you asking you to remove adware.

I was having all kinds of trouble with spyware being downloaded onto my computer every time I logged onto OD. It was driving me crazy. I would have to use spybot and adaware to get rid of it. Someone I know suggested that I download a different web browser, which I did, and ta da! No more spyware, no more pop ups. It is wonderful. I tell everyone I know to download mozilla firefox. The only

problem is that I am back to html on here. But that is a small price to pay.

I got the MS Blaster worm from using Spybot, just to warn ya.

I liked your story of living in the UK. Im from the uk and cant get used to the americans calling trousers pants. Pants in the uk are knickers!! Thers so many little odd words that can mean comething completley different its quirky, but hey i like it.

I had the same problem a few weeks ago, but I never dl anything so I dont know where it came from, but I got AdAware and it was gone instantly. Thanks for the info about spybot, though, I dl’d it today. And, Keep up the good work, OD makes it easier to get through life when you can vent to a random audience!

Problem: Whenever I go to edit an entry after I’ve saved it, I get this pop-up message: “Internet Explorer cannot open the sitehttp://www.opendiary.com/[whatever the site name is to edit an entry] Operation aborted” And then it freezes up my computer and I have to restart. Is this something to with the browser, my computer, or the site? It only happens on this site. Help me! Thanks,

I’m thinking about updating my diary, but I have a couple of questions first. The first one is about the Diary Search Option. Can I just type in a word and find any entry by any diarist who used that word, or is it only for specific use on one diary at a time? Second, if I decide not to renew my subscription will my diary be deleted or will it just go back to normal? Thanks for your time.

so my friends don’t really check this out, because they’re like “what’s the point?” but because i am a good little OD journaler, i pretty much always check for an update because you never know what we will find. thanks for putting together such an awesome sight, and you rock my socks! I hope you’re earning a living off of this!

RYN: Sorry but my e-mail is not showing any messages from you or OD. Did you send it to firebabe@carolina.rr.com? That’s the only available e-mail address I currently have. *snort* Don’t you just love how technology has made everything so much easier? 😛

uhhh….There is something wrong with my diary…. I’m logged in under _cherry_ (my layouts diary) my regular diary is _cherry_kisses_ For some reason every time I log in under _cherry_ It shows up as my _cherry_kisses_ diary…. and registers that there isn’t a diary titled _cherry_ please help me! I need my diary back to normal!! ::Cherry::

I run both spywares and they are good and so it the google tool bar. But that blocks sites that I have no idea what they are or how to find out what they are. But I sure dont have near the problem I used to have.