The bloggy kindness of strangers 26 Apr 2011 Whoever you are, I have always depended on the kindness of strangers. [Blanche DuBois, in Streetcar Named Desire 1951] I am going to do something I very rarely do: boost a commercial product. In the running of this blog I incur a number of recurring costs (NB: see “Donate” button or menu item, hint, hint) to do with various services, subscriptions and plugins. One of the most critical is the spam filter, Akismet. I used them at the WordPress.com site, and when I set up this self-hosted server edition, I transferred it. I must have clicked on something because about a week ago I got an email saying that I had been charged money for the service. I was concerned, since the Paypal receipt didn’t say what it was, but I tracked it down and found that it was for Akismet. But their site said that private users were given a free subscription. I contacted them and they informed me I had set up a paid account. Oh well, I thought, they are doing a great job, so I don’t begrudge them the $5 a month, and it’s my responsibility for having not read the destructions. But they, off their own bat, not only set my account to free, they refunded me the money. Now that is corporate citizenry. If you use their service and are in anyway income generating (as ET is not) I urge you to cheerfully pay them the fee. They are making blogging safe for commenters and are a great company and service. There. I promise not to promote any further commercial products until Pepsi offer me gobs of money. Administrative Administrative
Administrative Short takes 9 May 2008 So much has been happening in the world while I was giving a talk on the adaptiveness of religion in Sydney. The Platypus thing was one item I’d have blogged on if the rest of the blogosphere hadn’t beaten me to it. All I can say is that no matter… Read More
Administrative Australian Easter bits 9 Apr 2009 A young gorilla escaped from his enclosure at the Melbourne Zoo last night and wandered about for 20 minutes while craven visitors hid out. I would have sat and waited for him to introduce himself. And paid good money for the chance. A moron by the name of Cardinal George… Read More
Administrative Another antipodean philosopher’s blog 3 Dec 2008 Note the careful ambiguity there: this is not a blog of another antipodean philosopher, but another blog of this antipodean philosopher. The ins and outs of Australian politics and policies are not of interest to much more than 0.3% of the world, so my asseverations are even less interesting to… Read More
I don’t drink tea, but some of my best-friends are tea-drinkers. I second your endorsement of Akismet. It means that I don’t have to add a “Capcha” to my commenting. Sometimes if falsely identifies spam for genuine comments, but that has happened only rarely.
Mike Haubrich: I don’t drink tea, but some of my best-friends are tea-drinkers. That’s what they all say.
Akismet is wonderful! I love going into my spamcan to see how the spammers are trying to get around it. The sneaky little minkeys try all sorts of tricks, but Akismet catches them all. Huzzah!
Pepsi? I thought you would be after the National Geographic Kool Aid now. You’re probably polite enough for them.