Something I noticed was that rather than waiting two or three days before coming back and posting linkspam, the ‘little tinkers’ were now waiting up to a couple of weeks. Obviously this makes patrolling your member profiles a nightmare, especially if you have a client who will not tolerate linkspam but doesn’t want to penalise their genuine members. Often on a high traffic site the spammers-to-be were dropping off the first member list page, so I was having to go back several pages to find them.

I asked Greg for a notification email every time someone goes in and updates their profile – the mail shows you what they’ve added so if it’s a relevant bio/URL you don’t have to visit your control panel but if it’s spam you can jump straight to it. It also stops the ones who start with ‘I am into webdesign (aren’t we all love?) and cannot wait to join in with this marvellous community’ then 3 weeks later they’ve changed it to some utter tosh – now you’ll see it the minute they hit submit.

I’ve been clearing up behind the ones who slipped through by:

• Getting a database dump of all members with bio/URL information in their profiles
• Going through and removing all the spam links and leaving the message ‘All links removed and reported as linkspam’. I did this because we noticed from the logs that some of the spammers were visiting the profiles of other spammers (in fact that’s how we found a couple of them before we did the database dump)
• Actually reporting some of them as linkspam – this makes it a lottery – we don’t want linkspammers deliberately posting their competitors sites up knowing we’ll flag them
• We also added a line in the terms alerting members to the fact that linkspam won’t be tolerated – so we can’t get any bleating about ‘not knowing’ from the ‘white hat’ SEO specialists
• Also – make sure that you go to admin > members and groups > and change the guest profile ‘can view public profiles’ to no – it’s set to yes as default (Thanks to Lisa Wess for pointing this one out)

If you’d like a copy of my list of the spammer usernames we’ve banned recently (if you don’t have access to do a database dump for example) then drop me a line and I’ll send it over. You’ll need to tell me your EE site though and have an email address associated with the domain.

Keeping on top of this takes time, and naturally costs clients money – and why should it? – they’re trying to run a forum for their members, not a dumping ground for spammers. I wanted a way to check profiles and posts using the CP, and because some of the forums we look after are high traffic, I wanted to be able to block ban spam signs ups quicky and efficiently.

So Greg wrote Member Utilities. At the end of each day I can log in view members, check the profiles and posts of new members (and any exisiting members I’ve been keeping an eye on) all via the CP. If they’ve added spam links to their profile (the current ‘hot’ ones are fitnesstips, tax attorney, payday loans and gold prices) I just expand their profile from the CP and ban everyone with spam in their biog, at the same time banning their IP address and the email addy they used to sign up, in just two clicks – all of them at once. It’s saved a lot of time. Before Member Utilities I was spotting them in the CP then flicking to the front of the site, searching for their user name, checking their post and their profile and banning them one by one.

So – there you have it – why sometimes having a moaning git for a partner, having the patience of a saint and doing anything for a quiet life can make the world a bit better for the rest of the EE community.

If you’re having similar problems and would like a simple solution, then Member utilities is available to buy here

Firstly Greg has almost finished the eagerly awaited fabEE. I’m not going to regurgitate it all here as the site explains what it is. As well as that we’ve been working with excellent new clients and having a lot of fun. Managed to get a good few evenings fishing by the river over the summer months, and a few pouring with rain weekends standing under fishing umbrellas.

Personally had a few trips in and out to the hearing services peeps at Cheltenham General Hospital – including an MRI scan (good way to find out if you’re claustrophobic – I am as it happens) and now have a pair of digital hearing aids. I really wanted some funky ones but it got to the point where anything that would help was gratefully received. They took a bit of getting used to (sat in a client meeting and suddenly I was convinced that I sounded like Davros so went uncharacteristically quiet) but they have helped no end. I can’t praise the hearing services people enough – they’ve put up with my tears and endless questions and been amazing.

Erm what else? Oh there’s loads… Im just going to have to start writing again I guess…

Once we’ve put a quote together – and especially if it’s a big site with a lot of bespoke functionality then it makes more sense to smooth the cost over time (as Mike says ‘you don’t pay your staff salaries annually up front’)… We simply give you Mike’s details, but only if you ask for them.

By lease financing the website/software etc (as opposed to taking out a loan) the lease costs can be written down against tax – therefore depending on the amount of corporation tax you pay, the tax relief actually means you pay less overall.

And of course you smooth your costs so you don’t have a great big spike the month you pay for your website (which is bound to be the same month your VAT is due because life’s like that)

We are keen to stress that we don’t make any money out of this arrangement – we are simply offering it as an alternative because we’ve used Mike before and we like the way he works. Heck – you don’t even have to use our services! Often people come to us and want a lot of functionality immediately. If they have a smaller budget then it gets to be a case of what do you need now and what do you want later? The benefit of lease financing is that you don’t have to half implement a site if you don’t want to…

Drop us a line if you think Mike can help (and he’s getting a new website soon BTW)

The whole event has been approached with humour, although Mike is deadly serious about raising money for the centre who helped him to regain some use in his arm after an accident 5 years ago. Also deadly serious (about safety) is James Coakes of Progressive Resources who is providing the support rig to make sure that Mike and his co-pilot Mark don’t get flattened by a ferry.

If you’d like to support Mike or read more about the great work of the Wessex Rehabilitation Centre then you can find out more at The Great Solent Pedal

There are a number of ways this information could have been bought, however we’ve had a few calls asking if they could speak to Rachael or Alex – the last one from this number: 08704 784703 (They said they were OneTel and that one of their third party suppliers had passed them our details). Suddenly it all clicked into place – We mentioned Alex on our bit about moving as we’d been reading his blog. Clearly the muppet who gathered the information didn’t bother to check if he works here (we’d love to have him, but he doesn’t), hence the information which was sold on promptly adds him to our payroll….. (I hope he’s not reading this)

Less than an hour later we received an email:

Hi Rachel

I believe that you may be moving offices in the near future and that, this being the case, you may be in need of a telephone system. (etc etc etc)

to which I replied:

Hi Nick

Actually you can help me out here because I’m trying to find out who has been selling this information about us to every telecom company in the UK.

It’s fair to say that when you’re running a business looking after clients, getting a minimum of one phone call a day regarding our impending move is a touch frustrating as I’m sure you can imagine. Especially given that we moved 2 months ago. And especially since they keep asking to talk to Alex (who’s name featured in the blog but who sadly doesn’t work here)

Now – not only are these people wasting my time, they’re wasting yours as well, because I’m not going to be buying anything as we’re very happy with our current supplier.

So what do you say – are you going to let me know where you got this info?

and the reply I got:

Hi Rachel

I am very sorry to have bothered you and I do agree that calls can be most irritating.

Insofar as advising you who gave me the information is concerned, unfortunately we cannot divulge such information.

So it’s perfectly acceptable for some unknown muppet to sell out of date information about us gleaned from our blog – but we can’t know who they are. I’m waiting Nick. Nick? you there? Oh. He’s gone….

Anyway – as these companies are so keen for me to switch to their service – and have been so persistent (despite us being on the TPS) I decided to do some internet research about how good they are

Complaints about OneTel can be found here
Complaints about TalkTalk can be found here

So if any other telecoms companies want to feature on this list then please do get in touch.

We’re waiting for your call.

There’s no doubt about it, I work better in a tidy office. Sadly I’m really untidy and a bit of a hoarder. Despite seeing what a monster task it was, Kathryn agreed to take on our project. Here’s what she achieved in just two afternoons:

• new ‘paper free process’
• new filing system
• keeping two easily distracted people focussed on the job
• decluttering – eventually sending 7 bags of confidential shredding to the excellent Printwaste Recycling.
• recycling a load of the old folders/print samples/bits of card by taking them for the local after school club and childminder friend

So a message to Kathryn… We really appreciate the help you gave us – and thank you for our brilliant office warming gift – an organic shiitake mushroom log from Ragman’s Lane Farm helping us to get a step closer to our new ‘slow food’ way of life.

After a mooch around at our options, and a lot of inspiration from Alex’s Shedworking Blog we settled on a contemporary new office building from The Garden Escape.

When we moved here there was about a tonne of gravel next to the house – which we had to move to the top of the garden when we had the decking done (and thanks to Tim who not only put the decking together but also discovered that the back wall was floating and needed underpinning). Of course the new office was due to be built at the top of the garden meaning we had to move the gravel again – to the middle of the garden.

The team from The Garden Escape turned up – assembled the office, plastered it, painted it, wired it and did a superb job – a really friendly team and hugely professional – we highly recommend them. All that was left for us to do was move in and then… move the gravel again.

Already we can see the huge difference it’s made to our working day – I’m likely to go on about it quite a bit – sorry.

In 1993, Jessie a bright and musical 9 year old was diagnosed with an incurable brain tumour and the fund was set up originally to pay for complementary treatment in the US. Sadly Jessie died just before she was about to go, so her parents (both classical musicians) decided to use the money to fund projects to help severely ill and disabled children through the power of music. The best way of describing music therapy is to see it working – have a look at this video of music therapy in action. Although it doesn’t look it, there’s so much going on – before therapy this boy could only say ‘Yeah’ yet within a couple of months his parents couldn’t shut him up! Notice how the music therapist responds to him and lets him lead the ‘music conversation’.

The big fundraiser is a bike ride from York to Amsterdam which leaves York Designer Outlet on 12th July – Organised by Matt from Charity Adventure they are hoping to raise £10000 from that alone! Naturally they will be pedalling in purple!

Would your company be interested in sponsoring Jessie’s Fund or in making a donation? In return, they will advertise you on their websites and in their press releases. The fund do get good local media coverage, including newspapers, radio and TV.

If you have any questions or want to know more, just let Matt from Charity Adventure know by emailing: matt@charityadventure.org.uk

Have a look at the facebook event page for more information

If you will be wearing purple you can donate at the Purple People Just Giving page