Wham Spam Thank You Ma’am, local internet problems and a ramble about nothing much.

It being Friday, Ramsgate Market is on making my bookshop fairly busy, The Isle of Thanet Gazette also comes out but as I haven’t had time to get out and get a copy I did have a quick look online to see what was in today’s issue, this is a link to first article I found http://www.thisiskent.co.uk/masterpieces/story-17757711-detail/story.html not exactly good use of the internet, is it?

The nonsensical thing finishes with the word “above” oh well who am I to quibble, this will just have to wait until I get a paper version later on.

The spam comment situation on the blogs is starting to ease off a bit as is the potentially libellous or just plain rude comment.

Laura Sandys FaceBook account started posting scam messages to all and sundry, funnily enough posts on the internet seem to think this is some sort of computer hack, my guess is this is a misunderstanding of the FaceBook app.

If you have a FaceBook account go to http://www.facebook.com and sign on, near the top of the page is a blue line and on the right hand side of this line is a cog wheel icon, click on it. Go down the list that appears and click on Account Settings. The settings page for your FaceBook account should appear and on the left side of this click on the link that says Apps.

You should now see a list of the Apps you have, at the top of my list is Vimeo, the movie site’s app, clicking on the edit link on the right tells me:

“This app needs:          

    Your basic info

    Your email address (thanetonline@******)

This app can also:        

           

Manage your pages

Vimeo may login as one of your Pages.

           

           

Post on your behalf

This app may post on your behalf, including videos you queued, groups you joined and more.”

Do I want it to post on my behalf, well obviously not. So I click on the delete App link at the bottom of the page.  

I then get a message saying:

“This will remove the app from your account, your bookmarks and the list of apps you use (found in your settings). Learn more.

Note: Vimeo may still have the data you shared with them. For details about removing this data, please contact Vimeo or visit the Vimeo Privacy Policy.”

There is a checkbox at the bottom saying “Delete all your Vimeo activity on Facebook” do I want to tell anyone which videos I have been watching online, well no not really, so I tick that too.

Some further thoughts, here, the first one being how did the app get there in the first place? Probably by using my FaceBook account to sign on to Vimeo.

Now when it comes to computers, guess I know the basics, I started using a computer in 1969, I was a bit late getting to grips with the internet and didn’t start internet publishing and sales until 1997, but seem to have got to grips with it now.

I mean by this that for the last few years, if I take a few hundred pictures on my morning walk then I will publish them online over breakfast.

Do I want anything man or machine to log on to my account and publish something there, on my behalf and under my name? well obviously not.

What has happened with FaceBook and the App thing is that FaceBook allow App writers to use part of FaceBook like a computer operating system, as a platform to write programs for. Some of these programs called Apps you may find that you have allowed by accident and some of them are malicious. 

I will probably ramble on here later.

Pizza this evening I did try to get a photo of the last one I took out of the oven, just for Chris Wells, it wasn’t easy

Back to the FaceBook App problem, you may have notice getting quite few unusual FaceBook messages, that while not being malicious, just don’t have the right feel to them for the person they are supposed to come from. I think most of these originate from Apps.

On the other hand, well probably four fingers and a thumb, but. Some of the Apps are useful, I for instance use one called networked blogs, this one turns what I post on this blog on my FaceBook page. So. Yes. It is allowed to post automatically.

A quick sketch, still very wet, but there you go.

and half an oil sketch

and a quick pencil and chalk