Blogs

This is a seasonal website. Most traffic obviously occurs in October.  So occasionally I get complacent and don't login to check the spam. 

I did have another reason this year - I had a couple of operations andi 6 weeks radiation treatment for breast cancer, so I really didn't look at my websites much for the first four/five months of 2012. 

So when I logged in today, there was quite a bit of spam. I spent around 2 hours deleting all the forum spam and fake userids, and a few other cleanup tasks. 

But it's still not ready for the halloween season.

I do need to update the site to the latest version of the software, and I'd like to install some automated anti-spam blockers. I can't do it this weekend - I need to upgrade the database software on my laptop so I can test it properly - but by the end of May, it will be newer, faster, cleaner and more content. 

Until then, I have turned off the forum again.  There was some nasty stuff there that really had to be deleted - why people paste links to nudie videos on this site is beyond me. 

I also do have two more levels of user access - ghostbusters and spooks - who have more access than your average member - also still free - that will let you delete any spam or rude stuff that sneaks in. 

The contact form still works and is the best way to contact me, although I don't check the email address during work hours. Facebook will also work.

So apologies if I accidentally deleted your username today. If you created it in the last 5 months, it could have got bundled up with all the deletes. 

The updated version of the site will also let you use Facebook connect to login, if that helps. 

cheers, and happy halloween planning

This year Halloween (31st October) will fall on a Wednesday night. 

Every year, people who aren't familiar with Halloween start asking each other what to do when Halloween is on a school night. 

Most people will expect it to be celebrated on the correct calendar day, and this is the best choice,  to avoid confusion. 

However if you have a small, close community, and everyone gets together and agrees to do things differently, you may choose to trick or treat on the nearest weekend. In this case I would recommend falling back to the old paper solution, and putting a note in everyone's letterbox advising them of the day you have chosen. Plus an article in the local newspaper.

Going by recent years,  most community events such as school halloween fairs and festivals are held on the weekend, but the actual trick-or-treating would be on the 31st October.

Hope that helps!

And halloween is over for another year.

It's sad - there's such a big lead up, and most people only have their decorations up on Halloween afternoon. I miss the US where everyone's autumn decorations were up for a couple of weeks. Although with the heat in Australia, a carved pumpkin really wouldnt last that long.

We had lots of lollies left, as we're in a quiet street, with only 3 houses putting up decorations. We got told we had the second-best decorations (the teens had put up the decorations this year).

A success was when I caught the bus to work in the morning, and two dads were talking behind me. They said they would go up and down two of the busiest streets in my suburb, and then they named my street!

We had a full-sized ghoul on the front door, that screamed out 'help me help me' in a really annoying voice, if you made a loud noise. For the first few trick-or-treaters, the kids scared the dogs, who started barking, and triggered the ghoul. It was noisy.

Please feel welcome to upload photos to the site, or onto the Facebook page.

And start planning for next year.

cheers

I've had a few people submit info through the contact form, saying they'd like to add their street and suburb.

But then they forgot to tell me the street and suburb!

If this is you, could you send the info again so I can add it for you?

Some of my outgoing emails are not getting through, but I'm happily adding any events when all the details are provided.

Got a lovely new full-sized spooky figure for the front door that screams out 'heelllpp me' when you make a loud noise.

Hopefully it won't scare away the littlies.

happy halloween!

And the countdown begins.

I've cleared out my front garden, ready for a graveyard. Amongst the herbs.

Bought a bottle of All Hallows wine - although whether I wait until All Hallows before opening it is debatable.

Finally moved hosting companies, to the lovely rackservers.com.au, so we should be nice and fast this year.

Opened up the forums again, although they were getting hit by spammers pretty hard.

We were also getting hit by comment spam, so I've done two things: comments won't display until they've been manually approved, and I'll also login and check the site each day.

The site is still free, just register to add your event.

I added two new member levels - spooks and ghostbusters, both still free.

Spooks have all the originally planned access - to create events, craft, recipes, photos, blog and forum posts.

Ghostbusters are for deleting any spam I've missed - they can delete comments and forum posts if they contain spam.

So if you've have some cool halloween tips or just wanted to hang out in the forum, have another go.

cheers, and happy halloween.

hi everyone,

sorry for the downtime over the weekend.

the company hosting the site had a major problem and everyone's sites were down. If you want to read more, there's a thread at http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1776729. 

Hard to believe, but the hosting company  didn't even update their twitter or facebook or status page for 3 days to let people know what was wrong!

I'll be changing hosting companies on Tuesday to a much more reliable  company.

At least I had time to garden over the weekend, instead of spending it backing up all my sites as planned, so I could clear an area for my halloween decorations.

cheers and howls

Chris

fine. so you want to create and verify 50 accounts each day and post 50 spam articles each day.

thanks a lot.

I've now had to change the user system so that every attempt to create a new user, now needs approval.

and if that doesn't work, then eventually i'll have to turn off the registration, and rely on the contact form for people to ask for registration.

sigh - why do they do it?

all the existing users are fine, but basically anyone who joined the site after halloween has now been deleted. we'll see how things go next year.

sorry guys! but i like to keep the junk out of here, and it was really taking too long to delete each day.

happy halloween!

A big newspaper asked me today if we had a decorated house or somebody who wanted to be interviewed.

Has anyone finished decorating yet?

We're running a bit late - had the flu on the weekend, and both my son and his dad broke their ankle this week.

Drop me a line through the contact form if you're interested, and I'll forward the details to the paper later tonight.

http://www.fantasypumpkins.com/carving-the-deathstar.htm

http://failblog.org/2010/10/26/epic-fail-photos-pumpkin-sign-fail/

http://failblog.org/2010/10/24/epic-fail-photos-halloween-picture-fail/

Also relaxing reading failbook.failblog.org

Logged on 5 times today, and each time there was new spam.  Apparently from the US this time, so it's kind of hard to ban the whole US, without affecting Google.

So I created a new super user level called "spooks".

Only Spooks can write to the forum now, so if you're a real halloween person, and would like to take part in the forum, drop me a line on the contact form, and I'll bump you up a level.

Sigh, the things we have to do.