I should have posted it earlier. For bloggers suffering from spam comments, it’s time to cease your nightmare!
On January 20 I installed MT-Keystrokes plugin in hope of stopping spam comments. Guess what? In the past month I haven’t got a single piece of spam comment! It used to be bombed by about 20 spams every day. MT-Keystrokes works so well that from time to time I even start to suspect whether comment system on TIMELINE is functional. I love the idea of Simon Goodway so much!

A simple way to reduce comment spam without affecting the reader’s experience is to make sure that every comment has some level of human input. As Simon suggests, by validating that the user has entered keystrokes while entering a comment (using javascript), we can effectively weed out any robots that bypass the comment form altogether.

Automation is one of the most fascinating pros of computer products. It’s also the downside that can easily be taken advantage of by vicious users. Seems the most effective way to stop abused automation is to require more human efforts to lower the level of automation. In this sense, MT-Keystrokes really turns spammers off. I am a little bit concerned [ what a worryart! ] that spammers will find a way out to bypass the anti-spam mechanism but at least, we are on the right track now.

It might be very obvious but just in case you can’t find it.
At the bottom of the Gmail window is a link that says “standard without chat.” Click that, and the embedded chat feature goes byebye.

Want some free icons for UI or Web design? Iconbuffet is giving out free icons every month. All you need to do is to sign up to get your own download. Also, you can share the icons with five friends.

These are the icons I have. If you want any, leave your email and I’d like to share with you. Thanks go to Yoren for his generosity.
Technorati: icon, design

I’ve had too much. Let’s call it a day. So far the Quick Contacts box hasn’t rolled out to my Gmail. But I’ve got the Chats icon in the sidebar. Will you chat in Gmail?

Gmail learned to Talk. Now Gmail accounts are automatically enabled with chat features. You don’t have to do anything special, it just works. See when your friends are online and decide for yourself how you want to get in touch with them. Email and instant messaging don’t have to be so different. And why should you always have to remember whether something important was said over email or IM? We’ve made it easy for you to save chats, so you can search for them, print them, even reply to one over email.

How can I disable it?
Technorati: Gmail

I have to admit that my campaign for Frappr! failed. So I bring back the cute Bravenet Guestmap again. Since I’ve used up all the 100 entries for free service, I have to sign up for a new account and get another 100 pins. If you haven’t pinned yet, please do that on the new guestmap. You may also have a look at the old map [ it is pretty crowded though].

So I’ve been thinking about why people give the cold shoulder to the Frappr! on TIMELINE. And I have some hypotheses. First, Frappr! is not as cute as the Bravenet one. Bravenet is not that powerful but it is really an eye candy that is hard to resist. Second, Frappr! is not that user-friendly and it takes several steps to sign up. That turns a lot of people down. Thirdly, Frappr! can indicate the position so accurately that it runs the risk of disclosing privacy. People who are concerned with online stalking surely are recultant to expose themselves too much online.
Technorati: Bravenet, Frappr!, guestmap

Yesterday I found coComment and gave it a shot. So far so good. And the diligent coComment team has released a bug fix version. Keep going!
I am impressed by Brian Benzinger’s Greasemonkey script for coComment: Automatic coComment. It can automatically activate coComment bookmarklet when detecting a comment area, which means no need to click the bookmarklet before submitting comments! This is my very first Greasemonkey script and now I know how it rocks. Firefox supported only. So now you have one more reason to switch to Firefox.
Technorati: Greasemonkey, coComment

I am so excited that coComment is up! A service I’ve been dreaming of for so long that I can track all the comments I make on others’ blogs and follow the dialogues. I did come up with a lame [ no offense to those who use the same way but I have to say it's really a dirty work. ] means of tagging comments in del.icio.us but sometimes I forgot to use it. No worries now! CoComment captures, shares, and alerts my comments in the blogosphere and I can even keep my eyes on those with RSS.
Since the free service is still in beta phase, it supports the following blogging tools only:
Blogger.com
MSN Spaces
MySpaces
TypePad
Wordpress
Xanga
They promise that “more to come soon.” MovableType should be on the top of the list not only for its popularity but TypePad is based on MT.
Again, invitation code is needed for registration. I got my code from a bunch of codes posted by others. You can leave your email and they will send you one soon [ very soon. 15 minutes in my case ]. So I’ve got one extra code to share. One code can only be used once. Feel free to use it but PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE let me know if you’ve taken it. I’ll cross it out as long as it’s used.
The link will take you directly to the registration page with the invitation code. You can also input the code manually: 8024-4243-0657-1341-7708
Update: My invitation code has been given out.

Technorati : coComment