Reading Up

Well, the first interview on Friday is a biggie, as I said below. I’m spending a considerable amount of time over the next few days reading up on a couple of the technologies they use, just to make sure I know what I’m whittling on about.

Stress!


Oooooh Shit

Well, after Friday’s news that I’d got one interview next Friday. It was good news, because I can’t deny, I’d been beginning to think “eeek” about moving with no potential interviews or promising work advances.

Well, it never rains, and all that toss. I’ve been told today that I now have two interviews on Friday. One at 9am in London, which is a real biggie for me, and I’m already slightly orbital about it. I’ll be fine closer to the time, but the run-up to it is going to have my brain in a mode similar to that caused by feeding a two-year-old loads of sugar and dodgy food colourings. The second interview is at 1pm in Bracknell. The timing is going to be close, but I’m padding it all a bit so I should be OK. Infamous last words.

It’s the first one that is the one that’ll be most interesting. It’s at least one grade higher than I was looking at or expecting, and the pay is commensurately higher, although the concept of weekly progress reports to the Senior Managers is a bit of a nerve-wracker initially.

Having looked at it, some of the requirements are going to require a learning curve so steep it might as well be called effing vertical, but it’s more that they use commercial packages for stuff that I’ve already done or designed by hand. So I should be able to get through it. I’m just going to go off and gibber in the corner for a while now….


Satanic

I only have one question about this story. Why are the boy’s eyes glowing red as though he’d been satanically possessed in a cheap straight-to-video horror flick?

Scary or what…


New rules

At long last, I’m pleased to see that GPs are to be given new guidelines about the prescription of anti-depressants such as Seroxat and Prozac. Way back in March 2001 I wrote about the side-effects of the SSRI group of anti-depressants, which were supposedly side-effect free.

Of course, the manufacturers still say “there are less side-effects with these than with previous anti-depressants”, but that’s not quite the same as “no side effects at all”, is it?

Anyway, with luck the new guidelines will see a significant reduction in prescriptions from the current 13 million per year.


Comments and Search Engines – My Response

Dear xxx,

First of all, my apologies for the way you found my site. I would like to make it clear that I've in no way "placed" my website on the NTLWorld search engine, particularly in connection with [that brand of toy store].

Many search engines regularly "crawl" the web, building up content and references that can then be used to produce search results when requested by people. In this case, it looks like Google (which is used by NTL as their search-tool provider) picked up the reference I made to [that brand of toy store]'s atrocious website, and when you searched for [that brand of toy store], d4d came up as part of the results.

NTL's search has a "safe search" filter that is *supposed* to block sites like mine, should it be selected. However, following on from your comment, I checked into the NTL Search and it's Safesearch filter, and I found that even when set on the "High" (where all explicit words and images are supposed to be blocked) it still brings up the d4d text - including the swearwords that are within the context. This is something that is utterly unacceptable, and I fully understand your anger at the way this has happened. Unfortunately, short of altering my entire writing style (a word that some would dispute when linked with d4d *grin*), there is very little I can do when it comes to NTL's filters not working.

I would suggest that you also write to NTL explaining the situation - please feel free to forward this email to them as well, if you feel it will help the case/explanation - and suggest that they look into how this has happened.

D4D is a personal site, and lists my own thoughts, expressions, and ideas. I've never paid for advertising anywhere, and most definitely wouldn't try the utterly shonky tactic of building up my own readership by trying to be linked to a company like [that brand of toy store]. Unfortunately, semantics like this are ignored by the search crawlers, and this can result in problems like this.

I will also be writing to NTL tomorrow morning (Monday) to ask that they sort out their filters, and hopefully this will help to stop it happening again. I had thought about editing the specific post in response to your comment, but on further consideration I realise that this would be a pointless task - with the text the way it is in the search results, at least a supervising parent will be able to avoid that link, rather than clicking on it with no warning when other posts contain equally explicit words. In addition, I am working on a "non-sweary" filter that, when selected, would replace the explicit words with either stars, or less offensive replacements - however, that can't stop the first look at the page before the "non-sweary" option was selected.

Again, my sincerest apologies for the offence caused, and the way you found d4d.

If I can be of any further assistance, or provide any more information regarding NTL's Search filters etc., please don't hesitate to get in touch.
Sincerely [etc.]


Comments and Search Engines

I got a comment today that raised my eyebrows a bit.

Having read just a small portion of your literature, what the f*** are you doing placing this website with those that advertise childrens toys. I am not at all adverse to bad language, I use it myself, but not in front of my son who has just learnt to read, and was looking on the net to decide what he would like for xmas!!!! Thank god he is supervised. Be a little more responsible and who knows, you might get a larger following???? Amusing you are! Responsible you are not. When you’ve moved your site let me know ‘cos I’d love to visit it, just not when my son is around!!!!!!!!!!!!

The commenter left his email address too, but I’m not going to add that in

Now, OK, I know I’ve been abusive of late about the POS masquerading as Toymaster’s site, but “placing this website with those that advertise children’s toys“? Funny, thought I. A quick check in Nedstat showed that I’d been linked to by NTLWorld’s search engine if you do the search for that brand of toy shops. So no, I hadn’t intentionally associated myself with it.

I did a bit more checking – NTLWorld has a “search filter” you can set to None, Medium (explicit images only will be blocked), or High (explicit words and images will be blocked) – even on “High” the d4d™ result comes up, which is – frankly – a piece of utterly naff coding on the part of NTLWorld.

Now, I could change the way I write – but why should I temper my phrasing simply because NTL can’t write code worth a toss? However, it’s definitely time to start seriously looking at the new template and a couple of the ideas within it. For now though, I’m going to write an email to this commenter explaining why it came up, and that the link wasn’t my choice, along with suggesting a complaint to NTL about why their search filters don’t work (oh, and by the way, why they only work at all in IE, try swapping it in Opera and the thing doesn’t work at all).

I’ll post up the emails, and any responses, as and when they happen.


Yet more work

Recently, as well as the normal bundle of stuff I’ve been working on, I’ve been asked to be the Press and Publicity officer for another local charity around the area I’ll be moving to.

It’s a bit of a family thing, as Herself is involved in it as well, but it’s going to be an interesting challenge. During the last week I’ve been working on the first handout leaflet for them, which was being distributed during a charity “fayre” today. It’s been a bit of a struggle to get it all sorted on time, but it’s been a successful day by all accounts, and the charity has raised about £140. Not a bad day’s work.

There’s going to be a lot more work in the next couple of months, and plenty of ideas (and, of course, a website *grin*) but yes, the first steps are certainly looking promising.