Cormac Moylan

For the past few days I have been receiving random MSN messages from people who are not on my contact list telling me about their desperate problems trying to upload pictures to their MSN profile!

Hey  Cormac%20Moylan …..I cant upload my pics to msn for some reason!  Hit me back up on http://**********.blogspot.com I have webcam on there.I will be online for a couple hours.

Nikki

Mmm, okay Nikki. I will help you upload photos by visiting your porn site. I’m on my way…

I deleted the first message and checked my contacts list; nothing was odd in my list so I just ignored the message thinking it was a once off. But then I started getting more and more of these messages. A few were being sent from one of my friend’s MSN account when he went Idle or just after he logged off. I told him about the problem and advised him to do an anti-virus, adware check and to also change his password as it seemed his account had been compromised. I haven’t received any messages from him since.

The messages are still coming through this morning from people who are not on my contacts list though. I have changed my own MSN password but this didn’t resolve the problem. I would have done a spyware, adware, anti-virus check but I’m on a Mac so that option isn’t really available to me. I don’t think the problem is on my end anyway. I then Googled the problem and came across an unresolved thread on a Microsoft Forum. Hopefully someone will post a solution in the next few days. 

In the mean time it’s probably best to block messages from people who are not on your contact list. I’m not sure if this is the most up to date guide on do that on Windows but it looks like a good starting point. If you’re using Adium on OS X, you can set your privacy level to ‘Allow only contacts on my contact list’ by clicking on Adium > Privacy Settings > Select Account > Select Option.

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thank you for visiting! Cormac

Sitepoint are running a special offer for the month of August whereby you receive a free eBook when you purchase any hardback book from their stock. Their current inventory hosts some pretty impressive books, such as:

• The CSS Anthology: 101 Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks - 2nd Edition
• Simply Rails 2
• The Principles of Project Management
• The Art & Science of CSS
• The Principles of Beautiful Web Design
• Build Your Own AJAX Web Applications
• Outsourcing Web Projects: 6 Steps to a Smarter Business
• And more…

…for the entire month of August, when you order ANY top-quality
printed SitePoint book, you’ll get a second book in PDF format
(worth $29.95) absolutely FREE.

Pick your printed book, choose your freebie, and learn something
new this month. The more you order, the more you get for free.
It’s a simple offer you don’t want to miss.

Click here to visit the landing page for this special offer. When you order you also receive free delivery (that includes delivery to Ireland). To take full advantage of the offer it’s probably best to order two or three books.  For example; ordering two books at a price of $79.90 results in an end cost of €53.66, plus the books have an estimated 14 day delivery. It’s a pretty decent offer I’m sure you’d agree.

Looking for some free ebooks about social media, viral marketing, blogging, that thing called Twitter, PPC, analytics and podcasting? Then take a wander over to Chris’ blog and check out his post on 20 Free eBooks About Social Media.

Check out the comments section too for further eBook linkage.

The popular podcasting plugin for Wordpress, Podpress, has been acting up a bit when installed on Wordpress 2.6 (the latest release).

Andrew Ozz seems to have fixed an issue between Podpress and with the new post revision feature in 2.6. The fix requires a small code change.

Judging by the early comments on his post, the fix is working which is great news for those of us who run Podcasts. Thanks Andrew!

Speaking about compatibility issues… Is anyone expierencing problems uploading images via the rich text editor? None of my uploaded images are getting saved on the server. Only started happening since the update to 2.6. The new image uploader has been nothing but an awful feature for Wordpress.

I don’t know what it is with Scandinavia (Sweden in particular) but there are soo many amazing electronic acts coming out of there in the last number of years. The talent is endless:

• Röyksopp
• Bjork
• The Whitest Boy Alive 
• Erlend Øye
• The Kings of Convenience  
• The Knife
• Alphabeat
• José González (more so his stuff with Zero 7 rather than his acoustic music)
• Sigur Rós
• Plej

And now two more:

• Kkeerup
• Lykke Li 

Generation Kill is an HBO mini series about US Marines and their strike on Iraq. The show focuses on character development, the rules of engagement, the respect and sometimes disrespect of authority and the local humanitarian struggle.

Generation Kill is a true story. Evan Wright, a reporter accompanying Bravo Company as a back seat passenger in their Humvee, truthfully documents the entire tale of the Platoon. He tells it how it is, blood n’guts.

Evan’s book has just gone on my Amazon wishlist. While I have no doubt that David Simon and Ed Burns (The Wire) are doing a more than amazing job at portraying the war, I am so impressed with the show that the seven part mini series isn’t enough. I’m completely and utterly hooked on this show.

The below excerpt is taken from The New York Times review of Generation Kill.

Mr. Wright’s opening conceit in the book, and it is an understandable one, is that these highly trained troops, raised on hip-hop, video games and “South Park,” are somehow a different species from the men who fought in World War II and even Vietnam. He describes them as the disenfranchised orphans of a post-Monicagate society, a generation desensitized to violence, captive to pop culture and more disaffected from authority. “Culturally, these marines would be virtually unrecognizable to their forebears in the ‘Greatest Generation,’ ”

The two primary characters from the first three episodes are Cpl. Ray Person (that’s Ziggy from season 2 of The Wire) and Sgt. Brad Colbert. The two clips below are interviews with the actors portraying the characters and the actual real life marines.

Person

Colbert

Generation Kill is highly highly recommended viewing.