darkoshi: (Default)
Yahoo sent an email to users on June 25, stating "Starting soon, free Yahoo Mail accounts will include an industry-leading 20GB of storage".

It sounds like they are increasing the storage limit, yahoo! But upon reading the email again, I wondered about this part: "If your mailbox exceeds the new storage limit after it goes into effect..."

The storage limit is actually being greatly reduced:
Yahoo Mail Storage Shrinks from 1 TB to 20 GB: What You Need to Know - article by Zach Nonnemacher, Content Manager at ZeroBounce, August 5, 2025.

It doesn't affect me as I don't keep many old emails on the server. But other people probably interpreted it the same way I did at first. I understand Yahoo wanting to put a positive spin on it, but it is counter-productive if Yahoo wants users to check their usage and do something about it.
This page mentions a deadline, which the emails I received did not: Yahoo Mail Users Must Clear Space or Upgrade by August 27 to Avoid Losing Access

So users who are over the new storage limit likely got another email with clearer details.

.

I was curious about the etymology of that surname, "Nonnemacher".

According to one page which I won't even link to as it seems to be AI-generated make-believe,
The surname Nonnemacher is of German origin and is derived from the Middle High German word "nonne" meaning "nun" and "macher" meaning "maker" or "craftsman." Therefore, the surname Nonnemacher can be interpreted as "nun maker" or "maker of nuns." It is likely that the name originally referred to someone who made or repaired religious garments or objects used by nuns, or it could have been a nickname for someone associated with a convent or religious community.

The Ancestry.com explanation is rather different:

German: occupational name for a gelder of hogs from Middle High German nunne nonne ‘nun’ and by transfer ‘castrated hog’.
+ an agent derivative of machen ‘to make’.
Source: Dictionary of American Family Names 2nd edition, 2022


What methods and tools do you use to castrate a pig?
Castrating Pigs
No use of anesthesia is mentioned on the above two pages; the below mention it, but it doesn't sound widely used in the U.S.
Castration of Pigs
Piglet castration

.

"Eunuch maker" seems a more logical term for a gelder than "Nun maker". So I wondered if the etymologies of "nun" and "eunuch" were related. But according to those links, they aren't.
darkoshi: (Default)
My mom got a phishing (or malware) email made to appear like it was sent from Amazon:

Your Prime membership is renewing on Thu, June 26, 2025. However, we noticed that your default payment method for your membership is no longer valid.

To avoid losing your benefits, we'll try charging other active payment methods associated with your Amazon account. If we can't process the charge for your membership fee, your Prime benefits will be suspended.

Thank you,
Amazon Customer Service


The rest of the email looks like a normal Amazon email (although I don't have a real one to compare against). There are several obvious indications that the email is fake: an empty subject line, a non-amazon sender email even though it is shown as name "prime@amazon.com", and it only including an email address, not a name, in the "To" section and greeting.

The link provided in the email for updating her payment information is what I find curious. It is in this format:
https://mobile.mail.yahoo.com/apps/affiliateRouter?brandUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fgoogleads.g.doubleclick.net%2Fpcs%2Fclick%3F
followed by a bunch of characters and some other parameters at the end.

I asked MS Copilot about the URL and it provided the following details.

The base domain is mobile.mail.yahoo.com, which is a real Yahoo domain. But the key is in the query parameters — especially brandUrl and adurl.

The brandUrl parameter encodes a redirect to a Google Ads click tracker (googleads.g.doubleclick.net), which itself contains another redirect via adurl=... to a suspicious final destination: ....

This kind of multi-layered redirect is a classic phishing tactic. It uses trusted domains as intermediaries to:

Evade spam filters and security scanners.
Trick users into thinking the link is safe.
Obfuscate the final destination, which may host malware or a credential-harvesting page.

Everything after the ? is a query string made up of key=value pairs separated by &.

brandUrl: This is a URL-encoded link to a Google Ads click tracker (googleads.g.doubleclick.net). It contains its own nested parameters like xai, sai, sig, and adurl, which are used for ad tracking and redirection.

appName=YMailNorrin: Likely identifies the Yahoo Mail app variant or interface being used.

partner=1: Could indicate a specific affiliate or partner ID — possibly used for tracking referral traffic.

locale=1: Might refer to a language or region setting, though 1 is a bit ambiguous.

buckets=6oDiyy...: This is probably a session or experiment bucket ID — used for A/B testing or feature rollout tracking.

fbs_aeid=[gw_fbsaeid]: This is a Facebook Ads tracking parameter — possibly spoofed or copied to mimic legitimate ad traffic.

adurl (appears twice): This is the final redirect destination — in this case, a suspicious .pe domain. That’s the real payload of the phishing attempt.

This URL is a layered redirect trap:
Starts with a legit Yahoo domain.
Redirects through Google Ads infrastructure.
Ends at a potentially malicious .pe domain.
darkoshi: (Default)
I am curious if it is legal for various political fund-raising groups to send email and paper communications which imply they are written by or at least written with the approval of a certain candidate, and containing their supposed signature at the end, when the same mailing contains the legal blurb "This communication is not authorized buy any candidate or candidate's committee."

Is there no law against pretending to be a public person and sending mail in their name?

In this case, the mail is from the Democratic National Committee, and while Joe Biden probably doesn't disapprove of the fund-raising mailing, I still don't understand how it can be legal for them to print his signature (along with the text "With gratitude, Joe Biden, President of the United States") if he didn't "authorize" it.

Okay..... I now remembered that Biden isn't a "candidate" anymore. But I still wonder if he specifically authorized them to send that message with his signature. I suppose it is possible.

A few years ago I created an email folder where I move political donation appeals rather than deleting them right away. I often don't trust them; it seems an easy way for scammers to get people to send them money, by pretending to raise money for a certain cause. If I wanted to donate, I would instead go to the official website to do it. But I created the email folder to track how often the same senders spam me and if they continue to do so after I unsubscribe.

That folder now comes in handy now to check how often the above occurs. I only found one or two examples where the email is purportedly written by the candidate and also has the "not authorized by..." clause.

There are several examples where instead of "Not authorized by", it actually says "Authorized by [the candidate]" or says "Paid by..." without mentioning if it is authorized or not.

Related info:
When Words Are Not Enough: FEC Fines Candidate Committee for Omitting Disclaimer Box in Mailings (March 2007)

If the public communication is authorized by a candidate, his or her authorized committee or an agent thereof but is paid for by any other person, the disclaimer must clearly state that the communication is paid for by such other person and is authorized by the candidate, committee or agent.
...
If the communication is not authorized by a candidate, his or her committee or an agent thereof, the disclaimer must state the full name and permanent street address, telephone number or World Wide Web address of the person who paid for the communication, and that the communication is not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.


I suppose that emails and mailings sent to a specific person may not be considered "public communication", so maybe that is why not all of the ones I get mention if they are authorized or not. And maybe some of those really are from scammers too.

...

WAIT! Now I see that this paper mailing has another paper in it which is purportedly written and signed by Kamala Harris, which ALSO has that blurb on it, "This communication is not authorized buy any candidate or candidate's committee"! So I'm back to my original question.

repetition

Monday, April 29th, 2024 05:50 am
darkoshi: (Default)
After the 100th time or so of getting a LinkedIn email with subject "you're on a roll on LinkedIn!", I have finally clicked the Unsubscribe link. It got increasingly irritating to keep seeing that phrase. Based on my Trash folder, they must have been sending them every two days. I don't remember when they started.

.

Tired, so tired.

Behind, so behind.

Late, so late.
darkoshi: (Default)
The masked phone number part of this sounds useful for sites like Google that nowadays require a phone number for setting up an account.

https://relay.firefox.com/
Protect your identity with secure phone and email masking

Our secure, easy-to-use email and phone masks help keep your identity private so you can sign up for new accounts anonymously, stop spam texts and junk calls, and get only the emails you want in your inbox.
...
Limited-time only: ⁨Relay Premium⁩ + ⁨Mozilla VPN⁩ for ⁨$6.99⁩/month

⁨Mozilla VPN⁩ protects you from tracking & surveillance while you’re gaming, online banking, or getting work done. Add it to ⁨Firefox Relay⁩ for ⁨40%⁩ off.

Your 1-year plan includes:
Email masking
Phone masking
Mozilla VPN
...
Use ⁨Relay⁩ email masks and phone masks everywhere

Get secure, random email masks and a unique, masked phone number to use any time a website, app, store, or restaurant asks for your information.

...
We’ll forward emails, phone calls, and texts to you

Rest assured, senders will never know your real email address or real number. You can even reply to texts and emails without sharing your real identity.


Ah, but based on the wording on that page, it sounds like you only get a single masked phone number to use. So you couldn't generate multiple ones for different sites. Unless you pay for multiple instances of the service, I suppose.

But still, I've been thinking about signing up for a VPN service, and getting a masked phone number along with it would be useful, maybe.

I wonder about the "stop junk calls" part though. It seems that whenever you get a new phone number, you're bound to get junk calls trying to reach previous people who had that phone number. Add to that any new junk calls caused by you giving websites that number. Presumably all those calls get forwarded to your real phone. So I don't see how it would reduce junk calls. Are you able to discard one masked number and get another at will? If so, how often?

I would need to look into the details of this some more.

Nextdoor emails

Saturday, April 1st, 2023 01:20 am
darkoshi: (Default)
One of the bothersome things about Nextdoor is that their email notifications only display the beginning of each message, with a "See more" link. In the past, if it sounded interesting and I wanted to see the whole message, I'd have to click the link to read the post on the Nextdoor site.

Now I've discovered that if I view the emails as plain text instead of HTML, it shows the whole message!

If I want to read the replies to the post, I still have to open the website. But at least now I know what the topic is really about beforehand, and if it is worth reading more.

I'll have to try that with the Facebook-like Workplace emails we get at work.
darkoshi: (Default)
In my SoundCloud notification settings, "New post by followed user" is selected under the Email column.
But I haven't been getting any notification emails, even though the people I'm following have uploaded many new tracks.

Do any of you use email notifications for SoundCloud, and do they work for you?

If it's not a SoundCloud bug causing me not to get them, I suspect my email provider may be blocking them as spam. But this email account doesn't have a spam folder; suspected spam is simply blocked, so there's no way for me to be sure. That's always made me uneasy and will probably eventually make me stop using that email.
darkoshi: (Default)
Home Depot: The last time (June 2021) I used their self-checkout, it only gave "Print" and "Print+Email" options for the receipt. I chose the latter, but never got the email. Perhaps I typed it in wrong. There was no Email-Only option.

Lowes: The last 2 times I used their self-checkout, it only gave "Print" and "Print+Email" options for the receipt; there was no Email-Only option. When using the regular checkout aisles, the cashier (or maybe it is the card reader unit) gives me an email-only option. It has my email stored and linked to my payment card number, so I don't have to type it in each time, only confirm it.

Kroger: The self-checkout always lets me choose an digital receipt (as long as I remember to select that checkbox on the terminal). Now that I think about it, it's not actually an email receipt. I log into my Kroger account online and take full-page screenshots, which I then save for my records. On one page they show a receipt in the same format as what you would get printed out. On another page, they list everything you bought (using complete words, not abbreviations) along with images of the items, which is very nice.

Food Lion: Their self-checkout did not give an email option for the receipt. It also didn't weigh the items I put in the bagging area, nor nag me when I put my cloth bags over there, etc., like Krogers' always does.

Office Depot: In the regular checkout aisle, the card reader unit gave an email-only receipt option. When I typed my email in, I made a typo (two periods in a row instead of one). It did not automatically correct it nor give a warning. Instead it showed an error message that the email send had failed. It did not give me another chance to correct my entry, nor to get a paper receipt after all. I took a photo of the amounts shown on the screen with my phone, for my records. (I usually do that at Kroger too, just in case.)

A small local store: Had an email receipt option. But the cashier gave me a paper printout too, without asking. The email receipt that I received only listed the total charge, not any details about what I bought nor the individual prices. Therefore, I was glad to have the paper receipt to scan for my records.

Another small local store: Had an email receipt option. Both of the local store email receipts which I received were generated/sent by "Square". However, this store's email receipt did include the purchase details. So it must be configurable by the store, or something.

I keep wondering if receipts nowadays are less likely to use that thermal paper which is coated with so many chemicals, and more likely to be plain paper printed with regular ink. Sometimes I can guess one way or the other based on the look and feel of the paper and ink, but I'm never certain.
darkoshi: (Default)
I tried to be nonchalant about it in the prior post, but have been in low-level panic mode since that evening. Only a low level because:

- for the time being at least, I can still access all my Gmail accounts via IMAP.
- I always save emails and attachments to files on my computer as I read them, so being locked out of Gmail *won't* result in me losing any data. (But it's time to backup my computer files; I don't yet have that automated.)
- I have many different accounts and emails, and only a few of them are Gmail/Google.
- I suspect that if I try to log in from my own house, it may well succeed, as maybe that's the IP address I last logged in successfully from.
- If absolutely necessary, I could find some phone number, possibly a temporary throw-away one, to use for the account (though based on a link below, even this might not suffice!)

Still, it feels like the rug has been pulled out from under me, that the rules have been changed, that it's no longer sufficient to know your own password and security answers, that regardless of all that, an unreachable machine can decide to no longer let me in based on whatever criteria *it* chooses.

Once I am able to log in, I can finish deleting any remaining content and close down the account(s) to ensure this never happens again. I've already signed up for two replacement non-Gmail email accounts, and have switched over my LJ and DW accounts to them.

The thing that pains me most to consider is closing down my YouTube channel and removing all the videos that I've posted there over the years. That's the account I *was* able to login to the other day. But again, the rug is gone; I feel like I could lose access to it any time now. I could leave the channel and videos up and simply not post anything new there. But I don't like the idea of not being able to take the videos down in the future, if I someday wanted to.

I could delete the videos from YouTube and upload them to Vimeo instead, but I've never felt they were good enough for Vimeo, so I don't know if I really would. Do Vimeo embeds work in Dreamwidth? I don't remember.

.

It's not only Google; I no longer trust any of my free accounts to remain accessible. It sounds like what may trigger this problem is deleting cookies (so that your device is not "recognized") and using your device in different locations or with different ISPs (so that your IP number is not recognized). Possibly also using various different browsers. I've been doing that for years already though, and haven't had this problem with Gmail before now. But I don't login to these accounts on the web very often, as I mostly access them via IMAP and Thunderbird, so I honestly don't know which browser I used the last time, or whether it was from this house or that one. I recall a similar problem with Yahoo some years back, though that may have been triggered by entering my password wrong too many times before getting it right.

The below posts are all recent; I wonder if Google's changed their security algorithms in a bad way lately.

Based on this post, even giving Google a phone number may not be enough to prevent being locked out: Locked out of Google account for NO reason. How can I ensure this never happens again? (2020/10/22)

Locked out of google account despite multiple correct recovery answers (2020/11/29)

been locked out of my google account for now reason and account recovery does not work (2020/10/18)
"You might have attempted the recovery form many times in the last 24 hours. Try to wait for one week before attempting another account recovery form (do not attempt to sign in or submit account recovery form during the one week period).
After you wait for one week, kindly use the account recovery form: https://accounts.google.com/signin/recovery from previous logged in location/ip address and used device/computer for the account as Google will also check the location and used device/computer. "


What it's like to get locked out of Google indefinitely (2020/10/31)

Microsoft Outlook users had the same kind of problem: (2018/04/13)
darkoshi: (Default)
I have a few Gmail accounts with "darkoshi" in the name, which like my other "darkoshi" accounts such as this Dreamwidth one, I don't want associated to my legal name and address.

So I don't believe I've ever entered a phone number for those accounts. Whenever their pages have prompted me to enter one, I've chosen the option to skip it.

I have these Gmail accounts set up via IMAP in my Thunderbird, so I'm still able to receive and send mail thru them.

I logged into one of these accounts without a problem today via the web. But when logging into another of the accounts (in a fresh browser window with cookies cleared, like always), after entering my email and password, I was prompted to verify it's me by entering my recovery email address, which I did. But then it prompted me to verify it's me again in another way:

"Verify it's you. This device isn't recognized. For your security, Google wants to make sure it's really you. Enter a phone number to get a text message with a verification code."

This smacks of downright deceit to me. Entering a phone number doesn't let them verify it is me, as I've never given them a phone number before. I can only presume Google wants to have a phone number associated with my account, and this is their way of obtaining it.

I am quite annoyed that they don't instead simply say "We now require a phone number to be associated with your account. Please enter one."

I still wouldn't want to enter one, but at least they'd be being honest.
Gmail didn't even send a verification code to my recovery email address to verify that I can access it; they only made me enter the email address to show that I know what it is.

What they did send to both the email account that I'm trying to log in to, as well as the recovery email account, is an email saying:
"Critical Security Alert. Sign-in attempt was blocked. Someone just used your password to try to sign in to your account. Google blocked them, but you should check what happened."

Yes, I used my password to try to sign into my account, DUH.

https://www.wikihow.com/Bypass-Gmail-Phone-Verification
"It is no longer possible to create a new Gmail account without verifying a mobile phone number."

https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/114129
"To help protect you from abuse, we will sometimes ask you to prove you’re not a robot before you can create or sign in to your account. This extra confirmation by phone helps keep spammers from abusing our systems.
Note: To verify your account, you need a mobile device. "


So I think I will have to stop using Gmail for my Darkoshi accounts.

But what email providers let you be anonymous and don't require a phone number?
I'm ok with it being a paid service, if I can pay anonymously; that may be reason for me to try out bitcoin. Although bitcoin's not really anonymous, is it?

So I just don't know.

::sigh:: It's always something.

Now I spent hours researching that instead of what I wanted to spend my post-midnight / pre-bed time on.
But GMX mail and ProtonMail look like good contenders.
darkoshi: (Default)
I logged into YouTube in my other browser to leave some "likes" on some of these videos. The main YouTube page showed a video posted recently by one of the channels I'm subscribed to. I started watching it and then realized I haven't gotten any email notifications from YouTube in a long time, to let me know of new videos posted by the people I'm subscribed to.

YouTube Will Stop Sending Email Notifications to Alert Channel Subscribers to New Content

...as of August 13th, 2020, YouTube will no longer send out email notifications to your channel subscribers whenever you upload a new video.

According to YouTube's internal data, less than 0.1% of these emails are ever opened, while users have also complained that such notifications are an annoyance in their ever-cluttered inboxes.

"We didn't see any impact to watch time when we experimented with turning off these emails."


Gah! It stands to reason that I'd be in the 0.1% of anything, yet again.
Although when I got the emails, I didn't click the links in them as that would open them in the wrong browser. And I didn't necessarily load the images in those emails. So they probably weren't even counting me in the 0.1% even though I did use the emails to let me know when there was new content available for me to watch.

And of course it didn't impact watch time, because I watch so much other junk. But now I won't be notified of the good content I specifically subscribed to??!! Gah!

And not to mention, it's been hard in the past to keep getting the emails too, because it seems that they never *did* send them by default. I had to go into the settings and select to receive emails for each channel that I was subscribed to. So why they wouldn't still keep that as an option if you *choose* it...

:: the world makes no sense ::

Gee, I wonder if there's a third-party service that would be able to check your YouTube subscriptions for you, and email you whenever something new has been posted...

Oh, and I just realized that YouTube never bothered emailing *me* to let me know about this, either as someone who posts videos on YouTube or as someone who watches them. Which of course, as YouTube doesn't CARE about those 0.1% of viewers, why would they?

doe ray me

Sunday, June 14th, 2020 05:22 pm
darkoshi: (Default)
I sometimes use the expression "Re: xyz, ..." in writing to mean "Regarding xyz, ...".

But I was also of the belief that the "Re:" in email reply subject lines was an abbreviation for "In Reply to". So I wondered if I might be confusing people to use "Re:" in regards to topics they haven't brought up in the first place?

So I looked up which it is an abbreviation for, "regarding" or "reply". It's neither! It's an actual word all on its own, from Latin, not an abbreviation! It so happens to mean "regarding" or "with reference to".

https://www.dailywritingtips.com/regarding-re/
darkoshi: (Default)
My Thunderbird email program prompted me to update, and thinking it was one of the usual monthly updates, I clicked to allow it. Typing the new version number into my notes file, I realized it had jumped from v60.9.1 to v68.4.1!

Checking the Add-ons Manager, it shows that the 2 add-ons I had been using have now been disabled as "incompatible with Thunderbird 68.4.1".
darkoshi: (Default)
Every once in a while Google sends an email asking me to "Confirm your recovery email". But the email address this is sent to isn't shown as a recovery email in any of my Google accounts. It is a non-Gmail email address, and is the *primary* email for one of my Google accounts (which was created from a YouTube account when Google bought YouTube). When I log into that Google account and check the email & security settings, it seems fine; no confirmation required.

The email itself doesn't mention which account it relates to; it only gives a general link (https://myaccount.google.com/security-checkup) for logging into an account. I may have created another Google account at some time and forgotten about it, but then the email should already have been confirmed back then whenever.

I think this email used to be the recovery email for one of my Gmail accounts, but I switched it to a different recovery email. So why would Google start wanting to confirm the old email again?

Anyway, note to self: IGNORE THESE DURNDED EMAILS. I already checked every single account. No need to check them again.

..

Update, 2019/11/27:

Today I got a similar email for one of my other Google accounts which has a gmail.com email address. That email clearly indicated which account the message was for (the email address it was sent to), as well as the (other) recovery email address it wanted me to confirm.

When I logged into that Google account, the settings pages didn't show any outstanding action required. But when I opened the "Take Action" link that was included in the email, that page asked me to confirm (Yes/No) that the listed recovery email was still good. I clicked Yes.

The other email I mentioned above does not list which recovery email address it wants me to confirm. When I open that email's "Take Action" link, it doesn't show any required actions regarding the email addresses. So I still don't know why I was getting those emails.

The recovery email listed is the same one as I use to log into the account. Since it is not a Gmail email address, apparently that makes it the recovery email address by default. There is no option to change it or to add any other recovery email to that account.

If I click the Gmail link while logged into that non-Gmail Google account, I get this message:

Add Gmail to your Google Account

By completing this form, you're upgrading to Gmail, email from Google. Gmail works on any device, blocks spam, and much more.

You'll be able to sign in using your new Gmail address, which will become the primary email address associated with this account. We'll send account updates, invitations, and other notifications to your Gmail address.

[old non-Gmail email address] will become an alternate email address on this account, and you'll still be able to sign in with it.

If you prefer, you can create a new Google Account with email, and leave this one as-is.
darkoshi: (Default)
39 ways to close your emails

Some of my favorites from that page, including the comments:

Be well, do good deeds, and keep in touch
Confusion to your enemies
Tag. You’re it
The end (for now)
Up, up, and away,
Ta,
Happy Trails
Ciao for now
Upward and onward
osmosis, amoeba
Have a magical day

data security things

Tuesday, July 28th, 2015 10:37 pm
darkoshi: (Default)
I've generally felt that access-locked posts on DW and LJ were fairly secure. But it occurred to me recently that unless you use https to submit your post, it is still sent unencrypted over the internet. Whenever someone in your access list reads it, unless they are using https, it is also sent unencrypted. Therefore, anyone sniffing traffic could potentially capture the text and read it. I should check whether DW and LJ fully support https now; the last times I checked it, it was only partially supported.

I suppose posts are also stored unencrypted on the servers, so that they might be vulnerable to hacking. This DW news post from 2010 seems to indicate so. I guess it would be hard to encrypt posts, considering that they need to be visible not only to the author, but also to anyone the author gives access to.

.

Because Thunderbird always prompts me for a password when I bring it up, I've had a vague feeling that my email was secure. That's silly, as I know that when I cancel the password prompt a few times, I can read mail that's already been downloaded; only new mail won't be downloaded. I was also under the mistaken impression that the mail was at least stored in encrypted form on my hard drive (though obviously, there's no point in that, as one can simply open Thunderbird and read it from there).

.

I hadn't realized that the original TrueCrypt project had shut down last year, until reading about it on the above linked Thunderbird page. The circumstances around the shut down sound quite suspicious (even though they might not be). It makes me start thinking of all kinds of possible subterfuge and conspiracies. Even regarding the audit that was done on the code, which as pointed out by one of the comments on that page, was limited in scope.

I never did get around to installing and using TrueCrypt myself. It's been one of those things I'd always wanted to do, sort of, if I had more time.
darkoshi: (Default)
It's so easy nowadays with the internet to look up information and to share information with others.

When I was a kid, if I wanted an answer to a question, I'd have to ask people, or look it up in the encyclopedia or dictionary that we had at home, or go to a library and search through books. But even if you did all that, the answer might not be found.

That isn't to say that I spent much time as a child searching the library for answers to hard questions.

But still. Even if you had a whole library of books, where would you look up the answer to a question like, "Why do my shoes squeak and creak, and how can I make them stop?"

Sometimes you can figure out answers by yourself. In the past, when my shoes squeaked, it was usually due to friction between the tongue and the top of the shoe, or due to small holes in the sole. I found ways to prevent those noises.

This time, the culprit was neither the tongues nor the soles. Internet searching provided some answers I hadn't thought of. The foam layers on one of the insoles* were coming apart. So I glued them back together with silicon sealer. That fixed one of the squeaks. I also sprinkled talcum** powder under the insoles, and after a few repetitions, that got rid of most of the creaks. One of the creaks kept coming back, which I now suspect was due to a thick thread that was under the insole, perhaps letting air in. I trimmed the thread. For the time being, the squeaks and creaks are all gone. Yay.

*I originally thought that insoles are glued in, but in many cases they aren't, and you can simply pull them out.
**Corn starch didn't sound like a good idea, as it might get pasty when wet. Nor did I want my shoes to smell like baby powder. Luckily, I found that non-baby-scented talcum powder can be found in the pharmacy foot-care section. The one I got smells like wintergreen!

Anyway, I was thinking about the above, and also thinking about what will happen to that kind of data over time. People die. Then what happens to the data they've posted to the internet? If they had their own website domain, and if no one takes over paying the domain fees or web hosting provider fees after they die, their website will be gone. If they've posted data on other sites, then it will depend on how long those sites stay around. Websites are not permanent, and most will disappear or radically change over time. Some data may get archived on various sites. But the Internet Archive, for instance, while it has old webpages, isn't very searchable in the normal sense. Google's cache is sometimes useful, but I'm not sure how long Google maintains cached data, once the original websites are gone.

So the answers that I can find today while doing an internet search, may someday no longer be there to be found. Or may no longer be found in the same places. New people will have to post the answers in new places.

Another useful piece of info I found today is that if your Lotus Notes locks up for a long time whenever you paste rich text from a webpage into an email, check the Lotus Notes proxy settings. Make sure it doesn't list an old proxy server which is no longer valid.

add-ons

Saturday, August 11th, 2012 01:18 am
darkoshi: (Default)
A nice thing about open source software and add-ons:

Realizing there's a feature missing which would be useful for you,
and then realizing that you could possibly implement that feature yourself,
and then realizing that someone else might have already implemented it,
and then finding that yes indeed, someone else has implemented and made it available,
and all you need to do is install it.

.

Launchy, an add-on for Thunderbird and Firefox, which provides configurable context submenu options for opening links in your choice of browser or other application.
darkoshi: (Default)
Well. I noticed that I wasn't using the best security settings for Thunderbird, so I updated them and tested them out to make sure the email still worked.

Then I tried setting up Thunderbird to access my Yahoo email account via IMAP, and it worked! I don't know why I thought that it would only work with the paid version of Yahoo Mail. Apparently it's the POP3 access for which you're supposed to need Yahoo Mail Plus.

That means that I can set up Thunderbird on Forestfen's computer for her email, and maybe that will avoid some of the browser issues she's been having.

---

2011/08/13 Edited to add:
After setting up my Yahoo mail account in Thunderbird, receiving emails worked ok. But sending emails didn't - there were no error messages, but the emails did not arrive at their destination.

In the Outgoing Server (SMTP) settings, I had the User Name set to my Yahoo ID, without the "@yahoo.com" part. Then I changed it to include the @yahoo.com part, and sending emails started to work.

Possible security issue:
The Thunderbird Error Console (Tools - Error Console) shows these messages:
"smtp.mail.yahoo.com: server does not support RFC 5746, see CVE-2009-3555"
"imap.mail.yahoo.com: server does not support RFC 5746, see CVE-2009-3555"

I wasn't able to find much info on those errors. Apparently it is due to something on Yahoo's side not being set up correctly.
Considering this, it might be better security-wise to access one's Yahoo email via their website rather than via Thunderbird.

---

These are the Thunderbird settings that worked for me, to be able to access my free Yahoo email account via IMAP:

Account Settings:
Server Type: IMAP Mail Server
Server Name: imap.mail.yahoo.com
Port: 993 (default)
Connection Security: SSL/TLS
Authentication Method: Normal Password
User Name: yahoo_user_id (with or without @yahoo.com - it seems to work both ways)

Outgoing Server (SMTP) Settings:
Server name: smtp.mail.yahoo.com
Port: 465
Connection Security: SSL/TLS
Authentication Method: Normal Password
User Name: yahoo_user_id@yahoo.com (@yahoo.com seems to be required here, otherwise emails don't get sent right)
darkoshi: (Default)
Forestfen is having difficulties with Yahoo's new web-mail interface. Its "Clean, simple design that makes email a breeze" is different from how it was before, and therefore is not simple for her. I'm sure there are many other similarly disgruntled non-tech-savvy users like her.

Last week somehow all her Inbox messages got moved to the Trash folder, and I had to show her how to restore them. It might have happened due to the "Select All" checkbox and the "Delete" button being right next to each other, making it easy to accidentally click both.

I've suggested a few times she switch to Gmail. But her business cards have her Yahoo email address, so she doesn't want to change it.

.

This is from Yahoo Mail's Additional Terms of Service:
By using the Services, you consent to allow Yahoo!’s automated systems to scan and analyze all incoming and outgoing communications content sent and received from your account (such as Mail and Messenger content including instant messages and SMS messages) including those stored in your account to, without limitation, provide personally relevant product features and content, to match and serve targeted advertising and for spam and malware detection and abuse protection. Unless expressly stated otherwise, you will not be allowed to opt out of this feature. If you consent to this ATOS and communicate with non-Yahoo! users using the Services, you are responsible for notifying those users about this feature.

Bold font added by me - I find that last sentence rather objectionable. I wonder if Gmail has something similar in their TOS.

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