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Getting Rid of Spam Registrations

Alright, so I have spent the last few days FRANTICALLY trying to stop user registration spam on one of my sites. I have been wanting to get Buddypress going on one of them and was determined to get it up and running efficiently, so when my inbox started absolutely FLOODING with spam user registrations (more than 50 a day) I was beside myself!! Making it worse was that my gmail was reaching it’s memory limit making it double frustrating. So I was trying to delete as many emails as I could while getting way more a day than usual.

I started trying different plugins for spam, I already had Akismet and I tried probably about five different ones too. Keep in mind I’m home with the three kids these days so basically this means that when I had time I’d research plugins on my phone, go to my computer and install in less than about 5min, look at what time it was and watch my inbox. The first bunch of them, all of which I tried one at a time did absolutely nothing. The most promising one with the most users/reviews didn’t like the way my server was set up. I had gone through and gotten the right key to apply and everything, totally frustrating, and I don’t have time to call GoDaddy and ask them to reconfigure my server right now.

Finally today, rather than trusting Google/Wordpress recommendations I went straight to Buddypress. I then clicked “Plugins” to see if they recommended any for this issue and I found one, they had WP-SpamShield Anti-Spam. As you can imagine I went and installed it, checked the time (it was 12:50pm) and while I had gotten another spam registration at that very point in time, I simply deleted it and waited.

Now, it is 7:26pm and I am declaring victory…I have not gotten any new spam registrations and in addition to that I’ve gotten a “real” comment on that site, that of course I had time to follow up with since I wasn’t trying to find another spam solution.

So happy dance!! I totally recommend WP-SpamShield to anyone who is trying out BuddyPress to create an online community using WordPress!!! If you want to donate to them continuing this effort to prevent spam (please do) click HERE! I wish I could donate more..

I learned and will (hopefully) remember to go straight to the source next time I’m looking for a solution…

This post originally appeared on KristinBennett.com and was reposted here with permission from Kristin herself.

Gmail Delete vs Delete Forever

Glad I figured this one out!! I have been getting gmail warnings about my storage running out. I know that I get a lot of emails, but I thought I had been pretty good about deleting stuff! I was searching and searching for both big files and also for emails that I’m subscribed to that might have piled up, and after deleting those it seemed I had not even made a dent.

So I searched more, and saw one little sentence that said I might want to clear my trash, and Delete Forever. I think I had assumed that like the Spam it would automatically do this at some point, but I’ve used a PC, I know about emptying the trash and whatnot. So I went to my trash, selected the 89,000+ messages that were in there (wha??) and clicked that little button. It was taking a while to do so I left that window and left the computer for a while, eventually going to bed.

When I woke up this morning, I looked at my gmail and I’m thrilled! It is now showing as only 65% full vs the 99.9% full, I figured I should write about it here in case anyone else experiences running out of their g-space!!

To do what I did:

1.) Delete as many emails as possible, good to clear you inbox anyway.

2.) Click on “Trash” which is just a few links under your “Inbox” link

3.) Click “Select All” and also click the link above all the emails that says “All 50 conversations on this page are selected. Select all 2,553 conversations in Trash” the number of course will relate to yours and how many you have.
4.) After all that simply click the Delete Forever button! It might take a few minutes but when you are done, that is it!

Happy Gmail!!

Trello keeps me Mellow…

I love the simplicity of Trello. When I was working in a SaaS company and prioritizing defects in the scrum backlog, I would frequently hear the little voice in my head…”It makes so much sense! If only I could organize my life/what I need to do this way!” I didn’t discover Trello for a few more years but OMG. I was beyond ecstatic to realize that someone had actually made exactly what I wanted, and more than just make it? They made it FREE.

So now you can organize things like Sales Funnels, Family Stuff, Grocery Lists and more in these amazingly simple lists of things that you can drag around…yes, it is that simple. Here is a screen shot of a Grocery List example for the other parents out there:

Then let’s say, I go to the drug store, pick up the stuff I had to get there, and decided I would just get a six pack of beer rather than the Costco size box, I just simply drag those four items over the the other column!:

As you can see, the items are preserved and can just kind of hang out in that last list on the far right called “Ok we got it..” because probably we’ll need it again, and when we do, I can simply drag in over to the appropriate column…

Bonus Perks? Ok, yes there are a few. You can add other people to the list, as you can see in this image where I added my husband to this grocery list board:

So for me, and you (if you choose) it can be an awesome way to keep a list of what is needed in the house…I’m not going to get into the other examples of how to use it because I think you get it! Let me know if you have questions though and enjoy your new digital organization of to-do’s…scrum style.

Morning Words = Anxiety Relief

I had to write about how this morning went for me…I was anxious. I was waiting for one of those emails that is important enough to be absolutely distracting and I was hardly able to get anything done except constantly checking my phone for emails, which of course made me more anxious each time I checked since the email wasn’t there yet.

I have used 750words.com many times in the past and have even won a bunch of badges on there, but it’s a habit that I’ve fallen off the wagon a few times. I realized that it would be a great way to deal with this email I was waiting for, so I opened up my chromebook and logged in.

What Will Happen?
I find that it helps me to get a realistic perspective when I lay it all out there, from the worst to the best scenario. So I wrote about the varying possible reasons I hadn’t gotten the email yet:

1. Maybe  they decided not to go forward with what we had been discussing that the email was regarding. I would know that this was the result in one of two ways, I would either get an email telling me so, or I would simply not get another email.
2. Another reason for the delay could be that the email may have gone into a spam folder, so then I went ahead and committed to checking that.
3. Lastly it might be on it’s way, and everything would move forward as planned.

Then What?
I then followed each of these up with what I could do with these possibilities.

1. All about the options that would open up if I didn’t get the email or opportunity that was expected. It would mean that I would have my time to focus on what I wanted to do, and so I expanded on that.
2. What would I like to do if everything related to the email DID work out, and what my intentions were regarding that. I even made a shopping list of what I would want to get with the related proceeds.
3. What I could do in the meantime while I was waiting…little things I’ve been meaning to do and that sort of thing.

When I Finished
As soon as I finished I went ahead and looked at my phone and “Voila!!” you guessed it…the email was there, and I was able to confirm that I got it and move forward with all those things I had so neatly laid out for myself to accomplish…

“Morning Pages” are a great way to start the day! (Morning Pages are something recommended in The Artists Way.

Life is good, and so it is!

3 Ways to Organize Playdates using Facebook

Knowing so many people and being a pretty public person this has been a challenge…I have a lot of friends with kids/without kids and even a lot of friends whose kids are probably my age. I have kids that go to three different schools and at least two of them have at least 2 past schools that they have friends from so you can imagine how many parents I have met just a few times but that I’m connected with because of that one time our kids got along! I think I figured it out though, these are the three methods I have found for organizing playdates as safely as possible on Facebook!:

1. Class/School Groups
   I do like it when there is a group for a particular class or school on Facebook. For example there is a group for my kindergartner’s class and also my preschooler’s school, whether it is for a school or a class depends on the size and age range of the school. Having a group like this works well for scheduling pretty big/casual playdates on occasion! If you want a group like this and someone hasn’t already made one, it is pretty easy to make a group on Facebook. What you do is you click on the “Home” button at the very top of the page when you are logged in:
   when you click more you will get to the “Groups” page and there will be a button to create a new group!
   
   Then hover over “Groups” on the left hand side of the screen and click “More”:
   After you create the group you can talk to the people you know who are a part of that group of people and invite them to your group on Facebook. The security setting I prefer for this kind of a group is “Closed” or “Secret”, the difference is that with “Secret” it is completely hidden and can’t be found, and with “Closed” the members and the group ARE visible to everyone but the posts are kept hidden from anyone who isn’t a member. I usually use closed unless I know that I have invited everyone, then secret might be more appropriate. I think that the secret is only good if you have a group that is highly concerned with privacy, but honestly if it is that big of a concern I prefer to keep it OFF of Facebook. Important thing is the posts and events are kept secret in the Closed group and what makes sense to me.
2. Parent Friend List
   The Friend list option is available when you click the Friends drop-down and get some options and you select the “Add to another list” option where you get a chance to create a new list like “Parent Friends” or “Juniors Friends” or something like that. Then you can post invites to events directly on your wall and specify that you want only people on this list to see the post. This option makes the most sense if you have people that you want to invite that you know from different places and that don’t make sense to group together for that reason. This is where you select the different audiences on your post:
   You could also of course mention that the post is only visible to a select few…
   …and that’s how you do it that way!
3. Personal Message
   Finally the third and most personal way to coordinate is through a direct chat/message. You do this as you probably know by either finding your friend through the search option and sending a message or by finding them on the right part of your screen via the chat. This way you can focus on just one or two people. You can chat more than one person at once by going to your message bubble at the very top of your screen and selecting “Send a new message” too because it allows you to manually select who you want it to go to. I prefer not to do this because if you accidentally include someone who doesn’t want to be a part of it then it can be irritating to be notified whenever someone adds a message. So for this method I prefer only talking to one person at a time unless everyone knows each other and you are sure they will all be interested.

Those are the main three ways to coordinate a playdate as privately as possible on Facebook…you can of course also create an event but I usually save that for more formal occasions, birthday parties for example. For more spontaneous real life playdates these are my chosen methods.

Do you have another method that works for you to coordinate playdates on Facebook?

 

Fundraising + Designing Clothes = Awesome FADS

So I know there are a few companies that make doing this possible, but this is the first one that I know of that is 100% focused on t-shirts.

What you do is you click the “Create a Campaign” link and then you design your shirt! You can upload images or use the shapes/images/text that they have available to use. Once your design is to your liking you press NEXT and…

You login! I was able to easily create my account by linking it to my facebook profile and then just choosing a screen name.

After that you set your campaign goal and start promoting your campaign.

I can see this being good for school fundraisers, teams, family emergencies and more…I wish I did this when my cat had those crazy vet bills after being hit by a car!

Have fun and let me know how it goes!

Fundraising + Decluttering = SCORE!!

I found another great fundraising tool, especially for Moms who like me have a few kids that are in the fast growing stage (aka just about any age kid pretty much). How Schoola works is you collect clothes (the ones that didn’t get worn enough and are still in good condition) and send them in. Schoola then takes pictures of them and lists them on the site for other people to buy. When people buy the clothes from the site, your school gets money!! Likewise when you shop at Schoola, you are benefiting other schools.

It is a total win-win situation…and if your school is already listed on their site you can simply request that a bag be sent to you, fill it up and send it back. There is finally something you can do with all those unclaimed lost and found pieces that benefits the school! Yay!

I Got Tired of Buying New Little Bricks!!

Am I the only mom with a child that wants a new lego set EVERY SINGLE DAY? I thought I was going to have to get another job to support the habit until I found out about this sweet offering:

So now for $19.99 we can get a new (to us) lego set in the mail, and when we are done with it just send it back and prepare for the next one…I love it!!

Training Continues…

I’m participating in the upcoming Walk/Run MS this year in Seattle. It will be my first 5k and I’m totally excited, I started running outside and also going to the gym. It was FUN to watch my numbers and track my progress.

I can’t find my Fitbit (cue the sad music). It happened when I was sleeping, I had the Fitbit part (that goes in the bracelet) in the shelf of my shelf tank because I thought it would be safe there. Fitbit ever so nicely was sending me a new one so I was looking forward to putting it into a new home, and I was grateful that when I ran/slept it was still being tracked.

I know that I lost it at approximately 10pm that night. I think that was when I was bringing my daughter from my bed to her bed, or maybe it was my son. I knew because that’s when my tracker says I “fell asleep”.

It was torture for the next few days trying to find it..I set all kinds of alarms to make it vibrate via the computer. I could tell it was within about 20 feet at that point because I could still push a sync!

Sadly I never found it.

I am still training but I’m not getting nearly as much satisfaction out of it, in fact I think that is why I’m online blogging about it, because I’m not getting the validation that I need from my personal tracking device.

Can you relate? Has this happened to you? I am resisting buying a new one but it’s driving me crazy…I know it is here somewhere, and that I will probably find it as soon as I buy a new one though…hmm.

I guess I could give one of them to my daughter, she’d like that. She always did tell me that she wanted one! I suppose that is the thing to do, just buy a new one.

Thanks for letting me work all that out!! Let me know if you have a Fitbit/tracking device story to share!!