Anatomy of Visa giftcards

Since I got a Visa giftcard from a competition I finally got around to ordering this.

Unfortunately Visa giftcards seem to be a right royal nuisance. Paypal won't take them, the stores here won't touch them because they aren't chip and pin, so now I'm left hoping that Amazon.co.uk will actually accept them. Just to make things even more confusing there's no way to check the balance on it without phoning the states.

All in all, it's rather annoying.

Articles, comments, and respect

Over the last few weeks I've had two comments that stood out on my articles. Both of them exemplify why you need to be careful to handle the content with respect, no matter what you are writing about.

The first was a comment by the author on the Michael Jecks lens. As far as I can verify it is genuine, and very flattering. The other is more sombre, on the lens about the Jervis Bay and HX-84.

I think I normally treat my subjects with a great deal of respect, but this was rather a surprise. I knew I was writing about real events and real people, but for some reason I didn't think the subjects of my lenses would ever actually notice them. Since no one has taken offence, I think I have handled the subjects appropriately.

Actually, when I said the subjects of the lenses would never notice them, there is one notable exception: The Lancastria lens. The lens is unaffiliated with the official memorial campaign, but ever since it went up I have got requests from survivors' relatives for contact details for the organisation and ways to trace their family. All you can do in that situation is to pass them on to the official resources who may be able to help.

But it is a reminder, if you are writing online, to remember that the subject of your article, comment or rant may well see it, and why you should treat subjects (especially controversial ones) with respect.

Sponsored Tweets

One of the newest ways to make money online is SponsoredTweets.

This system is easy to set up if you have a Twitter account. Once set up you review and accept offers from advertisers, and agree the tweet content. The Tweet is sent out automatically through your feed, and you then get paid for clicks. If you want to, you can also use it to promote charities wihout making a profit.

I've been trying this one out. So far it's simple and easy to use, but I've run into a small issue: a sense of ethics. I won't review or endorse a product I haven't used, and many advertisers ask you to do that. I also won't endorse gambling, payday loans or certain other activities. This limits the opportunities considerably.

Also, they only offer animated badges as weblinks, which is why you won't find one on this blog.

In short, if you're an established twitter user, it might be worth giving this a look.

• SponsoredTweets

Charities who get it wrong

When you get to my age, birthdays tend to pass unremarked. After all, I'm a bit old for cake and balloons (well, balloons at least). It was a bit of a shock to find that there is one group who certainly don't think I'm passed the age where a birthday needs to be marked.

A card from family, a couple of phone calls which were nice and otherwise nothing, much as I expected. Then I checked my email.

Nineteen "Happy Birthday" messages from charities, all of which boiled down to "It's your special day - now give us money!" I thought on birthdays people were supposed to give you things, not the other way round?

Instead of ranting about the culprits, I'm going to take the positive step of requesting donations for a charity that didn't spam me and who I do support:

• Donate here

A busy day yesterday

A very busy day doing bits and bobs. There were a few highlights.

Going through boxes from our house move, we found the old mobiles to trade. It was a surprise to find that our local CEX is not only a lot simpler to use than envirophone, they pay more. We also cleared a lot more space.

We also took the chance to visit a market and street fair for a day out, which was fun, but did result in an slightly awkward moment. One of my friends through it would be a good idea to buy these: Giggly Pigs WowWow Sausages. Now, I've tried samples before and they've been hot but managable, so after they got home and cooked, I took a small bite from the offered portion.

OK. The ones in the packet, sealed and wrapped, are several times hotter then I remembered. A few pints of milk and a couple of hours later and my eyes were still watering. That's when we looked up the ingredients: chilli, chilli, and even hotter chilli. And some pork. He's taking a sample into work for a colleague who claims he's neverfound anything hot enough. I'm awaiting the report this evening.

They are nice, if you like hot food, but make sure you have water on hand. Even my Thai-food loving husband had to eat these sparingly!

Twitter galore! - Twiends & Tweetdeck

I've signed up with Twiends, a system that is supposed to give you a chance to find people who share your interests on Twitter and get "credits" for following them. Fortunately credits are free (and given my experience I would not suggest paying for them!).

My first attempt at using it left me with a lot of marketers who signed up quickly to get my credits, so I turned it off for a while while I browsed and signed up to follow people I was interested in and blocked or reported most of the rest. I was also slightly concerned about the logistics of following that many people back, since a lot of useful posts can get lost in the noise.

This morning I ran into Twiends again. I set up an account for a client, set up one for me, and turned my other one back on. The results were interesting, to say the least. Basically, whole sets of people are using the "follow everyone" option (easily detected as they all signed up for the three accounts simultaneously).

Since huge chunks of people obviously just want a follow-back and credits (I'll point out I'm not involved in Alaskan oil, and leave it at that), instead of wading through all the people following me to see who to follow, I'll leave it a day, see who unfollows because they've already got the credits for signing up, and then go through the remainder to see who I should follow. Since many of these multiple-sign-ups are using systems that automatically unsubscribe people who don't follow back in 24 hours, it should clear a lot of the spam before I have to deal with it.

I don't use auto-unsubscribe, by the way. If I'm following you, it's because I want to hear what you're saying, not because I expect a followback. I wish more people would extend the same courtesy.

My opinion of Twiends? Well, it defintely does what it says, and gets you followers. How interested those followers are in your topics? That varies. So far I have blocked ten, but have left two and followed two more.

And a very big recommendation to Tweetdeck as the best bit of free software I've found this year. Scheduled Tweets, managing multiple accounts simultaneously, and making it really easy to detect spammers. It will get its own entry shortly, but I've been playing with it for a week now and I'm still finding new ways to shamelessly exploit it.

Opinion of Tweetdeck? Get this one: It's free, it does exactly what it says on the tin, and then more.

Today bites

Literally. As if I didn't have enough to worry about with the flat sale and the book deal, my cat just learned to open deadbolts.

The deadbolt he was trying on was too stiff to move fortunately. However when he tried it again he got so frustrated he walked up, rubbed his face on my arm and bit me!

The only time that's happened before I had catnip on my fingers. This time I have no clue, but it got him a tap on the nose and my arm in TCP. Looks like he hasn't broken the skin, but to be honest I'm still rather shocked. It's just so out of character for him.

Going a bit mad

My nerves are killing me. No matter how many distractions I plan or how hard I work in the garden, I still keep dreaming about rejection letters. My waking moments are filled with worry that the manuscript:

1. has been lost in the post
2. is stuck in the slushpile
3. gets an auto-reject from someone who doesn't realise it was requested
4. isn't what they are looking for

I think this is called going a bit mad.

We also hear back today about the flat sale, which is not helping my state of mind. We're at the point of actually pulling out, and that's not something we thought we'd ever say. When the management company, having met the new buyer, requests that we don't sell and let the place ourselves you know it's not just us who think the buyer's being unreasonable. Before we jump through any more hoops there will need to be a show of good faith on their side. I'm even getting money out of savings in case we do wind up having to redo and let it ourselves.

And all of this blows up at 11:00 today.

Update: Oh who didn't see this coming? The flat buyer has now decided that he wants the electrical survey done after all - and while a neutral electrician works on the place and the owners are at work, he and his plasterer can have a look round to price up the redecoration.

No. Not until he buys the flat. It's been gas-checked, damp-checked, prodded, poked and everything else. We've done more than we needed to or were required to. If he wants to redecorate, he can buy it first.

Another interesting day - and a reminder

The reminder first, to the person who hooked my twitter and blog up to his jobs feed: I'm off the clock here. Here's a hint: I don't talk about sacrificial ritual, horror, steam engines, aircraft, writing articles, games or publishing at work - I get paid to do work, not fun. Don't expect me to talk security, network set up, user experience or browser issues on here or twitter - I don't work for free. My Twitter doesn't have my name and isn't linked to my email to avoid this conflict of interest, so congratulations on your detective work: it got you blocked and reported, as did your Facebook spam (By the way, I'm not on it).

I would have been less annoyed, but today has not been good.

The boiler's fixed, despite the cats frantically trying to get into the cupboard or up the loft ladder, or investigate the plumbing equipment. Once they started double teaming me I ended up shutting them outside - quite tricky since one can open doors.

Flat buyer discovered that, while my husband may be the type to let him bring his own plumber into the flat unsupervised to perform a "check" I am not. I am not being awkward for the sake of it: one of the easiest scams in the world is for someone with a tame plumber to get them to hit a couple of valves with a wrench and claim it needs repair. It costs them nothing since either the seller repairs it, or the seller knocks the "repair cost" they quote off the price. If the seller pulls out, the buyer looses nothing. I don't think this was the buyer's intent or we would not be proceeding with the sale, but it's an easy one to fall prey to so I am taking the line that his plumber gets access to the flat once he's bought it, not before.

My suggestion was that the estate agent finds a "neutral" third party and accompany them into the flat to perform the checks, while we split the cost. The buyer's request for one check has already been dropped, so now it hinges on the second.

Wedding aniversary coming up and no ideas whatsoever what to do, since all my efforts have been tied up in resolving the above issues.

And finally preorders for the book are slowly picking up. Every time I wonder if I did the right thing, that simple fact makes it clear I did, as did the fact that my existing article royalties can pay the bills.