by joe on August 31, 2009
I’ve been considering joining Suite 101 for a while now, after reading lots of comments on different writers’ forums. Some found it difficult to join, some found it hard to get articles through the stringent editorial standards, but most agreed that the residual earnings were much better there than on other sites like Associated Content or Helium.
Well, I took the plunge, applied, and was accepted the same day. I submitted an article the next day. The second day I received notice that my article was “great” but needed a few revisions. Namely:
- Break the paragraphs up – ideally close to 75 words
- Add keywords to the subsection headings
- Remove the few occurrences of 2nd person form (“you” and “your”).
Once I made the changes and re-submitted, within one day the article was published. Now I just have to come up with 9 more articles in the next 3 months, and watch the money start rolling in. That’s a joke. But I will report back here whether the articles do indeed earn better on Suite than they do on the other venues where I’m published.
by joe on August 26, 2009
I’m generally surprised when I hear the number of people that fall for Phishing scams. I mean really, do that many people really think that some corrupt official in some remote country is going to send them millions of dollars? Less obvious are the ones that try to spoof your bank site or some other institution. Well, I got one today that I almost fell for.
The email came from ‘mail@online-paypal.com’ – which should have been a dead give-away right there. The subject was ‘(1 new message).’ The body of the message implied that someone had tried to process a charge against my paypal account, but that the transaction was on hold because it was initiated from a foreign IP address. There was a link to cancel the transaction. Of course, my first impression was “Ahah! Somebody is trying to steal from my account! Well, I’ll just hit this handy little ‘cancel’ button and put a stop to that!”
I don’t know where the button would have taken me, because at the last moment it dawned on me that paypal doesn’t generally send links in their emails. Upon close examination I realized the button didn’t link to a paypal domain at all. I forwarded the email to spoof@email.com, who did indeed confirm that it was a spoof.
The text of the email is as follows (link removed for safety):-
You have initiated a payment for $22.00 USD to info@servage.net.-
Payment details
Amount: $22.00 USD
Transaction ID: 5H633774LW536779Q
Because the payment was made from an foreign ip address, we put the transaction on hold.
To cancel this payment, click here. (this phony link went to pllthdpsec17.com)
Please do not reply to this email.
Email Id: DQ 532 XYONXVVQNMMBWRYWHDULWPGVMVRHOHKYGMIVJY
Hopefully, nobody else is dumb enough to fall for it, like I almost did.
