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Entrecard Changes

Saturday, April 5th, 2008

I know I have talked about how much I love Entrecard. They are a great way to drive traffic to your blog and have a great community. Today, some cool changes took place and some not so cool changes too.

First, the cool changes. Now, you can see how many times a person has dropped their Entrecard on you. It also lists your last 5 posts that you have done on your blog. Both are very cool changes that I think are great.

Now, onto the not so good changes. The change that I absolutely hate that happened today (without any warning) is that you can only drop 600 cards per ip. Now, if you have one blog this is no big deal. However, if you have more than 2 blogs in the system (I have 3), this royally screws you. How? Normally, you can drop 300 cards per account you have. Since I have 3 accounts, I was dropping up to 900 cards a day. Yes, I actually do read the majority of those blogs I was dropping my cards on (not everybody updates daily or weekly). It would take me several hours a day to do. However, the traffic that I received from that made it well worth me doing. By looking at my entrecard stats, I can definitely see the difference in my traffic depending on the number of cards I dropped. More cards = more traffic.

Now, this not only effects me. This effects every person who has more than 2 blogs in the system. If I drop evenly between my blogs, I will drop only 200 cards per blog. I am losing out on potentially 100 more drops (if everyone reciprocates). If this is the case, this blog will never make the top three spots nor will my other two blogs since I won’t be able to reciprocate everyone who drops on me. I am also going to assume that the top three blogs are people who only have a single blog in the system. If that is the case, they will be dropping 300 cards to my 200 on a daily basis. Tell me how I ever catch up to the lost traffic. The top spots got there by dropping 300 cards daily.

This change effects anyone who uses a shared computer and/or ip to do their drops. Husbands and wives won’t be able to both have accounts and not effect each others ability to drop. People won’t be able to drop (or be limited) from work if anybody else in the building does Entrecard. And heaven forbid, if you have to use an internet cafe or library to drop. Who knows if somebody already used up the 600 drops off those ips?

What’s the reason for this change? Well, according to Phirate (one of the head guys of Entrecard):

It’s not a penalty, it’s just our only real rational response to people creating multiple “spam blogs” and going nuts dropping a thousand + per day. Unfortunately, some legitimate users will get caught in the cross-fire.

Well, go after the spam blogs. Set up a system where the blogs have to be 30-60 days old and have 10 posts or so. That should weed out a bunch of them right off the bat. I would think they would rather be able to say that they have 7,000 good blogs in the system instead of 6,000 good and 1,000 not so good.

Another issue with this is that it is pretty easy to change your IP. If you use AT&T like I do, it is simple (just a pain in the butt to have to do everyday). I won’t go into how you do it, but if I know how to do it, the spammers definitely do to. Also, another way around this is to use a proxy. Again, if I figured this out, so can the spammers.

Entrecard, I love your system. It does exactly what it is suppose to — it drives traffic to my blogs. However, you are hurting the very people who make the system great. I would think that you would want your best users to be able to put more of their quality blogs into the system.

If you agree, please let them know. From the few people I have talked to like Jenn, I am not the only one who doesn’t agree with this change. Entrecard has made tons of changes based on what the users want. I am hoping that the users can bring about change again.

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Wednesday’s Hero

Wednesday, February 6th, 2008

This week’s hero is a good one. Robert Cone is the second Cousin of Wednesday Hero’s partner in crime, Greta.

Robert S. Cone
85 years old from Delray Beach, Florida
506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division

Surrounded by family, feted by a U.S. congressman and a Veterans of Foreign Wars color guard, one of the few surviving members of the “Filthy Thirteen” was honored on October 8, 2006 in a backyard on Massapoag Avenue.

Robert S. Cone, 85, now of Delray Beach, Fla., finally received the 13 military medals he was due for his service on D-Day during World War II, including the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, POW medal and Presidential Unit Citation.

“To tell you the truth, I never expected it. I’m very honored to get it and really feel good about it,” Cone said.

“He’s finding it an honor, and he’s a little embarrassed, to be honest,” said Cone’s son, Edward R. Cone, 45, who hosted the family barbecue that included a visit from U.S. Rep. Stephen F. Lynch.

Only a few members remain of the 101st Airborne Division’s famed “Filthy Thirteen,” an elite parachute and demolition unit that volunteered for a suicide mission on June 5, 1944, the eve of the D-Day invasion of Normandy.

The Filthy Thirteen, who shared a Quonset Hut in England, were a group of “pretty bad boys,” Edward Cone said, renowned for hard-living and fierce fighting. They are believed to be the inspiration for the 1967 movie “The Dirty Dozen,” although none of the Filthy Thirteen was a convict.

The unit’s mission was to parachute behind enemy lines on the night before D-Day to blow up bridges and impede the Nazis.

Many were killed on the drop. The survivors found it difficult to reunite on the ground because the pilots had panicked when the Germans opened fire.

Cone said he spent two days in a hedgerow battle and was shot in the right arm. When he escaped to a French farmhouse, the owner turned him over to the Nazis and he became a prisoner of war.

His unit and his family thought he was dead. His mother, in Roxbury, received a telegram from the War Department saying he had been killed in action.

Cone spent 11 months in three POW camps in Germany before being liberated by the Russians near the Polish border. He fought alongside the Russians as they made their escape, his son said.

Cone walked to freedom through Poland, Russia and Romania, journeyed by ship to Egypt and was eventually flow to Italy, finally making his way home.

All the medal ceremonies had taken place without him.

Cone married Ida, now his wife of 61 years; became a postal worker and plumber; raised three children in Hull; and spoke very little about the war, Edward Cone said.

About four years ago, Edward Cone decided to find out whether any of his father’s Army colleagues were still alive.

He found the Filthy Thirteen’s leader, Jake McNiece, in Oklahoma, and put his father in touch by telephone. Their conversation was recorded by the BBC and played on the anniversary of D-Day.

Later, the History Channel filmed its own segment on the pair, which still airs, Edward Cone said.

The group reunited in Taccoa, Ga., the home of their jump school.

“My Dad and I drove from here to Georgia. I heard everything on that trip,” Edward Cone said. “Three were alive from the unit. They talked and drank and told stories for days.”

Three years ago, McNiece published a book, “The Filthy Thirteen: From the Dustbowl to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest: The 101st Airborne’s Most Legendary Squad of Combat Paratroopers.”

It was McNiece who mentioned that Cone was due a few medals. Edward Cone and his fiance, Kate Guthrie of Leominster, who works at the Statehouse, gathered documentation and contacted Lynch.

The result was the Sunday party, also attended by Cone’s daughters, Ronna Townsend of Monroe Township, N.J., and Natalie Gaudet of Hampton, N.H., and most of his seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

Cone admits he never talked much about the war before.

“I really didn’t,” Cone said. “But they insisted I tell the grandchildren and the great grandchildren. So I talk to them. I tell them stories. I tell them true stories. They all enjoy it.”

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.
We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived

This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.

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Stop Cyber Bullying

Tuesday, May 1st, 2007

You thought bullying only happened in school, right? Well, welcome to the internet world where jerks hide behind proxies and anonymous comments to prey upon women. Yes, this is really happening.

I am not writing this to scare anyone. I think the majority of people on the internet mind their own business. It is the minority of people out there that are making some of our lives miserable. I am not sure if you have heard the story of Kathy Sierra. If you haven’t, please click the link. Yes, that is really happening.

Good Morning America did a short piece on cyber stalking this morning. See it here:

To me, it seemed more a fluff piece than anything, but I guess that is how you bring it to the nations attention. You start slowly. Kathy Sierra was interviewed for this. My friend Kat was also. She has had a cyber stalker for the past 5 years. Yes, 5 years and the authorities will not do anything to help her. He has threatened to turn her into Child Protective Services, threatened her, threatened her children, called her father a pedophile, and I could go on and on. I will not publish the site that he runs, because I do not want to drive traffic to him. However, in reviewing his site, I found several of my other online friends on there. One of them took down her blog last night due to finding herself on his hit list (she did put it back up this morning). There is also a piece written by the Washington Post which explains the situation much better.

I wish I could say I am not afraid of this type of behavior. In the internet world today, you can locate anyone (see privacy post below). With a new baby on the way, I don’t need this kind of crap in my life. I luck out. I have not become a target (yet). I would love to say that I would stand up to these a$$holes who do this. However, if my life and my kids lives are being threatened, I think I may do what Kathy did and pack my bags and close my blog. I give Kat a ton of credit for putting up with crap for 5 years now.

We cannot allow these creeps to do this to others on the web. I ask that all of you put the ribbon that Beth created on your site. Blog about this. The only way this is going to stop is if people take a stand and make these lowlifes realize that this is not acceptable! Or use this one: