Twenty-five assorted websites, some with a student audience, are participating in a computer giveaway between 12 August and 9 September. I have no connection with any of this, except my friend in NZ Mauricio Freitas of GeekZone has put up a convenient website BacktoSchoolGiveaways that will let you reach all the participating sites. Each site will devise its own competition, so if you are keen, you should visit them all in turn during the period of their contests and try your luck.

The prizes look quite tempting – each site has a prize bundle that includes a laptop, an operating system, some software and a backpack. Good luck.

Popularity: unranked [?]

If you have a non-business fax machine, as I do, you may get unwanted spam faxes from businesses who use UTBox, which is based in Sydney. UTBox has a “fax opt-out facility” which is after the fact, i.e. you can “opt out” after you have received the unwanted fax. The press release says:

To make it easier for those marketers who wish to utilise an online fax broadcast opt-out mechanism we have introduced dontfax.me. dontfax.me is a website where receivers of un-wanted faxes can register their wish to opt-out.

This is not accurate. If you go to http://dontfax.me, you get this unhelpful screen:

Enter the URL? Isn’t this where one can opt out?

I have no idea if there was an intention to provide an opt-out form there, but the source code of the home page is bewildering. Yes, there is nothing else in the code than what you see below:

<table cellpadding=10 border=0>
<tr>
 	<td>
		<img src=/images/logo.jpg>
	</td>
	<td>
			Please enter the URL with the company name included
	</td>
	</tr>
<!--
<tr>
	<td colspan=2>
		Tired of wasting paper with your fax machine? Try an <a href="http://www.utbox.net/fax_by_email/">internet fax solution</a> so that your faxes come directly into your email.
	</td>
</tr>
!-->

</table>

So far I have received unwanted faxes from the following companies. If you want to avoid getting faxes from them, use the URL next to them to supply your fax number:

• Better Telecom – https://bettertelecom.com.au/faxstop.php
• Global Rags – Melbourne = http://dontfax.me/richmond.com ; Canberra/Fyshwick =  http://dontfax.me/globalrags
• Messages on Hold – http://www.messagesonhold.com.au/unsubscribe-fax
• Wine Growers Direct – Melbourne = http://dontfax.me/wine ;

If you know of other opt-out URLs, please add them as comments.

Contact the Advertisers

Here are some contact points for the advertisers in case you want to get in touch:

• Better Telecom = Phone 131 501
• Global Rags, Richmond VIC 3121 = Phone: 03 9528 3100. Fyshwick = Phone: 02 6248 6011. (and numerous other outlets in Australia)
• MDF Cleaning = Phone 1300 633 237 (their removal code ACYC didn’t work and the advertiser when called sounded like I wasn’t the first complainant)
  

  Unsuccessful attempt to unsubscribe

• Messages on Hold = Fax: 08 9260 4445
• Wine Growers Direct, Port Melbourne VIC = Phone 1800 635 331
• (Nameless entity, advertising 7 Nights Bali Accommodation) = Phone 1800 851 184. In spite of using the nofax.com.au service below to opt out, they spammed me again. Tried to opt out again on 14 September 2009, but note that this form accepts any random, made-up number and tells you that the number was removed. I found their website – Bali Getaways – the domain is owned by Agora Commerce ABN 20782712830. Contact details can be fetched via the form at AusRegistry.
  
  

  Allegedly successful attempt to unsubscribe

Other Fax Broadcasters

The following don’t appear to use UTBox:

EC Credit Control = Fax 1300 361 080

Why Do They Spam?

Simple, as with email spam, as long as enough suckers buy, it is worth the trouble. I have disconnected my fax/printer from the phone line, so it won’t get any more spam. For those of you who need to keep the fax connected, just hope that the technology will be obsolete soon. That date is overdue.

Popularity: 12% [?]

Heard via Mashable that a married man saw an ad on his FB page offering a “hot singles” date with his own wife. Fortunately for him, his wife Cheryl Smith (pictured in the ad on the right) understands technology and both have a good sense of humour. To avoid this happening to you, change your Facebook privacy settings as follows:

1. Login
2. Settings
3. Privacy
4. News Feed and Wall
5. Appearance in FB ads = No one

Popularity: unranked [?]

Mashable just tweeted:

15 Year Old Says Teens Are Abandoning Twitter: Where’s the Proof? – http://bit.ly/87uJ2

The article refers to a report by Matthew Robson, a 15-year, 7 months old intern at Morgan Stanley UK about teens abandoning Twitter. Good link bait. This reminded me of another post by Peter Corbett earlier this year entitled 2009 Twitter Demographics and Statistics Report.

Quantcast estimates February 2009

Quantcast estimates June 2009

Quantcast Stats

Quantcast.com stats for Twitter are estimates and we know that people don’t always supply truthful data to social media sites. That out of the way, it would seem that the percentage of teens has actually increased from 1% to 5% since February.

My unscientific survey of my two children is that the 18-yo does not have a Twitter account and the same goes for her friends. My 21-yo and his friends do.

Popularity: unranked [?]

StumbleUpon (SU) is a recommendation (rating) engine. Its users “stumble”, that is, vote for a web page they like. The theory is that most people will recommend pages that most people will consider to be interesting. The reality is that most people who use the web have probably not heard of SU and the ones who have are likely to stumble their own pages or those of their clients. SEOs and anyone who fancies themselves as a social media consultant are heavy users of the SU toolbar, which makes it easy to recommend or thumb down a page while you are looking at it.

So what’s the point to SU? I am not entirely sure, but eBay bought it for US$75M in 2007 and sold it in 2009 for an undisclosed sum back to its founders and some VCs. That was great for the founders but what about the web surfer population? I still don’t know.

When I enable the SU toolbar (I have to login), SU knows my surfing patterns and probably stores the information. If I am the first to flag a site, I get to write a review, but this is always an option for subsequent surfers. I have stumbled fewer than 40 sites, usually when I am reminded about SU by some tweet. SU links are no-followed, so there is no SEO value in the exercise, but there is some traffic value if you get enough votes and rise to the top.

My mind isn’t so vacant that I need the SU toolbar to find me a random, cool site to visit, but I believe there are many people who need such guidance. Each to their own.

BlogCatalog Group

Hartley B. Singer of Winnipeg is (for a few more hours) the administrator of a BlogCatalog group called Stumble.  I am not a member of that group. A few hours ago Hart announced that he is closing down the group because SU suspended his account indefinitely. To quote Hart’s post at BlogCatalog in part:

Your StumbleUpon account privileges have been restricted and the account is under review.

When I enquired to WHY I was under review and my account privileges have been restricted .. I received this reply:

Your account has been suspended for a violation of our TOS, which may be viewed here: www.stumbleupon.com/terms/

A list of the most common reasons for an account being suspended may be found here: www.stumbleupon.com/help/What_caused_my_account_to_be_suspended/

I have reviewed the account in question and must advise you that the suspension will remain in force indefinitely.

You may find it useful to share a link to our Terms in this group – www.blogcatalog.com/group/stumble/ – since other members may also find themselves in breach of our Terms, and their accounts subject to suspension.

It’s fine for SU to set whatever TOS they want and most people will agree that getting votes artificially doesn’t help anyone. SU doesn’t want its asset to be devalued by spammy votes. Fair enough.

However, I consider their approach heavy-handed and tantamount to bullying (stronger words come to mind). What happened to the friendly-but-firm approach of sending a warning email?

So, the SU accounts of about 4,592 people are under review and possible suspension just because they joined a BlogCatalog group? What do you think?

Popularity: unranked [?]

I will let the pictures do the talking here. I looked at Bing Maps for my childhood home in Bombay, India, which is in the area known as Thakurdwar, South Bombay. Compare the Bing map on the left with the Google one on the right. Click the images to enlarge.

Look particularly at the streets in the Bing map and see how they seem to go through houses seen in the satellite image overlay. Queens Road (Maharshi Karve Marg) goes through the sports gymkhanas near the ocean! Other roads are also figments of someone’s imagination, perhaps drawn from memory?The little lane that skirts the little SK Patil Udyan (Garden) is Badod St, shown as Badod Galli (Lane) in the Bing map which barrels for kilometres through numerous houses in a straight line!

Check out for yourself at Bing Maps. (Annoyed that it forces the .au domain on me) Some of the other errors I noted:

• Queens Road goes through the gymkhanas.
• Apollo Bunder is near Regal, i.e. inland.
• Salsette Island is near Flora Fountain and also near the Hanging Gardens.
• Colaba has fallen into the ocean.
• You get a Churchgate and a Church Gate.
• Nariman Point has also moved Inland and Fort has moved south of it.
• Khet Wadi also has a second clone.
• There is a fixation with all these Wadis on the map, as if they are major roads.

The Google map doesn’t have these problems. The street names are not spelt correctly but are near enough.

Popularity: unranked [?]