Wow, what an annoyance! I was minding my own business checking email, only to find that some really annoying person had been running some sort of automated comment spam system against my blog. After checking the IP address I realised that they were coming from 94.102.60.150 - 94.102.60.153 and were generating random messages and random names with false email addresses. Personally I don’t get the point of this type of spam, I mean I have deleted a few comments that simply read “great post, checkout my website at www.jeansforsale.com” and was posted on a post about real estate, but this spam doesn’t entice anyone to visit a website or have any usable information at all. It is just really
annoying.
So if you want to stop this comment spammer as well, here is an easy way to do this in Wordpress. Go to Settings and then click on Discussion. Near the bottom is a Blacklist box. Now you can either individually add the four ip addresses into this box, or if you are paranoid like me and think that he might start using more ip addresses, then you can block the whole range. I entered 94.102.60.* into the box which will block about 256 computers from entering comments on your site. I did this because if the spammer bought 12 ip addresses instead of just four, they will probably be in the same range.
What I also did was tick the box that says users must have at least one approved comment. This doesn’t stop the comment from being posted, however it stops the comment from appearing on your site until you approve it. I will leave this one for about a month or so as it generates lots of work for you if you get lots of comments from new visitors. I turned this on though so if the guy has a different range of ip addresses he starts to try, his software will see that the comments are not appearing and hopefully move onto the next blog.
I will also be adding a plugin which asks the commentor to fill in a number which cannot be read by an automated bot. I will let you know which plugin I use when I have evaluated a few.
I am JMR and this is My Little Corner on JMRPub.com
OK so the Zemanta plug-in doesn’t give me the cool results on my blog that I was expecting. It does some really cool things like automatically finding and offering up some images relating to the post (these image suggestions update as you type which is really cool) and offer some related posts from third party sites that you can add below your post. I loved the images but personally the post suggestions where mostly something which I would not want associated with my blog. So let’s see how Windows Live writer compares 
I have been thinking alot about the Bible lately. I know I am a Christian and I am supposed to be thinking about the bible alot but, it is difficult to stay focused enough to really spend some good time in the bible. Many people will tell you that all you need is a daily devotional passage and away you go.
The problem I find with daily devotionals is that they are very shallow, I mean, take a verse like John 11:35 "Jesus Wept". This verse has the reputation of being the shortest verse in the bible (the English one). Reading from a daily devotional may not give you the full picture of what is happening here. We need to apply some sound hermeneutical principles here. So first we ask ourselves, "Who is the subject of this verse?", Jesus would be the answer, then we would ask "What is He doing?", and would have to answer that He is weeping, or more correctly He wept (since the word is in the past tense). We would look at the type of weeping, who was present, and many other questions. This type of study is called an exegetical study. You read out what the Word says and you don’t read some preconceived idea into the bible.
Most devotionals have a verse, or sometimes a small number of verses and then an interpretation of those verses. My question is, who is the writer of the devotional to tell you what scripture says? God’s Word is simple enough to understand to all but the youngest of children, it just takes a little work and yes, a little time too.
So if you wake up in the morning and already feel that your day is fully booked, force yourself to take ten to fifteen minutes to read from God’s word. Follow a plan, do not randomly open the bible to a verse you feel is good. "All scripture is God breathed", yes, even the genealogies. How are we going to learn about God’s plan if we only read selected pieces from His word. Make it a habit to read some of scripture daily and you will find the more you learn, the more you realise that you have so much more to learn.
What do you guys do for your morning / evening devotionals?
I am JMR and this is My Little Corner on JMRPub.com
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