September 2009


First written on Twitter:

@docsmooth: Signs of twitspam: bio is tinyurl; <100 updates, >200 following/ers;all updates “from twitfeed”, inc. link; no conversation. Check yourself!

I just went through my followers list on twitblock.org and thought I’d write a bit deeper on this subject.

Ways to determine a twitter spammer – higher scores are more likely spammers:

  • Bio link is tinyurl or bit.ly or other URL shortener. There is *never* a reason to put this in your URL link on Twitter, unless you’re hiding the destination. +10 pts
  • you have more than 200 “friends” and less than 100 updates. +2 pts
  • you have a follower/following ratio below. .5 +2pts
  • Every single tweet has a link. +5 pts
  • Every single tweet is from TwitFeed. +5 pts
  • More than 2 tweets are from an unregistered API app. +8 pts
  • You have never @replied anyone. +1 pts

I generally block anyone above a “9″ score on this scale.

(cross-posted from my personal blog as well)

Upgrading software – always required to keep things secure. Windows, WordPress, Mac OSx, Linux, Office, Firefox, etc. So I just finished upgrading TotalNetSolutions.net again. Hopefully I’ll be able to be better about this, now that WordPress does the automatic upgrades now.

I’ve been doing the automatic upgrades on one of my other sites since they came out. They’re easy, fast, and even more painless than the 3-step upgrade that works so well. So now, I should be able to keep TNS much further away from the “cobbler’s kids” syndrome so many small company’s systems suffer with.