General « KramerC

Category: General

Google AdSense Account Disabled

September 14, 2010 at 12:57 AM

My AdSense just got disabled because apparently it “poses a risk of generating invalid activity.” Now I am assuming this invalid activity is referring to invalid click activity. I have never clicked on my own ads, I have never encouraged clicks on websites that the ads were placed on, I have read and made sure to follow the policies set by Google, and I have never received any warnings or notifications about invalid activity happening with my AdSense account.

According to the Disabled Account FAQ, Google refuses to tell you the invalid click activity they have detected since, “Because we have a need to protect our proprietary detection system, we’re unable to provide our publishers with any information about their account activity, including any web pages, users, or third-party services that may have been involved.”

Furthermore, the only way to contact them is by their appeal form. You only have one shot at the appeal and if they deny the appeal, they will not look at any further appeals and you are pretty much permanently banned from AdSense since they will not let you open another account.

I am now presented with this when I login to AdSense. I can no longer view any of my reports or any of my account information on file.

This was the email I received about my account being disabled. It does not specifically explain what the invalid activity is or what invalid activity they have detected.

This message was sent from a notification-only email address that does not
accept incoming email. Please do not reply to this message.
---------------------------------------------------------------

Hello,

After reviewing our records, we've determined that your AdSense account
poses a risk of generating invalid activity. Because we have a
responsibility to protect our AdWords advertisers from inflated costs due
to invalid activity, we've found it necessary to disable your AdSense
account. Your outstanding balance and Google's share of the revenue will
both be fully refunded back to the affected advertisers.

Please understand that we need to take such steps to maintain the
effectiveness of Google's advertising system, particularly the
advertiser-publisher relationship. We understand the inconvenience that
this may cause you, and we thank you in advance for your understanding and
cooperation.

If you have any questions or concerns about the actions we've taken, how
you can appeal this decision, or invalid activity in general, you can find
more information by visiting
http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=57153.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

So I Haven’t Blogged in a While

1 Comment

March 29, 2010 at 6:42 PM

As you may have noticed, I have not posted anything on my blog for about two months now. I just haven’t had much to write about recently and have also been busy with other things in life so I haven’t had much time to create new posts.

I plan on posting more soon.

Create an IM Protocol?

0 Comments

August 25, 2009 at 8:40 PM

Recently, I have been thinking about creating my own IM protocol. Mainly due to the fact that I think there should be another alternative in a lightweight client that supports every OS (using Java).

However, I think this wouldn’t be that worth of a write. This is because there are already written alternatives out there. For example, there’s XMPP (or Jabber), Skype, and Google Talk (Jabber). Yet, people do not use these are much. This could possibly be that they are not as popular as AIM or MSN. Also, there is already alternative clients that support multiple protocols, such as Pidgin (no ads), and Disgby.

Of course anyone that uses the official clients can easily modify them. For MSN, there’s A-Patch, Mess.be Patch, and Messenger Plus! Live. I personally use A-Patch (Mess.be never updated to 9.0 so they lost out, which sucks as they used to be my favorite), and Messenger Plus! Live. For AIM, there’s Aim Ad Hack. I personally use this cause not only does it get rid of the ads, it get rid of that garbage the AIM installer likes to put on your computer, such as the AIM Toolbar (ick!)

So would it be worth it to write an IM protocol that does what just about everything that’s already out there? Probably for a learning experience, yeah, but for a wide audience, probably not. People don’t like switching or changing from things they are used to, that’s just how the way we are. Most likely if that user is already on an IM service, they would probably stick to it for the convenience, and we all know how hard it is to get your friends to switch over to another service too (i.e AIM to MSN and vice versa).

Upgraded My Computer to an i7

4 Comments

August 23, 2009 at 11:29 PM

I’ve decided to upgrade my computer, here’s what I got, what I didn’t upgrade, and what I’ve replaced:

What I’ve Upgraded To:

ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 – $289.99 EVGA X58 SLI LE – $239.99
- I was using an ASUS board but it had known issues such as CMOS resetting when unplugging or switching off power regardless of the battery, due to it thinking of a overclocking failure (apparently it’s my GPU, what bullshit, and I doubt it was a DOA or defective deal as people have RMA’d this problem several times). It also had shut down problems, and all these issues were out there since the board was released. It was even all over the ASUS forums and no fix or anything for it, and from that point I also learned ASUS has shit support, and thus I do not recommend ASUS. Thanks a lot ASUS, for all the stress and bullshit… /rant
Intel Core i7 920 @ 2.66 GHz – $279.99
6 GB of DDR3 RAM (OCZ) – $124.99
HP DVD+/-RW SATA – $49.99
Corsair 850W PSU – $139.99

I’ve noticed it’s not cheap with Intel, but I thought I’d give them a try as I heard the i7s were badass at the moment. DDR3 memory isn’t cheap at the moment, however the i7s only support that. I didn’t care for Lightscribe when I bought the DVD burner. I’d probably never use it anyways, as I even barely use the drive.

What I Didn’t Upgrade:

2 x 1 TB SATA Hard Drives (less than a few months old)
NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT (2 years old)
- I would have upgraded, but I’m waiting for DirectX 11 to come out in the next few months.
2 x Dell S2009W monitors (Dual Monitors FTW, less than a month old)
Antec 300 Case (less than a few months old)

None of these really needed an upgrade as they are relatively new since when I ordered them and they work fine. The graphics card will need an upgrade, I may or may not do a SLi configuration. I find it’s best to wait for DirectX 11 cards to be released before I do go out and buy a new card though.

What I’ve Replaced:

MSI K9N4 SLI nForce (2 years old)
AMD Althon 64 x2 3.03 GHz (2 years old)
4 GB of DDR2 RAM (G.Skill) (half was 2 years old, other half was 1 year old)
Pioneer DVD+/-RW IDE Drive
Ultra 500W PSU (2 or 3 years old?)

Most of the technology I’ve replaced is becoming obsolete, the place I bought the motherboard from no longer sells it. The old processor came way down in price (I spent $156 on it, it’s $80 now). The old RAM I had is now 30 bucks per 2 GB! DDR2 is really cheap right now. I replaced the DVD+/-RW drive as I needed an SATA drive for the EVGA motherboard, no more IDE woot! I upgraded the PSU thinking I’d need more power for my upgrades (plus I needed an 8-pin plug).

Skype “Unlimited” Plans Are Actually Limited

0 Comments

August 5, 2009 at 11:58 PM

I was looking at Skype‘s Unlimited Calling subscriptions again, as I had one for a month before. Then I read the fair use policy only to find it to be ridiculous.

Calls to phones and mobiles and Skype To Go* calls are included in your subscription subject to a fair usage limit of 10,000 minutes per user per month, with a maximum of 6 hours per day. Also, no more than 50 different numbers in total can be called per day. If your subscription includes more than one country, then this is the total amount of minutes allowed per month on your account, and is not a separate limit for each country.

I understand the 10,000 minutes usage per month cause of how cheap the plans are, but only a maximum of 6 hours and only 50 different numbers each day, what’s up with that. Not only is that the limit per day, users have been saying if you hit the limit (post 1 and 2), you lose the subscription for the rest of the month.

It doesn’t really make any sense why they are called unlimited when they are not, seems misleading. Although I’d probably never hit one of those limits myself, so it’s not that big of a deal. I know one day I might though if I did have the plan continuously and that would be a problem.

Unfortunately, Linux Just Isn’t Ready Yet…

2 Comments

July 18, 2009 at 12:10 AM

As much as I would like to switch away from Windows and go to Linux, is it just far from being ready. Of course there is Macs, and I would yet like to try one more thoroughly, but that’s a different story. I am not saying that Windows is completely “bad”, it’s more like of being tired of Microsoft’s crap. Maybe things will get better with them, but in the meantime who knows what is going to happen.

Most of those that know about Linux know that Ubuntu is the most popular Linux distribution out there today. They try to make everything easy, but most of the time that isn’t even the case. In order to get some things done, you have to use a Shell or Terminal, which is no problem for me as I am quite used to UNIX commands for managing my server, but this is no good for those who are used to GUIs (Graphical User Interface) or pointing and clicking. It is understandable not everyone is going to remember a series of commands.

Today, while I was using Ubuntu 9.04 AMD64, I was attempting to upgrade to Firefox 3.5 manually since it will probably never be in the official Ubuntu repos (I am aware that the code-named 3.5 beta is in the repos), I used something called Ubuntuzilla to install it and create a shortcut diversion for the already Firefox 3.0 shortcuts made by the default install. After that was done, Firefox itself had issues of bringing “Server not found” errors when I know for a fact the servers do exist. After about 15 minutes of Googling the problem, I found a solution, which was to run this:

sudo apt-get install lib32nss-mdns

Now since that was solved, it was on to install Flash. Since I manually upgraded to Firefox 3.5, I didn’t get the luxury of having Ubuntu do all the dirty work for me. So I go to Adobe’s website to download Flash, and like always they never have a 64-bit version, those damn slackers. Fortunately there is something called nspluginwrapper which is to solve this problem. I am pretty much to put all plugins into /opt/firefox/plugins/ since I manually upgraded Firefox. Hooray, now Flash is installed after messing around with this for about an hour or two (lost track of time, heh).

Now it was sound that was the issue. No it wasn’t my speakers or sound card (which would be my integrated sound of the motherboard), it was actually my Logitech USB Headset. Usually with Windows, I could just plug it in, and bam, it would instantly set it to my default sound device. Unfortunately, it is much more complicated on Linux, to an extent that I just decided to say, screw it. Since, like always, every Linux setup is always different, maybe my problem could of been solved by wiping everything and starting over as I noticed with Wine everytime I used it, although that is a pain in the ass. Anyways, when I plug my device in, I go to Sound under the System menu of GNOME, set everything to my USB Headset, although of course ALSA doesn’t work, so I have to use OSS. Now I go to what I want to listen to, what so happens to be YouTube on Firefox 3.5. However, the sound always goes to my speakers. I Google this problem, none of the solutions work for me, it just won’t work. Bummer, my headset just won’t work with this >_<.

Everyone knows there are barely any programs for Linux, although this wasn’t a major downer for me, except for gaming, as much of the content is on the web now, and I am mostly on the web anyways. There are reasons for the lack of programs, (a) Windows is a monopoly, (b) It is “easy and simple” to write programs for Windows because of .NET, and (c) Software companies do not find it worth programming in Linux nor do they think they will gain enough profits from it.

Linux is just not ready for the desktop environment, and hasn’t been for a really long time. Maybe Google Chrome OS will change that, since that will be based off of Linux.

Probably The Dumbest Thing Twitter Has Done

1 Comment

July 15, 2009 at 9:18 PM

General rule of thumb, is to never use “password” as a password, and I mean nothing. It is one of the dumbest thing you can do if you actually care about the account or whatever.

I usually secure my servers with many different passwords. However, it appears Twitter didn’t think they needed a very secure password, as they used “password” as password, according to TechCrunch: Another Security Tip For Twitter: Don’t Use “Password” As Your Server Password.

MySpace Support Hell

3 Comments

June 8, 2009 at 5:52 PM

MySpace has no support whatsoever, what I was basically requesting was the removal of comments left by an account I deleted two (almost three) months ago. However, they don’t seem to understand the problem and do nothing.

Here’s the pointless email trip, it’s like I’m emailing a bot (I used the Report Abuse on the deleted profile, cause contacting them any other way has no effect):

From: "MySpace.com"
Reply-To: help@support.myspace.com
To: xxxxxxx@xxxxxxx.com
Subject: Re: Report Abuse - Other [ref:00D78NrS.50078tXGC:ref]

Hello,
Thank you for contacting MySpace!

After investigating the issue you described in your email, we were unable to find the content you referred to.

Please reply directly to this email leaving the subject intact with additional information. If possible, provide more details such as the location of, or a web address/link to the content in question.

For up-to-date information about MySpace page and site errors, visit and subscribe to the MySpace Help Blog www.myspace.com/myspacehelp.

To learn more about the MySpace Terms of Service, look for Terms at the bottom of any MySpace page, or copy and paste http://www.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=misc.terms into your browser’s address bar.

For answers to frequently asked questions about MySpace, select the FAQ link at the bottom of any MySpace page. Or copy and paste http://faq.myspace.com/ into your browser’s address bar.

Thank you,
MySpace.com
---------------

DO NOT DELETE:
--------------
CN:22840532:CN
LUID:005700000017GwX:LUID
LQID:00G70000001MUWT:LQID
ref:00D78NrS.50078tXGC:ref
--------------
-------------Original Message-------------
The comments from the account (Friend ID 455616001) are still appearing, especially here:

http://comment.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewComments&friendID=xxxxxxxxx&page=4&state=833!50!1!407811!382741

From: MySpace.com [mailto:help@support.myspace.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 11:32 AM
To: xxxxxxx@xxxxxxx.com
Subject: Re: Report Abuse - Other [ref:00D78NrS.50078tXGC:ref]

Hello,
Thank you for bringing this profile to our attention.  We have recently experienced a technical difficulty in removing/deleting profiles within our preferred timeframe.  We are working diligently to resolve this issue, as it is our top priority to timely remove profiles in their entirety. We will continue to monitor our systems in order to improve the deletion process.

Thank you for your understanding and patience. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Thank you,
MySpace.com
---------------

DO NOT DELETE:
--------------
CN:22840532:CN
LUID:00570000000sbNQ:LUID
LQID:00G70000001MUWT:LQID
ref:00D78NrS.50078tXGC:ref
--------------
-------------Original Message-------------
Display Name: Kramer
Friend ID: 455616001

The account’s picture and comment are still appearing from this account when it has been deleted, what’s up?

From: MySpace.com [mailto:help@support.myspace.com]
Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 9:42 AM
To: xxxxxxx@xxxxxxx.com
Subject: Re: Report Abuse - Other [ref:00D78NrS.50078tXGC:ref]

Hello,
Thank you for contacting MySpace Support!

Unfortunately, we need more information before we can process your request.  Please reply to this email leaving the subject intact and:

1.     State, or restate, clearly and concisely, why you are contacting MySpace Support.

2.     Include additional and specific information, including the:
Web address, URL, or links to the profile(s) you are writing about--found after http:// towards the top of your browser window in the address bar of the profile.
MySpace Friend display name.
MySpace Friend ID number.
Email address in question.
Previous email correspondence with us.
Please reply to this email leaving the subject intact.

For up-to-date information about MySpace page and site errors, visit and subscribe to the MySpace Help Blog www.myspace.com/myspacehelp.

To learn more about the MySpace Terms of Service, look for Terms at the bottom of any MySpace page, or copy and paste http://www.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=misc.terms into your browser’s address bar.

For answers to frequently asked questions about MySpace, select the FAQ link at the bottom of any MySpace page. Or copy and paste http://faq.myspace.com/ into your browser’s address bar.

Thank you,
MySpace.com
Customer Care
---------------

DO NOT DELETE:
--------------
CN:22840532:CN
LQID:00G70000001MUWT:LQID
ref:00D78NrS.50078tXGC:ref
--------------
-------------Original Message-------------5/30/2009 10:16 AM CONTACT REQUEST FORM SUBMITTED ---- Subject: Report Abuse - Other Body: Inappropriate Content Link: /index.cfm?fuseaction=help.reportabuse&abusetype=profile&ProfileContentID=455616001 Account's pictures and comments are still appearing. reportedUserId=455616001 http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=455616001 ---- UserId: xxxxxxx Name: Kramer C Email: xxxxxxx@xxxxxxx.com Current Password: New Password: New Email: Phone: DoB: ---- Browser Info:Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.0.10) Gecko/2009042316 Firefox/3.0.10 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729) Referring Page:/index.cfm?fuseaction=help.reportabuse&abusetype=profile&ProfileContentID=455616001 ---- http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=xxxxxxxx

So since all that fails, I go hit up some MySpace admin I’ve known on AIM, of course he’s no help (and why do I have to go this far?!?):

Monday, June 08, 2009
Me (2:47:43 PM): Hey, how’s it going?
MySpace Admin (2:47:56 PM): sup
Me (2:48:06 PM): Nothing much, you?
MySpace Admin (2:49:06 PM): gettting ready to leave MySpace
Me (2:49:26 PM): The company or just going home for the day?
MySpace Admin (2:49:52 PM): the ocmpany
Me (2:50:13 PM): Ah
Me (2:51:01 PM): Well I wanted to report that a deleted account still has their comments showing on someone else’s profile
MySpace Admin (2:51:16 PM): which one
Me (2:51:31 PM): Friend ID 455616001
Me (2:51:49 PM): The comments still show on here http://comment.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewComments&friendID=xxxxxxxxx&page=4&state=816!50!1!407811!382741
MySpace Admin (2:51:53 PM): the acct may not be deleted but in limbo
Me (2:52:06 PM): Weird
Me (2:52:24 PM): It was one of my old accounts that I deleted myself
MySpace Admin (2:52:32 PM): if you are in limbo all your comments stay live but you cant get into the acocunt
MySpace Admin (2:52:40 PM): ok Ill look into it
Me (2:52:59 PM): Okay thanks

Nothing has happened to resolve this, just another reason why MySpace sucks, they can’t even get their act together.

One Month Review for Linode

0 Comments

May 15, 2009 at 11:39 PM

It has been one month since I’ve used Linode, so this is my post to follow up on them.

The server I currently run all my sites on have been running flawlessly without problems. Midway through my first month, they offered 33% more disk space, meaning I get 4 GB more totalling 16 GB instead of 12 GB. I haven’t had to contact support at all, so there really isn’t anything I can say much about them. So far I have experience no down time. Everything I run works great for a small production environment, and Webmin works without problems.

I’d give Linode 5 stars out of 5.

Fun With My m3r.org Domain

0 Comments

April 15, 2009 at 9:14 PM

I wanted a short domain, so I got m3r.org. It says mer dot org, however you can do something like kra.m3r.org, making it kra dot mer dot org. I usually use this in IRC.

Now with this domain, anything will work in front of the m3r.org part, so like something.you.wish.to.put.here.m3r.org. Any of those will redirect to my blog.

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