I’d be glad to assist anyone that is having issues with the website or would like to know more about securing their LAN and/or personal computer.

Being proactive is much better than being reactive.

Sorry that my post seemed to be abrupt and forceful. I meant it to be a realization to all visitors to this website. There is a time when we all have to upgrade and some people are still stuck back in time where it hinders us from moving forward.

I don’t mean to attack you or anyone else and I as well hope to contribute facts, and step by step help as far as troubleshooting goes.

I was tired and restless with a migraine when I posted it and that didn’t help.

I would like for everyone in the world to start using a browser like firefox and be well advised as to the essential plugins that should be installed. There are a lot of people using computers that are not up to speed, so to speak, and fall behind. This causes us to lose track of the future.

It is kind of like the DTV switch and people losing their tv signal. That is another subject for another day, but similar concept.

I would rather be a bit more helpful in your situation. If you are having issues with viewing a certain part of the website, then we can collaborate our information in a better way to remedy the issue.

You can read through my previous posts by clicking on deeper archives, which allow you to go month to month.

Or you can click on one of the tags, where I have attempted to group articles by geographic region or topic.

I still need to integrate all my posts into this system.

Or you can use the calendar on the right side to find articles in recent weeks, if you are trying to find something you remember running and know the approximate time it ran.

I think you to took Andrew’s comment to be an attack or insult of some kind, but I really don’t see it.

Note to Andrew DeFilippis: You appear to be speaking to a person you’ve imagined and who’s in your head, as opposed to me. I’m over here. This is not an argument, or even a debate.

WRT the edit button issue, I had considered the matter closed, but Mr. Miller asked me about it in post 7, which you can read above. I spent some time last night researching the matter. I conducted experiments to investigate the issue. This was a sincere attempt to be helpful. I honestly don’t care about the edit button one way or the other. It would be a major convenience, but I don’t expect to be at this site for long.

WRT WP-SpamFree, I’ve apparently stepped into territory that’s important to you. As a side note to Mr. Miller, it’s the kind of thing that I’ve spoken to him about before, though I’ve used the words “respect” and “standing”, as opposed to “territory”. The terms are nearly interchangeable.

I mentioned some technical points related to WP-SpamFree that I thought were interesting and useful. I mentioned both a positive and a negative. It wasn’t a debate, and I clearly stated that I was expressing opinions.

I’d have been pleased to debate the issues involved with you, since you’re obviously well-educated for your age. Based on your About Me page, I assume that your experience dates back at least six years, so no doubt there’s many things that you could teach me. However, you do appear to be a bit too territorial for that to work.

I don’t need to be told to “adapt” or “be left behind” when I haven’t done anything but try to offer carefully worded suggestions and opinions that were clearly flagged as such.

I especially don’t need to be told to “adapt” or “be left behind” by somebody who was in diapers (based on your About Me page) when I’d been “adapting” to new technologies for decades, and in fact, contributing to them.

I don’t use the toys that you’re accustomed to playing with (again, based on your personal site). I was there when they created the things that created the things that created the toys.

I don’t find it productive to intrude into somebody’s territory unless the issues involved are important to me. I won’t refrain from offering Mr. Miller suggestions elsewhere based on experience, especially when the experience itself is significantly older than you are, but I won’t intrude on this thread again.

Yes, of course. In practice, though, sometimes it’s difficult to make a particular site work. Additionally, quite a few people out there are novices who are just learning how to do things.

However, there’s a more important point. You said, “If not, then you have something else blocking javascript”.

Exactly. There’s many potential problems. The Web isn’t a simple landscape, everybody runs a specific web server on one side and a specific web browser on the other. It’s difficult to make things work consistently. Look at the Internet Explorer 6 problem that Mr. Miller has apparently run into.

Where possible, it’s best to keep complicating factors on both sides to a minimum. This isn’t always practical. For example, once somebody starts using Adblock Plus, if it’s configured correctly, they’ll never want to give it up. They’ll just skip sites that aren’t compatible. However, on the server side, it’s definitely a good idea to keep the use of Java, Javascript, and Flash as low as possible. This doesn’t apply to major sites, of course. They’re large enough that they can afford to do things on a take it or leave it basis.

More to the point, I’m familiar with Javascript and browser add-ons, and I haven’t been able to get the web site’s edit button to appear. If I can’t do that, other people would definitely have problems with WP-SpamFree, whether or not the secondary non-Javascript method is used. Don’t forget about Adblock Plus, Cookie Safe, Greasemonkey, and other client-side security measures.

This doesn’t mean that the site shouldn’t use WP-SpamFree. The plug-in is considered to be effective and is rated quite highly. And, as I’ve pointed out myself, it’s compatible with Mr. Miller’s existing spam filter. The potential problems are just something to be taken into account.

It’s a tradeoff. My guess is that one of the challenge-based WordPress plug-ins might provide the best balance between transparency and compatibility, as long as it didn’t use Java, Javascript, Flash, or cookies. Text challenge, as opposed to “captcha”. This is just an opinion. Many bloggers use WP-SpamFree and are quite happy with it.

BTW the edit button problem doesn’t seem to be an Adblock Plus or NoScript issue, because I turned these features off. I’ll try removing them entirely at some point to be sure.

Within SpamFree:
M2 – Use two methods to set cookies.
This adds a secondary non-JavaScript method to set cookies in addition to the standard JS method.

Whitelist CarlosMiller.com within NoScript and it should show up. If not, then you have something else blocking javascript.

For the sake of completeness, I’ll note that there are some WordPress anti-spam plugins similar to “captchas” that use challenge questions instead of images. These would be less transparent than WP-SpamFree, but they might work for more visitors while being less aggravating than “captchas”.

My own perspective is that I’d avoid anything that requires Java, Javascript, SWF, or cookies, but that’s just one opinion.