Earlier this week I received what has to be the nastiest spam I've seen yet. It came from (ostensibly) "Do_Not_Reply@paypal.com" and the message "regret[ed] to inform you that your account is about to be expired in the next five business days. To avoid suspension of your account you have to reactivate it by providing us with your personal information." In order to update your information, you are asked to run the executable attached to the e-mail. Without having been so stupid as to actually run the attached code, one can only assume that at best it is a virus, and more likely it's a clever attempt at identity theft.

In the past couple of days, PayPal has added a link on their front page addressing these spams. Besides reminding people that they'll never ask you to submit information through e-mail, they provide an address (spoof@paypal.com) to which they ask people to forward such spams. They claim that they will be pursuing these spams, and given the potential the company has to actually pursue some serious legal charges against those responsible, I wish them luck.
[11.20.03]

Hee hee - it's the Worst Hockey Logos Ever!, topped off with the "Bakersfield Fog". You know, fog might not seem like such an impressive foe, but the local outdoor hockey rink has been coated in a thick layer of fog the past few weeks, what with the unseasonably warm, wet weather, and an inability to see the puck or other players approaching does put an interesting twist on the game. Be sure to click through to the last page to check out the Toledo Blades' "goalie being brained by a puck" logo.... [via Anita's LOL]
[11.10.03]

I commented last time I posted on Amazon's "Search the Book" feature, noting that they are in effect making some books' entire content freely available, if you're willing to do the work to get it. I closed with saying:

Frankly, the more I think about it, the more surprised I am that any publishers went along with this.

One thing that's confusing me. The first article from the Author's Guild says that Amazon "sets a limit that permits a user to see no more than about 20% of a particular work". I tested, and you can only view "Inside the Book" page images if you sign in as a registered user. But are they really tracking this information on their own servers? Or are they just using cookies and hoping we don't clear our cache?

A search on "whale" brought me to the 168-page novel Whale Rider by Witi Ihimaera, with 81 references to the word "whale". After viewing about 28 pages of the book, I was told that I reached "the monthly page-view limit" for the book. Deleting my cookies and logging back in didn't help. So they're obviously doing something of the sort. Seems like it could get expensive.

As a final note, whatever my intuition about long-term usefulness of the service, particularly for non-fiction, after their first week of offering the tool, Amazon showed a 9% increase of sales of searchable books compared to those not participating.
[11.7.03]