Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Flex Builder Free for Education!

Adobe recently expanded the free Flex Builder offering for Education. The information below describes the details.  If you're a student or staff at an education facility, get this offer!!

The offer:

Effective March 3, 2008 all education customers, including staff, faculty and students can now download Flex Builder 3 Professional for free. This offer is for download-only product and requires a valid serial number to activate the trial version of Flex Builder. Education customers will need to register to receive their free Flex Builder serial number at www.flexregistration.com . All applications will be processed within one week. This registration site and serial number distribution is managed by a third party vendor for Adobe.

Eligibility

All education customers are eligible for free pricing. WOOT!!

Customer Service

If you don't receive a serial within one week of  submission, contact customer service by emailing info@flexregistration.com

Monday, March 17, 2008

What you need to know about SPAM

I am not sure if this is a badge of honor to be worn or not, but it appears that one or more of the spammers I have been threatening have been busy spoofing my name as the "sent from" field in their latest spam campaigns. Needless to say, if you have received a message purporting to be from me which is spam, I can assure you I did not send it. Expand the headers and read and you will see this is true. Yours truly has been targeted by spammers, likely as retribution for my actions against the spammers.

I hate spammers. I will hunt them down and punish them whenever possible. They are responsible for more lost time (including writing this blog article) and more waste of network traffic than any other form of life on the planet.

Spammers are the lowest form of life on our planet to boot. Most of them are only the second generation in their bloodline to walk upright and have relatives who still live in trees.

Spammers - too bad you are too chicken to stand in front of me and tell me you are a spammer. You'd find out very fast that some of the advantages of NOT spamming include never having to use the phrase "I have no teeth left".  OK - I am not advocating vigilante justice, but I like to fantasize.

Until then my fellow brethren, keep fighting against spammers. Together we can eliminate this menace from our society. Some points of interest:

1. Know what the anti spam laws are in your country. Keep a record and find out if you can pursue these idiots financially.

2. If your country does not have laws, start some or get involved in the process.

3. Contact companies that are the source of spam and threaten them. Tell them you will NEVER do business with them. Report them to the authorities in their country and tell them what their actions have done to tarnish that nations image. Set up an "advertising" contract such as the one on the comments page for this blog and send them invoices threatening to sue if you don't get paid. Take legal action and garnish the money owed to the spammer.

4.Do whatever you can to make their lives miserable. I have sent several messages to the central Chinese Ministry telling them about Sunjun (see bottom of comments here), one spammer Falun Gong activities. This is highly illegal in China and some have even been put to death for this. This sounds drastic however these people hurt the entire world. We all make less money as a result of their actions which in turn hurts people in developing and transitioning economies. If words like "Nigeria" get stripped as spam, how the heck can people in that country who are trying to use the internet to develop their economies able to survive? It hurts us all. Note that according to State Department reports, people who have responded to “pay in advance ” solicitations have been beaten, subjected to threats and extortion, and in some cases, murdered.

5. If you know a spammer, make them stop. Let them know exactly what you think of them and how others will react. There is a small percentage of spam that appears to be generated by otherwise well meaning people who are just unfamiliar with internet etiquette.

6. If the spam is illegal, report it to the authorities. For example, child pornography, Nigerian Scams, illegal ripped software can all be reported. Most software companies have an anti piracy team (Adobe's is piracy@adobe.com). If it is a phishing scheme or other illegal scheme, report it to the government. The USA has several places set up to handle this including the FBI, the Federal Trade Commission and others.

7. Specific to Nigerian or 409 scams:

If you receive a letter from Nigeria asking you to send personal or banking information, do not reply in any manner. Send the letter to the U.S. Secret Service, your local FBI office, or the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. You can also register a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission’s Consumer Sentinel.

If you know someone who is corresponding in one of these schemes, encourage that person to contact the FBI or the U.S. Secret Service as soon as possible.

Be skeptical of individuals representing themselves as Nigerian or foreign government officials asking for your help in placing large sums of money in overseas bank accounts.

Do not believe the promise of large sums of money for your cooperation.

Guard your account information carefully.

There is so much more I can write but I am going to spend my time trying to track down the filth who used my email address to spoof spams this weekend. I will find him and punish him.

8. If the deal is too good to be true, it isn't true! You may think you are buying a discount copy of Windows Vista or Adobe Photoshop, but you are not. What happens is the criminals who advertise this simply take your personal information and GIVE YOU NOTHING IN RETURN. Think about it. They are already breaking the law. Why would they even bother to send you a link to download the software. Why not just take your personal information and use it to punish you. After all, you cannot report it to authorities if you are involved in perpetuating a crime too (buying bootlegged software is illegal in most countries and punishable by jail time and fines). These spammers simply take your credit card and personal information and sell it or use it to hurt you more.

This post may seem like a bit of a rant, but spammers would not spam if it didn't work. Hunt them down and punish them.