I am unable to modify/delete anyone on my friends list and get an error, 'Unable to update friend information'. Is it just me or anyone else getting a similar error?

Sometimes you need to send a text message, but you forgot your phone, or you have poor cell reception, so what can you do? Or you just prefer the comfort of the full keyboard to the crammed one on your phone? No problem, we’ve got 10 sites to help you get started with staying in constant contact with your friends, families and even your customers.

Bloove.com - Get your phone contacts on the Bloove site, and then log in and manage them as well as send them text messages directly from the site.

ClearSMS.com - A professional SMSing service for businesses to send out mass messages to their customers to alert them about specials and sales. All messages are assigned a value in credits an you purchase more as needed.

GizmoSMS.com - GizmoSMS lets you send texts to users in over 50 countries an a slew of carriers inside each of those. While it is free to use, it does not allow space for identifying yourself except inside the body of the text.

Group2Call.com - Allows you to import your contacts, break them up into groups and send all the free texts you want to them. Also offers the chance to broadcast voice messages, but you have a limited supply of those.

Jaxtr.com - This one requires the person you wish to text to have the widget (like the one pictured above) installed on their blog or social networking profile, but if it’s there, you can text the member if they live in one of any 38 countries.

OhDontForget.com - Not only can you text people, you can schedule them for later delivery.

SMSGupShup.com - A system to allow you to send one text message to a number and they will then resend it out to every member that belongs to your group, up to 5,000 people in size.

Swaggle.mobi - A service for small groups to SMS each other at once; accessible via iPhone as well as by the web.

Yahoo Mobile - Yahoo Mobile lets you send and receive phone text messages; you will not be charged for sending the SMS; but the recipient might be charged the standard messaging rates for receiving or replying.

Yellowpipe - Mainly a web host, but they happen to offer a quick and easy SMS feature when you just have to get out a text quickly. They do allow you to enter a return number.

Source: Mashable

Over the past few months I have noticed an increase in spam comments on my blog. Maybe it is just my blog but I am getting sick of it.

An example of the most common spam comment on my blog:

At first it was ok and I used to manually delete them but in the past few weeks I have been getting more than 10+ comments a day which is a real pain to delete one by one. I reported this to the Report Abuse link and got in touch with the support team. I was told how to delete comments at first and when I replied I know how to delete comments they told me that appropriate action has been taken against the spammer after I supplied all the details to them. But soon after I send them the email I get another spam comment by the same person. I again send an email telling them about it and I get a reply saying please fill in all the details although in the email I sent them I had put in the blog entry where the spam took place. I am tired of filling details all the time and it having no effect on the spam comments on my space so I decided that the problem lies not with the support team but with the way the Live spaces commenting feature is designed.

You need a Windows Live ID to sign in and comment. This was done I believe to decrease spam and also that Microsoft can track people who violate their TOS or abuse other peoples spaces. I am sure the support team must have deleted the spammer's account but it is not hard to create a new account and start spamming again. I hope the following methods I outline below if implemented can cut down on spam.

Ability for a user to block a visitor:

A Live Spaces user should have the option of blocking visitors they do not want commenting on their space or block visitors they think are spamming their space so that specific visitor cannot comment on their space while  they are signed into their account which is required by Live Spaces in order to post a comment. The visitor will have to create a new account in order to spam again which I am sure is more of a hassle. Multiple blocks by different users can send a red flag to the spaces team and they should investigate wether to delete the account of the spammer or block his IP.

Well blocking IP can sometimes make other people suffer as well so I think the method below used in other blogging services could be more appropriate.

Introduction of a Akismet type feature into Windows Live Spaces:

Akismet is a plug-in used widely in WordPress blogs to cut down not only on spam comments but spam trackbacks too. When a comment is made on your space, Akismet checks it against know spam comments and will decide wether to mark the comment as spam or not and let the comment get published or stay hidden in the spam folder just like how you webmail junk/bulk inbox works. You can see the spam comment box and decide if a comment has been put there by mistake and mark it as not spam. The system learns and in the future will not mark a comment by that person or that type of comment in your spam box. You can also mark spam comments that get published as spam and the system will update its database and learn from it. Too many 'mark as spam' from different users for a type of comment will make sure that in future whenever a comment like those being made on my blog everyday go straight to the spam box. An appeal system for a visitor/user should also be in place incase a group of spacers decide to make someone a target and keep marking his space/comments as spam.

I am surprised that Spaces does not have a feature like this already as I have so many spam comments and hundreds of viagra pills trackbacks on blog entries like 'How to add music'. It will also be easier to implement such a feature on spaces as visitors have to sign in with their Windows Live ID to make a comment and spammers can easily be tracked or their accounts deleted.

What are you thoughts on this matter? Any suggestions to improve the above two ideas are welcome or if you can think of a way to tackle spam on spaces you are welcome to email me or comment below.

Update: 15/4/2008

Wow, just got like 20+ comments, what pain having to delete them manually from different blogs.

Like this post? Subscribe to d3vmax's RSS feed!

Gizmoz lets you upload pictures of yourself and it turns you picture into a 3D avatar with which you can make short clips with voice recordings and other things.   
<A clip of myself>

• Go to http://www.gizmoz.com/ and sign up for an account.
• After you sign in the navigation and creation of content is pretty self-explanatory. Just make sure you have a decent passport photo of your self.
• After you create your content and publish it, Gizmos will give you an option to Post it on Live Spaces. Click on the Live Spaces link in the Post it section...

• Clicking on the link will add a gadget to your space through which your clip can be seen by all your visitors.

If you want to embed this clip on your blog...

• Don't click on the Live Spaces link but rather copy the code given by Gizmoz. (see the code below the orange box in the picture above)
• You can add this code to a new or existing blog entry by the embed video link.
  • Add a new blog entry or open an existing one in edit mode.
  • Click on the Embed Videos link found near the Add photos link. See picture below:

  

  • Paste the Embed code of your Gizmoz clip you copied earlier and click Save.
  • You will notice the video is now in your blog entry. You can adjust the height, width of the video with your mouse. Also you can use the blog editing tools to make further adjustments like alignment.
  • After you are happy with the changes, publish your blog entry.
  • Preview your Space!

You can add this to a HTML module as well.

Done!

Like this post? Subscribe to d3vmax's RSS feed!

Looking for some new RSS icons for your blog?

You can use the icons for private and commercial projects, blogs and web-sites for free. However, please take a closer look at the license agreement — e.g. it’s forbidden to sell the icons and in order to use them, the designer asks for a backlink.

Click here to download the RSS icon package.

----------------

For new users:

What is RSS?

How to add images to your space. 1, 2.

After reading the RSS and adding images tutorial I think you will be able to put up and RSS icon linked to your RSS feed on your front page via a HTML module.

Like this post? Subscribe to d3vmax's RSS feed!