How not to write spam

I received the following message from "Amazon";

Important For Your Online Account Access . Action Suspended

this email send by Amazon

Dear Customer

During our usual security enhancement protocol, we observed multiple login attempt error while login in to your online amazon account. We have believed that someone other than you is trying to access your account for security reasons, we have temporarily suspend your account and your access to online amazon and will be restricted if you fail to update

Your first clue to an official-looking email being a spam is how bad is the English.  We all maik misteaks and other tipos, but the above is ridiculous.

Your second clue is where do the included links really go.  I find these by just putting the cursor over the links or dragging the message to a text editor program.  In Microsoft Outlook the first shows the link as a drop down.  In Apple's TextEdit the second shows the source code of the message.  You don't really need to know that much about HTML, but you can scan it for suspicious looking items.

Speaking of spam, this blog has a lull in reverse spam from Russia.  These reverse spammers may have moved to Ukraine.  In any case, the number of pageviews from the United States has gone up but not to the level I was receiving Russian "pageviews".  I hope the US pageviews are real human readers who enjoy what I have written.

Why I avoid message boards

I had difficulty getting a new picture into one of my standard picture of the day pages. No matter how carefully I copied the HTML code from flickr, I got the alternate message indicating the picture couldn't be found.

I plugged in the HTML for an old picture, and the page worked fine. I plugged in the HTML for the new picture, and the picture couldn't be found. I used the URLs to look at the pictures in another browser; they were displayed fine.

I went to flickr's message board and picked a couple of topics that seemed relevant. I waded through message after message reporting having difficulties with flickr. And message after message complaining about others' posts. And message after message complaining about complaining about others.

Finally, on a second topic I found a message from flickr staff that my browser's cache may have lost the picture but didn't know it. I diddled around with the browser a bit, including closing it at least once. I was very frustrated and so I just floundered around without noting what I did. However, the important point is that the picture now appears in my web page (http://www.cpinternet.com/~mdmagree/picture_of_the_day.html today and tomorrow or soon http://www.cpinternet.com/~mdmagree/picture_2007-09-07.html).

Most of the time I'm not so lucky to find a relevant answer.