Web developers should not email their spam to other Web developers. How stupid is that? I have had multiple emails telling me about some great service that will increase my earning potential ten fold via email spam or the newest search engine spammy technique. Of course, they don’t call their services spam but what else can it be when they use spam to market their services with? I can’t believe that anyone in their right mind would use a service that just spammed them, especially a web developer. But stupidity isn’t just for the young and foolish. Greed is the biggest culprit in keeping spam alive and well.

Just read about a Web developer spamming another Web developer and just had to check out the site. John Price seems like a likable guy. Just watch his video clips. On first glance, the site looks clean and easy to navigate. However, note that there isn’t a scroll bar on the right. Nothing wrong with that if the page is sized to the browser screen and the content doesn’t exceed the length of the screen.

But this site is different. If you have a roller on your mouse, roll it down and you will find all kinds of spammy, keywords below what appeared to be the end of the page. If you don’t have a roller on your mouse, just use the arrow keys and be amazed at what you find. You will have to scroll down a full screen width before running into the spammy text.

All that junk text is there for the search engines and not designed for users to see, hence the reason the scroll bar is hidden by using the same colors as the sites background. This is search engine spam and a good way to get banned by the major search engines. An even better way to get banned is to spam another Web developer who is against using these kind of search engine spam techniques in order to get a better ranking. While search engines may not notice the spam, the spammed developer will and there is nothing stopping him/her from contacting the search engines about the duplicity. Not too smart and certainly not someone I’d want to develop my business site.

I remember when I first got online in 1996. Any search I did returned a whole bunch of porn sites, no matter what search terms I used. Then Google made its appearance and changed the way search returns are displayed. Researchers got much better returns on their search terms with no more porn, unless you were looking for porn. But, those who want to beat the system immediately started looking for ways to get around Google’s algo and the war between spammers and search engines continues. As long as there is money to be made online, there will be some kind of spam/spammer trying to out-wit the search engines and prey on peoples greed.

I can only hope that the blogging world will continue to offer information for free and not fall into the ecommerce dog-eat-dog mentality and ruin a valuable resource. I linked to the spammy developers site in order to show what not to do and hope it will help others to research any online business before buying into the hype and loosing their asses in the process.

In my post entitled How 0ld is Grandma below, there’s a reference that someone born in 1947 would not have heard of FM radio and in my 70s post below, there is reference to not having FM radio in the 70s. That just didn’t seem correct to me so I went in search of the history of FM radio. It appears that there were several radio stations broadcasting through frequency modulation (FM) in 1939. Now, that was well before the year of my birth and several decades before the 70s rolled in. Maybe the references were more about FM stereo but stereo is about the sound equipment used to play the captured radio frequency, not the type of frequency radio stations used to send a broadcast through.

Now I will have to look for stereo history but I’m thinking that by the 70s we had stereo sound technology.

If you want to read the history of US broadcasting, click HERE.

Well, I certainly wasn’t a teen in the 70s but I wasn’t too far removed from my teen years in age. I was, however, older than my years mentally, perhaps because I was married and the mother of three very young children. When the 70s rolled in I was just 23 and at the end of a bad marriage. Looking at the possibility of being a single parent scared the hell out of me but the cards had been played and by 1971 I was in divorce court pleading irreconcilable differences as to the reason I wanted a divorce. My soon-to-be-ex was there pleading for the divorce to not be granted and a legal separation be granted instead. All of this after he walked off his good-paying job and left with another women to another city 300 miles away. Lucky for me that the court was smarter than he was and granted the divorce, giving me custody of our three children and awarded me $50 a month per child for child-support.

$150 a month for three kids! Even then that was cheap but of course, he was not employed so the likely hood of me getting anything from him was slim. My daycare cost more than that every month. I look back and have no clue how I did it, how I managed to support three young children and work the hours I had to work just to put food on their plates and a roof over their heads. I was lucky in that my parents bought most of their clothes the first few years.

Anyway, what sent me down the 70s memory lane is a MTV program called 70s House. The program itself is pretty lame but I became intrigued with the clothes and the house. I do remember shag carpeting and Mediterranean furniture but I didn’t remember not having FM radio and the clothes they had the young contestants put on looked foreign to me. Actually, only the girls clothes look foreign, the boys clothes brought back memories of big-printed, big-pointed-collared polyester shirts and no tennis shoes. Tennis shoes were for running, tennis, basketball or some other sport, not for everyday ware.

The more I thought about it, the more I think the show is mixing clothing from different parts of the 70s. The girls were given clothes that looked like hippie clothes, drab and unflattering while the guys were given the polyester shirts that came later in the 70s, I think. But I could be way off and out-of-touch with the time and what the kids were actually wearing. So, I’m now searching the web for anything 70s and came across this site - Groovy Candies and it took me further back in time. I was never a big candy eater but my younger brother was and I remember going to the penny candy store (yes, there was such a thing as penny candy) with him and loading up with some of the now hard-to-find candy that Groovy Candies is offering from the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s.

To be honest, I don’t remember the popular candy from the 70s, even though I had kids. I didn’t have a lot of money so the candy they got was from others, like grandparents and aunts and uncles. But I do remember the candy from the 50s and 60s. What a trip! I hadn’t thought of that penny candy store in many years. It was called Uncle Tom’s and looked like a little shack that smelled of old dried out wood and sweet delights. It sat on the main street all by itself, with nothing on either side except empty space dotted in sagebrush and creosote bushes. The shelves were floor to ceiling and lined with jars of single rapped candy and the singe counter went from one side to the other as if standing guard over the more expensive candy bars which were two for a nickel or 3 cents a piece. No more than 4 kids were allowed in at one time. I remember waiting on the small porch step for our turn to enter. Wow, what a memory. It wasn’t often that we got to go there since we lived on the Navy base next to the small town that housed the penny store. But that’s another story better left untold for now.

Below is an image of me and my three kids in 1972 or 1973. Its not a good photo but it does represent the home decor and clothes of the mid 70s, not to mention the hair! Note the plastic orange flowers on the end table. I still have the container that held those flowers but the flowers are long gone.

Below is a photo of me and my second husband on our wedding day in 1976. The suit he is wearing is polyester and look at that shirt! Disco fever for sure! Again, not a great photo but it does depict the style of the 70s.

I received the following email from a friend and just had to post it here. When you get to the end you might understand why I posted it, that and the fact that recently I have been exploring senior blogs, or seniors who are blogging about growing older in today’s society. Not that I actually went in search of blogs about growing old but more because the blog I just designed has become a voice for aging in todays world. A coincidence? I doubt it.

One evening a grandson was talking to his grandmother about current events. The grandson asked his grandmother what she thought about the shootings at schools, the computer age, and just things in general.

The Grandma replied, “Well, let me think a minute, I was born before:

• television
• penicillin
• polio shots
• frozen foods
• Xerox
• contact lenses
• Frisbees
• and the pill.

There was no:

• radar
• credit cards
• laser beams or
• ball-point pens.

Man had not invented:

• pantyhose
• air conditioners
• dishwashers
• clothes dryers
• and the clothes were hung out to dry in the fresh air
• and man hadn’t yet walked on the moon.

Your Grandfather and I got married first-and then lived together.

Every family had a father and a mother.

Until I was 25, I called every man older than I, “Sir”- and after I turned 25, I still called policemen and every man with a title, “Sir.”

We were before gay-rights, computer- dating, dual careers, daycare centers, and group therapy.

Our lives were governed by the Ten Commandments, good judgment, and common sense.

We were taught to know the difference between right and wrong and to stand up and take responsibility for our actions.

Serving your country was a privilege; living in this country was a bigger privilege.

We thought fast food was what people ate during Lent.

Having a meaningful relationship meant getting along with your cousins.

Draft dodgers were people who closed their front doors when the evening breeze started.

Time-sharing meant time the family spent together in the evenings and weekends-not purchasing condominiums.

We never heard of FM radios, tape decks, CDs, electric typewriters, yogurt, or guys wearing earrings.

We listened to the Big Bands, Jack Benny, and the President’s speeches on our radios.

And I don’t ever remember any kid blowing his brains out listening to Tommy Dorsey.

If you saw anything with ‘Made in Japan’ on it, it was junk.

The term ‘making out’ referred to how you did on your school exam.

Pizza Hut, McDonald’s, and instant coffee were unheard of.

We had 5 &10-cent stores where you could actually buy things for 5 and 10 cents.

Ice-cream cones, phone calls, rides on a streetcar, and a Pepsi were all a nickel.

And if you didn’t want to splurge, you could spend your nickel on enough stamps to mail 1 letter and 2 postcards.

You could buy a new Chevy Coupe for $600 but who could afford one?

Too bad, because gas was 11 cents a gallon.

In my day:

• “grass” was mowed
• “coke” was a cold drink
• “pot” was something your mother cooked in
• and “rock music” was your grandmother’s lullaby
• “Aids” were helpers in the Principal’s office
• “chip” meant a piece of wood
• “hardware” was found in a hardware store
• and “software” wasn’t even a word

And we were the last generation to actually believe that a lady needed a husband to have a baby. No wonder people call us “old and confused” and say there is a generation gap… and how old do you think I am?

I bet you have this really old lady in mind…you are in for a shock!

This Woman would be only 58 years old!!!

Pretty scary if you think about it and pretty sad at the same time.

I, personally, don’t think it’s scary nor sad. Well … maybe a little scary since I am 58 years young myself and entering the finial stage of my life. But for me it’s also a victory since my own mother did not live to experience her grandchildren growing into productive human beings, witness their marriages, see her great-grandchildren, or taste the fruits of her labors come to fruition.

And the only real sad part is looking back at the missed opportunities, which is something I intend to write about someday.

I look at the above list and feel amazement at the changes that have been made in my lifetime. I feel blessed to have been a witness to it all, even to those thing/events that were not so wonderful.