Paul Schwartz
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Posts
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Posts posted by Paul Schwartz
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It looks like a misunderstanding and not a scam... I've seen all levels of "restoration" too... sometimes a person wants a playable instrument, sometimes they want a showpiece...
We'll leave it at that.
Paul
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I was surprised to see Ken Coles close down the topic on FAF. Is that up to one person on this forum? Seems restrictive on those who think about broader issues. The Session has had a very broad and generally good debate so far.
Then I suggest you take it over to The Session. This forum is for concertina discussion.
And no, this is not a democracy.
Sincerely,
The Dear Supreme Leader
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Tallship and Leo have summed it up. It certainly was not one spammer, it was quite a few. Someone had found a new weakness in the software and word seems to travel quickly amongst the spammers. I will readily admit that this move is in part to limit the time Paul and I spend on latrine duty here cleaning up such stuff. We do not think it seriously hampers communication, but if you disagree, you are free to set up and run your own forum as you see fit. My guess is that you will quickly learn that you will only survive and foster communication if you have limitations such as these in place.
I seem to recall the time limitation was 5 minutes.
Enjoy the music, the concertina, and the company (albeit one at a time) here. That's what we're after.
Ken
Yes, that's it exactly... it's a CONSTANT battle against the spammers, scammers and hackers. The forums, and the PM system are not a mail system, so if you need to do any serious one-to-one or one-to-many communications, you need to use a proper email-based system.
Thanks for your understanding everyone.
Paul
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I just sent this email to Paul Schwartz at concertina.net to get the dialog started.
"Mr. Schwartz
HallelujahAl! an officer in the Salvation Army has secured permission from the Salvation Army to post PDF copies of the Salvation Army tutors for the Concertina at concertina.net. This subject is being perused at the Teaching and Learning forum.
Can you get together with him to arrange for these books to be made available on the concertina.net home page. I think a download under the Learning to Play heading would be appropriate.
Thanks
Pete McLaughlin
Morse Albion #677"
Sure, no problem. Once the PDF (or PDFs) get done, just email them to me (paul@concertina.net) and I'll be happy to post them for download on the site and link to them from the home page and Learning pages.
Thanks, and good work all!
Paul
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I am very worried,I mistakenly clicked on this bastard,any advice please.
Your account is not compromised... it's just links to stuff trying to get you to buy their garbage or sign up for porn stuff or whatever the spammers are up to at any particular time.
Paul
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Is it possible to restrict the number of people a member here can send PMs to per day?
Yes, I've just downloaded a new patch that does just that. I know, closing the barn door... but this should take care of this new type of spammer who manually registers, then sets up a bot to send the PMs (they used to have bots try to register and then other bots try to post messages in the forums... they were easier to catch).
Thanks, and again, sorry for having this jerk get by me,
Paul
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Sorry about the spammer who got by me yesterday. I've gotten rid of him now.
I rarely miss these jerks but this one slipped by me...
Best regards,
Paul
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I'm one of those who like this forum as it is, and I speak as one who has sold, I think it's three concertinas but it may be more, plus a melodeon through this forum. I would always use this in preference to eBay any day, and the chatter that goes on here does not, in my experience, get in the way of the serious business of buying and selling. In fact I think it enhances it by creating a friendly atmosphere. Leave well enough alone, I reckon.
Cheers,
Chris
I'll defer to Chris here. Wise man. It's not a bad idea to make it "transactions-only", but I think the chatter around buying/selling/scams is probably of more value in the end... even if I don't agree with all the opinions, just having them out there helps people form their own conclusions. And this chatter really is often quite useful and informative, so what the heck.
But it was a good suggestion, so thanks everyone for the input.
Paul
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Please keep the political discussions to topics of which governments best support concertina study, concertina music, concertina research & development, and concertina production. I have yet to see either President Palin or President Clinton put forward their concertinist policies, so I reserve judgement on these two fine presidential women. Well, that's my view of things from here in Canada where we most definitely do NOT support arming bears (or moose, even though they should be able to defend themselves against President Palin).
Thank you fine citizens of Concertina-land.
King Paul
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Thanks to all who offered info and comments. I feel like I've been through an intervention by family and friends. Maybe I'll sell all the junk I've been clinging to (Except maybe one) and buy a decent instrument.
Absolutely. Now you're talking!
We've all been through that.
Oh my god... you guys are like a bunch of junkies!! He likes his cheap boxes, but now you're trying to get him hooked on "the good stuff". Shame on you all ;-)
Paul
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Okay guys and gals, enough with the baiting and name-calling. If you can't say something nice, back off... you aren't going to change the world (or anyone in it) but posting nasty personal attacks and "jokes" here...
Thanks,
Paul
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And member deleted. Now, that wasn't so difficult, was it :-)
Paul
Thread closed. -
Hello friends, I am lucky to live in a cottage on the beach in capitola california. The sand is 50ft from the front steps.I play a 1885 ish rosewood lachenal For inspiration I am thinking of bringing the tina out and sitting on the wharf and playing sea shanties how romantic to sit on the wharf and watch the boats playing home boys home. My concern is salt air is this a good idea or sit in the chair in front of the window inside the house and play. Any hints or ideas would be great. Thank you Tom
Wow, sounds nice. Hmmm... looking at Google maps I can see they have a very high resolution photo of the Capitola Wharf... I don't see you there. Come on, wave next time the satellite goes overhead...
Paul
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The date problem is something I need to fix in the programming...
Yes, links inside the description should be fine.
Cheers,
Paul
I'll use my recent post 'Missing You' as an example.I sometimes use a modest amount of HTML to post a link to more files to the tune posted -- for example, in this one, I added a link to the MP3 file(s) of the same tune. (The tunebook gives only the MIDI, of course.)
I've assumed that it's okay to do this. I don't read any particular info about using HTML. So, if someone knows or thinks otherwise.... please give me a clue! Thanks.
Question 2:
The dates shown all all fine and correct, when I go to the actual page in the Tune-O-Tron that my tune is on:
(Entered by Wendy Stanford on Jun 8th, 2008, last modified on Jun 14th, 2008)
But, in my own personal tunebook, this is what shows up:
Title: Missing You; Tune number: 1183
(Entered by Wendy Stanford on Dec 6th, 2007, last modified on Dec 6th, 2007)
I don't know how to correct my tunebook.... is there something I can do?
Thanks.
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Over the last few days, when I paste ABCs on to tune o tron and submit, when I click midi music file, I am told that the page cannot be found? It will convert to pdf alright but the midi music file option is gone for me. Does anyone have any ideas on what could have happened? thank you
The ABC-to-Midi conversion program was causing major problems on the server. I'm investigating, but it doesn't look good... I upgraded a few months ago based on a recommendation, but looks like it was a bad idea... I'll probably downgrade if I can to try and get this feature working again.
Paul
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The search engine in the forums system is not a perfect system... compromises have to be made for efficiency and reliability. That's why Google exists... for serious searching, I'd suggest using Google to search these forums. Check the Google help documents and you can see how you can easily use google to search a specific site or part of a site (domain). If you have the Google Toolbar installed, there is even a button right there ("Search only on...", the magnifying glass with eyeballs).
Paul
Search does not allow search terms of less than 3 characters as I discovered when I tried a search on Eb.Eb-tuned 'tinas do exist - any chance that in the context of this forum search terms like Eb could be permitted.
Steve
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Right, one of the new security systems is set to expire old sessions/logins after about a week of inactivity. These new limits are here to help protect against session hijacking.
Thanks for your efforts, Paul (and I'm really not complaining). But it's happening pretty much every day (twice today). But not every time I check in (which can be several times in a day).
You mean it's asking you to sign in again? Is it remembering your name and just asking for your password, or is it not remembering your login name either? Let me know and I'll try to find out the reason...
Thanks,
Paul
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Now I'm finding I have to log into the forum every time I use it from my home computer. I was ready to accept that I had to do it when the new software was introduced, and again when I reset my cache, but it just happened again, and nothing has changed since I was here earlier.
I am certain that the "remember me" box was checked.
FWIW, it's still happening. About 2/3 of the times I visit the forum I have to reenter my login information, despite tossing my cookies several times.Ah, you're using AOL... that's the problem. I'll enable a setting that should help you.FWIW, yesterday I also had to log in again, though I never bother logging out. But so far it's only happened the once, and that was after I'd been absent for a week. I don't use either AOL or a Mac.
Right, one of the new security systems is set to expire old sessions/logins after about a week of inactivity. These new limits are here to help protect against session hijacking.
Paul
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Thanks. I've done a big cleaning and modified the registration form to cut down on these things.
Paul
Yes, I've cut these scammers and spammers out of doing anything bad on the site now (posting such things in the forums for example), but they're still registering and auto/bot-submitting forms wherever they can. I'll see what I can do to further cut them out and remove them from the user database. Thanks for the reminder...Paul
I think we often forget how much you have to do to just keep this forum a useable space. Thankyou for all your hard work.
- W
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They were appearing inline as always (and they still do), but only if you're logged in. Correct, guests didn't have rights to images. I turned this back on for now, so guests have image access again.
Thanks for the feedback.
Paul
Maybe it's just me but pictures don't seem to appear inline in posts anymore. They show up as links which isn't nearly as nice. Worse, if I click on the picture link, I get a permissions error and am forced to log in in order to view the picture. Once I've logged in, the pictures start appearing inline again.Is this a changed default setting, that guests are not allowed to view pictures?
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Yes, I've cut these scammers and spammers out of doing anything bad on the site now (posting such things in the forums for example), but they're still registering and auto/bot-submitting forms wherever they can. I'll see what I can do to further cut them out and remove them from the user database. Thanks for the reminder...
Paul
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Jim,
It's right there in the Member's Profile too... just click the "Options" drop-down near the top left (under the photo). Tabs on top are a quick way to see most recent activity without having to dig deeper.
Paul
A way that seems to work: From a post in a thread click on the persons name, then drop down menu has find posts and topics directly without going to profile. Seems to work ok.Yep, that's part of what I said.
Doesn't seem to work from the active members list or profile, only in a post.As you say, it doesn't work -- or doesn't work adequately, IMO -- directly from a member's Profile.
Thanks for mentioning "the active members list". I've now discovered that in such a list in the "Members" section one can click on a member's name and get a dropdown list that includes "Find Member's Posts"... but "Find Member's Topics" is not an option there. It's that sort of inconsistency that I find frustrating. (I also think it's bad programming practice, since it suggests that there are two separate programs to do "the same" thing, with a danger that in a future upgrade or bug fix, one might be updated and the other not.)
I find it strange that one can't access the full information on a member's Profile page -- what I would think of as the primary source, -- and that to access the full list of a member's Topics one first has to find a Topic in which they've posted, since it appears that that is the only place where "Find Member's Posts" both appears and gives access to the entire history.
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Ah, you're using AOL... that's the problem. I'll enable a setting that should help you.
Paul
Now I'm finding I have to log into the forum every time I use it from my home computer. I was ready to accept that I had to do it when the new software was introduced, and again when I reset my cache, but it just happened again, and nothing has changed since I was here earlier.I am certain that the "remember me" box was checked.
Are others having the same problem?
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Try deleting the Concertina.net cookies to make sure they're not corrupted.
I stay logged in fine, but if you're trying to stay logged in from two different IP addresses (one computer at work, one at home), that could be the problem... new security settings try to prevent this to avoid certain potential account hijacking situations.
Paul
Now I'm finding I have to log into the forum every time I use it from my home computer. I was ready to accept that I had to do it when the new software was introduced, and again when I reset my cache, but it just happened again, and nothing has changed since I was here earlier.I am certain that the "remember me" box was checked.
I am not familiar with AOL's version 10 browser for Mac but I suppose your log in trouble might be caused by cookie setting.
If your browser set not to accept cookies from concertina.net and/or to reset cookies after each session, you have to log in each time even if the remember me box was checked. And if you have reset cache and cookies, same thing will happen.
Sorry if it doesn't help...
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Taka
New version of Forums coming...
in Concertina.net Official Business
Posted
I'm getting ready to upgrade the forums to the new vesrion 3.0. Yes, a lot seems to have changed, but it's the same software so it's not completely new/changed, and it has many new features, and many important new administration features (better anti-spammer and security settings). Coming probably in the next few weeks once I've gotten everything ready and am confident that it's in a stable version...
So don't be surprised if the boards are offline for a few hours in the coming weeks and if things suddenly look different!!
Thanks,
Paul