# Just a quick Hi



## awarner MVP (May 28, 2008)

Could not see a welcome topic so thought I would just say a quick hi.
I've been playing with time sheets and holiday forms etc at work this week and I have to say without this site I would have been lost.

So far I've learnt how to create userforms etc which has now given me more interest Excel and encouraged me to learn more.

Thanks all 

EDIT Just noticed my signatures not being displayed?


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## Andrew Fergus (May 28, 2008)

Welcome to MrExcel.

To display your signature go to the user control panel, under 'settings and options' in the left hand pane select 'Edit Options', in the right hand pane under 'Thread Display Options' tick 'Show Signature'.

No offence intended but if this is passive spam then think twice before following those instructions.

Andrew


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## awarner MVP (May 28, 2008)

Andrew Fergus said:


> Welcome to MrExcel.
> No offence intended but if this is passive spam then think twice before following those instructions.


 
None taken and thanks for the welcome 
I understand about passive spam as I help run MoDaCo and have recently seen an influx of of so called passive spam originating from India.
My signature relates to the two sites I am involved in and if I were spamming I would have been posting all over the shop instead of using the search function to get the answers I needed 

I must have missed the part refering to signatures which is unusual for me. I'm used to Ivision based forums and as admin I forget the simple things from time to time lol.

EDIT N0.2 without making any changes my signature is in this reply but not the original post? now off to check my cp controls...

Also posting at this time of night (UK) as I'm on the lovely night shift.


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## Andrew Fergus (May 28, 2008)

awarner MVP said:


> None taken and thanks for the welcome
> I understand about passive spam as I help run MoDaCo and have recently seen an influx of of so called passive spam originating from India.



Whew!  I'm pleased you knew what was referring to!   

Welcome aboard - this is a very useful forum!

Cheers
Andrew


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## NateO (May 28, 2008)

Welcome. 

I assume the signature issue is a back-dating one, while I wouldn't have guessed that. I did a quick test of editing your post (no changes made) to see if that would trigger an update, but none noted.

In any event, enjoy the forums!


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## cornflakegirl (May 29, 2008)

I don't know what passive spam is, and google won't tell me! Could someone enlighten me, please?


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## starl (May 29, 2008)

NateO said:


> Welcome.
> 
> I assume the signature issue is a back-dating one, while I wouldn't have guessed that. I did a quick test of editing your post (no changes made) to see if that would trigger an update, but none noted.
> 
> In any event, enjoy the forums!



Do I have to do everything?
Go Advanced - CHECK THE SHOW MY SIGNATURE BOX!


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## awarner MVP (May 29, 2008)

cornflakegirl said:


> I don't know what passive spam is, and google won't tell me! Could someone enlighten me, please?


 
Basically passive spam is a way of advertising by using your signature instead of just making a post to sell phones, watches etc.

Normally people who passive spam will make numerous posts with replies to topics like Thanks for the in or I'm new to the site etc etc and then have a signature with a link to investment companies or gambling sites.
These are harder to spot than normal spam so it takes an active mod/admin team to keep them in check.

So far I've found the main passive spam is coming from India with an IP of 122.164.*.*. The person/s involved normally create a few accounts at the same time, with some accounts sleeping until the want to use them, rather than getting them all to spam at the same time.

Hope this explains things a little better?


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## starl (May 29, 2008)

Russian addresses are rather large on the spam list.. tho not passive.


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## NateO (May 29, 2008)

starl said:


> Do I have to do everything?
> Go Advanced - CHECK THE SHOW MY SIGNATURE BOX!


It looks like that's been done and the signature is showing, except in the first post.


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## NateO (May 29, 2008)

So, I've seen what Vista can do to an older desktop. What's the Vista footprint like on mobile devices?


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## NateO (May 29, 2008)

NateO said:


> It looks like that's been done and the signature is showing, except in the first post.


I see what you're saying. I fixed the signature in the first post.

The show signature is set for each individual post and is set by your general settings at the time of your post. When you change the global setting, it doesn't necessarily change the setting for each post.


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## starl (May 29, 2008)

NateO said:


> It looks like that's been done and the signature is showing, except in the first post.



I wasn't gonna do it for you! How else will you learn?


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## NateO (May 29, 2008)

I thought you meant his settings and not the actual post.


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## Stormseed (May 30, 2008)

> So far I've found the main passive spam is coming from India with an IP of 122.164.*.*.



how could you be sure that its originating from India ? For instance, this cud be an external IP and the frequency of these IPs changing -is more than the frequency of me changing the clothes I wear everyday


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## awarner MVP (May 30, 2008)

I just use nic.com the two locations are

inetnum: 122.164.224.0 - 122.164.255.255
netname: ABTS-TN-DSL-9111-chn
descr: ABTS Tamilnadu,
descr: Access Business Group,DSL Services 101,
descr: Santhome High Road,
descr: Chennai
descr: Tamilnadu
descr: India
status: ASSIGNED NON-PORTABLE


And

route: 122.164.228.0/24
descr: BHARTI-IN
descr: Bharti Tele-Ventures Limited
descr: Class A ISP in INDIA .
descr: 234 , OKHLA PHASE III ,
descr: NEW DELHI
descr: INDIA
country: IN

One thing we were thinking about was to restrict signatures to members until "x" ammount of posts had been created, or length of membership etc, somthing on those lines anyway.


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## Stormseed (May 30, 2008)

well, i dont deny it cuz u have a valid rather concrete proof


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## MorganO (May 30, 2008)

What I've found interesting about this thread is that Awarner MVP shows 0 (zero) posts on each an everyone of his posts! Maybe using mobile device as much as he does has put him into some type of hyperspace timewarp?!?


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## NateO (May 30, 2008)

Posts in the Lounge don't count towards post-count, for better or worse.


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## awarner MVP (May 30, 2008)

Yep we had that on MoDaco for a while to stop members posting complete junk or "joke topics" to try and boost their post count.
We stopped the restriction after the sillyness had subsided.

I'll be more of a lurker here than an avid poster as I class myself as sub-newbie here . So far all my questions have been answered by using the search function and I don't like posting just to say thanks unless it's a direct question I have asked.


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## Andrew Fergus (May 30, 2008)

Stormseed said:


> well, i dont deny it cuz u have a valid rather concrete proof


I'm not so sure about that.  I was tackling a spam problem once and I was convinced spammers from Eastern Europe had managed to rout their spam through North American servers, so I'm not 100% convinced the IP address hasn't been spoofed in some way.  How would we know?  Other than looking at the products/services offered and their associated websites.  I think in some cases the IP address is that of an unwitting carrier.

Just my opinion.....


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## awarner MVP (May 30, 2008)

It is possible as some links were to a Los Angeles private equity and another to an Australian web hosting company to name a couple.
Certainly appeared to be a more global advertising spam.http://www.rlhequity.com/


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## Stormseed (May 31, 2008)

awarner MVP said:


> It is possible as some links were to a Los Angeles private equity and another to an Australian web hosting company to name a couple.
> Certainly appeared to be a more global advertising spam.http://www.rlhequity.com/



Mate, if you knew abt this then you cud have mentioned the same initially. I have never come across an experience about spammers routing their products through dummy IPs hence I had to believe what you posted


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