Maskil - Latest Comments

Re: Young Israeli art student scam in South Africa?

R Manikum — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 11:25:11 -0000

Hi there

We live in Pietermaritzburg and have been caught by this scam,we want to open a case with the poilce, did you do so too? the police said they could do something about it if there was another case opened also?

Re: Young Israeli art student scam in South Africa?

LynetteViljoen — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 02:51:41 -0000

We were scammed. A lady got into our complex just before christmas, she had this portfolio of paintings. I thought they were really nice.One I specifically liked. My husband is always looking for nice paintings so I though great this is a bargain. I didn't have any cash on me so she said she will come back and she also has bigger paintings. Same story about helping artists all over the world and galleries are too expensive, which they are. I didn't suspect a thing, the only thing that was nagging on me was why was she doing this just before christmas. I just thought they were desperate to get them sold and the artists must be struggling. She and another friend came back the next week with their bigger paintings, my husband ended up buying 4 for about R8600. They were all very charming and friendly and I wasn't suspicious at all, they said they have a framer and if we want he can do it for us and will also charge reduced prices. I can't believe we were so stupid. Needless to say a week ago the so called "framer" phoned me and set up an appointment. He came last night with his basket full of frames, helped us choose frames and made many comments. I started getting suspicious when he wrote down his prices and the little book he was using, and thought he didn't look like a business person, but I ignored it. He indicated it would be ready in 3-4 days, and explained how they frame it and how they were a very reputable gallery and framing place. He also said he has been working a lot in pretoria. My husband was working on his computer so he wasn't really paying attention and just said the price seems ok. I helped him carry the rolled up canvases to his car but still had the nagging feeling, he shook my hand and it was sweaty, which I thought was weird. He gave me his card and said all their details on it. When I got into the house, I immediately checked the card and the numbers on the card was not the same as the one he was phoning me from, I called him straight away, he answered and just said its his business partner. I looked at my husband and said something doesn't feel right. We started checking the internet and came across all the stories from across the world. At least most of the people got to keep their paintings, we just forked out R8600 and don't have anything. I really do feel stupid that I invited these people into my home. I cant believe I was so naive, its very humiliating plus my husband is mad at me.

Re: Young Israeli art student scam in South Africa?

Nadia — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 06:29:33 -0000

It seems they've moved to Pretoria East...We were also (nearly) scammed yesterday evening...by a young lady who calls herself Ira. She was so charming. My husband told her that he did not have that kind of money (R2500), she insisted that we could give her a deposit of R200 and that she would return for the balance in 5 days! At this point I was uneasy and nudged my husband telling him that we should think about it as it is a lot of money...she insisted we keep the paintings and that we should think about it. Later the same evening I googled "Israeli student art" and found plenty articles which referred to the scam...anyway I found the website where the paintings can be purchased online www.paintingweekly.com - please check it out (all the paintings she had in her "so called portfolio" are on this website (made in China). PLEASE BE AWARE.
Nadia

Re: Only Aliya can save Israel. Oh really?

Liyya — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 00:17:37 -0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Re: North American Aliya: When is enough enough?

glenn tamir — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 20:45:03 -0000

Crime in the Galilee is getting out of control. In nearly every community in the Galilee, there have been dozens of break-ins, often while people are asleep in their homes. The police are doing absolutely nothing to solve the problem and they do not even conduct investigations to stop it.

When the police showed up at one person's home, where a robbery had taken place only 7 minutes earlier, they refused to even conduct a search of the area saying it was not their job.

This situation of crime is something that should concern anyone considering making aliyah to the North. I have been living there for over five years and the situation has gotten very bad and the police are doing nothing to solve the problem

Re: Young Israeli art student scam in South Africa?

Maskil — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 06:48:55 -0000

Very much so, Pamela. We also had them at our door just a few evenings ago.

Re: Young Israeli art student scam in South Africa?

Pamela — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 03:40:12 -0000

One of my friends had a girl who claimed to be an Israeli art student knock on her door last night to try and show paintings. Looks like it is still going on.

Re: Facebook Groups and (Fan) Pages should be merged

dimagios — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 03:51:52 -0000

had the same exact issue!

Re: The best way to register a domain name

Domain registration — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 02:28:15 -0000

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Re: Remembrance Day in Israel

Holidays In Israel — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 16:10:23 -0000

This is one of the most important day on the Israeli calendar. reminding us our brothers who lost their life so we can live. true heroes.
another article about Yom Hazikaron: http://holidaysinisrael.org/ho...

I pray for peace.

Re: Young Israeli art student scam in South Africa?

Sads — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 12:37:44 -0000

you know, it's kinda stupid that you relate Jews and the Jewish communities to these scams. They have had nothing to do with it, and they cannot do anything about it, i would even say its racism. If those guys were Germans, do you really think that sending a message to the German community in South Africa was gonna work? it's stupid.
Not all Israelis are scams like those guys, and its your problem that you're stupid enough to buy their bullshit. Many Israelis (MUCH more than the average South African) are Programmers and Engineers, without any money issues.
About your "jewish peddler" remark, well... as far as I know, most South African Jews have much more money and occupations on high-demand than the average South African, same as the U.S.

Those people who scammed you are assholes, and you should be aware and learn for the next time, but taking the anger of your stupidity on another ethnic group is even stupider.

Re: Plaxo eCards scraps its unique selling point

Maskil — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 03:43:16 -0000

Great to hear that; I trust that this was in response to negative feedback from customers (and former customers, like me). For many, though, the damage has already been done.

Re: Plaxo eCards scraps its unique selling point

Preston Smalley — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 12:56:47 -0000

I agree that including the full card in the email is very helpful. Plaxo has fixed this and for all Premium eCard subscribers ($19.95/yr) the cards are included directly in the email.

Re: Building the wrong canal: An alternative to the Red-Dead Canal

Saadya — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 14:25:52 -0000

This makes a ton of sense. Who have you talked to about it? You may have to wait till Shimon Peres moves to greener pastures though, to get a real hearing. Hope you keep at it!

Re: Plaxo: Start Looking for Alternatives

Maskil — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 12:07:48 -0000

Here’s another service to add to the list. I gather that they offer both free and premium services, with the free service being restricted to 3 connectors.

AddressBookONE
http://www.addressbookone.com/

Re: Change Log

Maskil — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 05:49:11 -0000

I use this blog to test upgrades, widgets, add-ons, etc., before applying them to my Live blog, blog.maskil.info. I also use it as a “change log” to keep a record of these changes.

Re: Change Log

Uninstall Program — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 23:14:13 -0000

Is it your journal?

Re: Plaxo: Start Looking for Alternatives

Maskil — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 07:57:36 -0000

Agreed. I was not favourably impressed by my experience with either product.

Re: Plaxo: Start Looking for Alternatives

Disqus — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 01:08:36 -0000

unyk.com: Synchronization with Gmail is still "coming soon!". Of course they only tell you AFTER you've signed up.

Soocial.com: The limit for free sync is 250 addresses. Again, they only tell you after the whole registration process...

Re: SEO Page

website seo optimization — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 05:42:20 -0000

hi friend i read your site and i think there are more idea for seo so any one take this tips!

Re: SEO Page

chiropractic marketing — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 23:08:37 -0000

SEO could be effective if you are interested about blogging, using this you can now start using SEO to do link building and promote your site.

Re: Plaxo: Start Looking for Alternatives

BC — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 03:06:26 -0000

I've been using DavMail (free! Google it. Should take you to sourceforge).
It lets you use webdav with your client (e.g. Thunderbird).
It's not a 100% in the cloud solution since it is an application that runs in the background.
However, it'll let you get your calendar and LDAP contacts.

I'm still looking for a 100% in the cloud solution.
I was hoping I could use Plaxo to take my Microsoft Exchange calendar and spit it out to Google Calendar for a nice 2-way editing capability. Oh well, dreams are crushed.

Being able to 2-way edit within Thunderbird is good enough even though all calendars are not consolidated. Adding the Google Calendars to Thunderbird gives the illusion of that happening, though.

Re: Activism for a just Israel

Maskil — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 10:01:44 -0000

Noted. Thanks for the update, Nikki.

Re: Activism for a just Israel

Nikki — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 07:50:40 -0000

Hi Maskil, thanks so much for putting this toigether and sharing all the campaing info.
The Civil Union campaign has actually been put on hold for the moment and the link has been page linked here has been taken down. The Bibi campaign is still live and full steam ahead.
Thanks,
Nikki
Nikki

Re: easyComment – Firefox Add-On for the Serial Commenter

Maskil — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 03:46:46 -0000

It is possible to use Lastpass to fill in some of the fields generally required for blog comment forms (e.g. name, e-mail address), but it's not very satisfactory. Lastpass has a feature called "Fill Forms" designed to do exactly that. Rather visit the Lastpass site to find FAQ's, Help, etc., for this feature. The one (usually) required field it can't help with is your Home Page/URI/Website, which is not one of the default fields in Lastpass.

As discussed in my post, Easycomment is a far better option for automating the completion of profile fields on blog/Website comments, although it also needs one or two enhancements.