If you’ve recently registered, or re-registered on the GLUG website, but not received the email with your password, please check your Spam folder.

It seems that some mail providers (particularly Yahoo, BT Internet, and Virgin) have been marking the welcome email as Spam.  I’ve now altered the email to try to prevent this from happening.

NB: If you’re with Yahoo or BT Internet, you have to use Webmail to view your Spam folder - not sure about Virgin.

If you’ve filled in the new registration form, but still can’t find the welcome email, please use the Contact Form to send an email about “website problems”, and I’ll reset your password manually.

Apologies for the inconvenience!

Neil.

P.S.  If you know how to “whitelist” emails from glug.co.uk, then it’s a good idea to do so!

When?
Thursday 14th August 2008 to Monday 18th August 2008, incl.

You can of course turns this into a week but please note you’ll either have to make your own way to/from St Maxime or meet us at Nice airport to benefit from transfers.

Where?
Sainte Maxime is on the South coast of France, between Toulon and Nice. Flights will be to Nice. You can also take the Eurostar & fast train but see comment above re transfers.

For more info on Saint Maxime in general and the diving in particular, go to: http://www.diamonddiving.net/destinations/stemaxime.htm

What?
The package includes: transfers to/from the airport as a group, half-board accomodation in a ‘centre de vacances’ (holiday centre) and 5 dives with tanks and weights. The holiday centre is a bit outside town and has a swimming pool and tennis courts. The food is decent wihout being wow (still better than a bacon buttie in Portland) and includes wine with your meal, after all, this is France!
Weather permitting, we will dive Le Rubis, a beautiful submarine lying upright on a sandy bottom. See this link for a short underwater movie of the wreck or look in the October 2007 Dive mag at page 49 for a nice piccie and a short description.

Who?
12 divers - 7 spaces already gone!
Le Rubis is not a shallow wreck so only well dived in Bsac Sport or Padi Advanced, and upwards. If you are less experienced and still wants to come for the fun and the sun, you may have to pay extra for a guide on all dives and/or not dive le Rubis. If you have any questions, ask and I’ll try to get more details of what is possible according to your level.

We may be able to accomodate a few non divers too but depending on the size of the group this may have cost implications if we need an additional people carrier so please ask. Non-divers should not be bored as on top of the pool and tennis court, Sainte Maxime has plenty of bars, restaurants, shops and beaches.

How much?
£259 for all the above (£154-£197 for non-diving partners depending on group size and whether we need extra transport), then approx £90-£150 for flights.

Flights are BA from Heathrow. There might be an Easyjet flight from from Gatwick but this is not certain and will involve waiting for BA flight arrival in Nice.

To secure your space, you need a) indicate your interest by adding your name on the event page; and b) send me an email at: adelinemmc- put the @ symbol here(this avoids spam)-yahoo.co.uk and I’ll send you my address for you to send a cheque for £78 for divers and £46 for non divers.

Question? Leave a comment here or call but please let me know ASAP if you want to go as this will open to non-Glug divers in my Bsac club (all Glug-friendly and well behaved) if this does not get booked very soon to save cost on flights.
Ads

(Under Construction)

In this section, you’ll find various topics about how to use the GLUG website. Most common questions are answered in the FAQ below, but check the other items in the menu bar above if you’re after something specific.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Help! I can’t remember my login details!
   If you know your username, then you can request a password reset by clicking on the “Lost your password?” link on the login page.
   If you can’t remember your username, then use the Contact Form to send us a message (choose “Website problems”), and we’ll reset it for you.
2. How do I change my registered email address?
   Log in to the website, and click the “Profile” link in the members area. Type in your new email address, and then click the “Update Profile” button. (Note: Some Committee members will find their profile page under the “Users” link.)
3. How do I stop my name from appearing on posts and comments I make?
   By default, the website will display your username on your posts and comments. If you want to change it, go to your profile page, and change “Nickname” to something else. Now save the change, and go back to the same page, and you should be able to select your Nickname from the “display publicly as” drop-down list. Don’t forget to Save again after you’ve changed the list item.
4. I’m getting too many emails from GLUG - how do I stop them?
   By default, all members are emailed every time a new post is published on the website. However, you can choose only to receive emails for the categories of posts you’re interested in. Go to your profile page (as described above), and at the bottom of the page you’ll find a section titled “Subscriptions”. Untick the categories you’re not interested in. N.B. You can’t unsubscribe from the “Club Announcements” topic - if you really don’t want any emails, then use the Contact Form to send us an email (specify “Website problems”)
5. When I click on the post title in a GLUG email, the webpage says “Sorry, no posts matched your criteria”
   This is usually because you’ve received a members-only post, and have not previously ticked the box on the login page which says “Remember me”. Only logged-in members can read members-only posts - click on the “Login” link, and then return to the home page, and you’ll see the post. (Members only posts have a little padlock icon next to the title).
   The other reason this can happen is because the post has been deleted - sometimes, if someone posts an item twice, we’ll then delete one of the duplicate items, which means that the email link doesn’t work.
6. I’m interested in one of the Events on the Events Page - how do I find out more?
   If you’re a club member, log into the website, and then return to the Events Page - you should now see Contact Information for each event. You can also register your interest for an Event by clicking on the tick in the right hand column - this doesn’t commit you to attending, but it lets other members know who else is Interested - if you hover the mouse over the smiley faces, you’ll see peoples’ names pop up.
   If you’re not a club member, then please send us an email using the Contact Form, and we’ll get back to you.
7. Can anyone write a post for the website?
   We encourage all club members to use the site to inform others about dive-, or GBLT-related events. For more details on Writing Posts, click on the Menu link above.
8. I left a comment on a post - Why doesn’t it show up on the website?
   We use a sophisticated Spam-checking program to check all comments before they appear on the website. If the Spam checker isn’t sure that your comment is genuine, it will pass it to the webmaster for moderation - so it may take a day or so before your comment appears. GLUG members should log in before posting comments - the Spam Checker looks much more favourably on comments from logged-in users.
9. When I tried to leave a comment, I got an “Error 403″ page, with a Technical Support Key
   Again, this is the Spam checker. As well as checking the content of your comment, it checks various other things designed to weed out Spammers. However, it’s not infallible. If you’re getting an error page, then please send an email to the address on the error page (NB: don’t click on the email address, type it manually into your email program, replacing the “at” with “@”). Make sure you include the technical support key in your email.
10. When I click on the “Show comments” link, I just get a little moving icon, but no comments
    Certain firewalls may block the javascript files that the website uses to expand the comments. If this happens to you, just click on the title of the Post, and you’ll get a single page showing just that post and its comments - that page doesn’t use Javascript, so you should be able to see it.
11. Do I have to fill in my personal details (address, phone number, etc.) ?
    No, but it does make our life easier if we need to contact you. Those details are only accessible to GLUG committee members, so you’re not giving your details to the whole world, however, we realise that members may have concerns about web security, and will choose not to provide these details. We would ask, however, that you fill in your Dive Qualification,your next of Kin, and your numbers of Warm and Coldwater dives, since this helps us to plan Dive trips.
12. Can I upload photos to the Gallery?
    Yes! We’re always happy to have more photos of Dive trips or GLUG Social events! For detailed instructions, click on the “Gallery Help” link above.

Gerhard tells me that he’s only had three people register for the AGM so far. I’ve grown used to a certain amount of apathy in the club, but this is ridiculous!

I guess that it’s possible that Gerhard’s Spam catcher has filtered out some of the emails, so if you’ve already registered, but haven’t had a confirmation from Gerhard, please email him again (using the Contact Form and selecting “GLUG AGM Registration”). If you don’t get confirmation within a couple of days, please email me instead (choose “Website problems” from the Contact Form).

If you haven’t yet registered - well what are you waiting for?! Do it now!

Neil.

Apologies, I made a right mess of the previous posting, so I’ve deleted it, and started again!…

The GLUG Christmas Meal will be at Strada, St Paul’s Churchyard (opposite the Cathedral entrance), at 7pm on Saturday 9th December.

We need bookings in advance, with your choice of Main course and Dessert. The menus are given at the end of this post. There are no limits on numbers so please bring loved ones, friends, relations and potential GLUG members.

The cost of the meal is £28.10 including service, but not including drinks (although if we get sufficient numbers they may throw in some wine). There is also a Vegetarian menu at £18.60 - see below for details.

The final date for booking the meal is Monday 4th December.
Important Note: Although payment is not required in advance, if you book a place for the meal, you will be liable for the cost of the meal, whether or not you actually turn up. (You can cancel your place up until 4th December without penalty)

Please select your choice of Main Course and Dessert from one of the two menus below, and email your choice to Alesh, who is organising the meal, using the Contact Form (select “GLUG Xmas Meal Booking” from the drop-down list). NB: Your booking is not confirmed until you receive a reply from Alesh - and the GLUG emails have a habit of going into his Spam folder, so if you don’t hear back from him, he may have missed it - just try again.

Yes, after a few days frantic reprogramming, the GLUG website is back up and running. It’s been updated to the latest version of the weblog software, which should mean that it’s secure once again.

It currently has a different look and feel to the old site - if you prefer it, let me know (you can comment below), but I’m working on returning the site to a similar look to the old one - this will be a work in progress over the next few weeks.

Likewise, you’ll find that certain areas of the site don’t yet work as they should. There’s a lot of work still to be done. Here’s my current “to do” list (not prioritised!):

The GLUG Website is currently offline for maintenance.

The website has been systematically targetted by hackers for the past few weeks, and as well as posting huge amounts of Spam into the website comments, we’ve also had three seperate Ebay Phishing attack scripts installed on the website without my knowledge. The latest attacker seems to have discovered how to send emails from the website as well.

I’m in the process of upgrading the whole website to the latest version of WordPress, which should fix most, if not all, of the security holes, but in the meantime I have no option but to take the website offline. Apologies for the incovenience this will cause.

You will find that NONE of the links from this page currently work.

In the meantime, if you have any queries, please email them me: neil AT glug DOT co DOT uk

Regards,

Neil Stead
Webmaster

It appears that someone has managed to find some security holes in the GLUG website. We are getting several Spam comments per day, despite my having disabled comments(!).

More worryingly, hackers have recently managed to install “phishing” scripts on two seperate occassions.

Our Webhost provider is not being particularly helpful in tracking down the security holes, and so it’s possible that the website may have to be taken offline for a while, until I can work out how to prevent this from happening.

If this happens, I will temporarily replace the website with a cut-down, secure version. This will just have basic information about the club and a Contact Form. We will lose the ability to post items to other members until I can find and fix the security holes.

So, if you find that this page has been replaced with something else in a few days time, that’s the reason. Apologies for the inconvenience, but it’s important that we get this fixed.

I’ve had to disable the comment facility on the website, at least temporarily, after having deleted over 300 comments for Viagra, Online Casinos, etc. this morning.

The site is supposed to have Spam checks in place to prevent this happening, but it appears that someone has found their way around these, so until I discover how, the only option is to prevent any further comments from being made. (Update: Even this doesn’t seem to be working properly!).

Don’t forget that GLUG members can always email the person who posted an item by clicking on the envelope that appears at the top of the post once you’re logged in.

Neil.

Hi everyone,

Fiona and I would like to remind everyone who hasn’t yet paid their renewal subscription, that you will lose your access to the members area of the website if we haven’t received your membership form and payment (£10) by the end of this month, you will lose your access to the members area of the website.
Please make sure that you fill in the membership form in full, even for renewals - many people change emails, home addresses, phone numbers, etc. in the course of a year, and this ensures that we have up-to-date contact details.

I thought it would also be a good opportunity to remind people of a few website tips - click on the link below to read more.

A few members have reported problems when trying to make comments to posts on this site - the website is rejecting their comments on the basis that they’re posting from an address that is known to generate spam.

If you use Hotmail, Yahoo, MSN, Gmail, or many of the other web-based email readers to read your email, and you follow a link within the email to the GLUG website, then the website is more likely to reject your comment, simply because so much Spam comes via these services.

The solution, for GLUG members, is to make sure you’re logged in to the website before you try to make a comment - that way the website knows that you’re a genuine user, and will allow your comment.

For non-members, I’m obviously not going to give clues on how to avoid the Spam catcher, since the Spammers will probably read this too! However, if you find you can’t make a comment, please contact me, and I’ll try to help.

P.S.: Did you know you can select “website tips” from the “News Categories” menu on the right, to get more useful information about using this website?

By now all GLUG members, and many past members should have received an email inviting them to take part in the GLUG Members Survey.

We want to know whether there’s anything we can do to improve the club, and so as well as asking you about your dive experience, how long you’ve been a member for, etc., we’ll also be asking you what you think of the trips we organise, the meeting venue, the Newsletter, and the Website, as well as whether there are any other locations we should be going to, or other services we should be providing.

We’ll also be asking past members to tell us their reasons for not re-joining, and what might persuade them to rejoin.

If you haven’t found the Survey invitation in your Inbox, then please check your Spam folder if you have one, and if you still can’t find it, but would like to complete the survey, please email me (members can log in and click the envelope at the top of the post, past members can use the “Contact Us” button on the left).

It would be great if everyone could complete the survey before the closing date of July 30th - the more people that respond, the better picture we’ll have of what the club’s members want.

Neil.

A relatively new phenomenon for sites such as GLUG’s, which make use of “Weblogs”, is comment spam. This is the practice of posting comments which advertise products or other websites, rather than being relevant to the original article.

The GLUG website is currently undergoing a fairly sustained attack by one particular Spammer - in the last 3 days, this person has attempted to add the same comment (advertising an online poker site) over 40 times, to various articles.

It’s doubtful whether Spammers actually read the sites they post on, but just in case…

The GLUG website has fairly sophisticated anti-spam protection:

1. Every comment posted is automatically checked against a set of known Spammer IP addresses, email addresses, URL links, keywords, etc., etc. This traps around 90% of the attacks, without any intervention by the webmaster. If Spam is detected at this stage, there is a long delay before the website tells the user that the post has failed - so not only does it prevent the Spam from getting posted, it slows the Spammer down as well.
2. If the comment passes these checks, then the email address supplied by the commenter is checked against a list of “approved” emails. These are typically the email addresses of people who have previously posted genuine comments (these addresses cannot be obtained from the website)
3. If the comment is not from the list of approved emails, then it is sent to the webmaster for approval. At this stage, if it turns out to be Spam, then the IP address, email address, URL links, etc. are added to the list of banned items, so that hopefully next time the Spam will be caught at Stage 1.

So, for anyone considering posting Spam into the website comments - don’t bother. It won’t work.

Hi everyone… another minor change to the website:

If you’re logged in to the website, you’ll notice that the author name of each post is now clickable (where it says “Posted by: fred”, for example) - if you click on the author name, it will open your email client to send the author an email.

If you’re not logged in, the the author name is not clickable - this prevents spammers from obtaining email addresses from our web pages, however, everyone should be aware that posting an item on the website will make your email address available to other GLUG members. If this causes anyone a problem, please email me (by clicking on my name at the top of this post!).

This also means that you don’t have to supply your email address within the post, if you do want people to contact you.