I would like to share my (negative) experiences at cryptotalk.net I leave it to the readers to decide as they deem fit.
I signed up at the said forum about 5 weeks ago using the id cyberguy, posted a little over 25 posts and got my first payment promptly after requesting it. I happily started posting again, but when I had posted about 20 more posts, suddenly found my membership deleted along with all my posts. All my posts were original content based on facts I had learnt from various sources, but I never did any copy pasting of articles. To get an idea of the type of stuff I posted please have a look at
this thread started by me. This is when I posted here requesting the admin to clarify matters. I know such posts will not interest everyone, but there was nothing in the forum rules against it, so I carried on with a variety of topics that came to my mind.
After my id got deleted I posted
here seeking clarification from the admin and got
this lame reply. I maintained silence and did not try to defend myself in spite of the admin accusing me of making copy paste posts, because I had managed to register again using the same id and had started to post. I was prepared to overlook what had happened. Once again I managed to complete 25 posts, following which I requested a payment. The payment was not as prompt as before, but I received it, and then started posting again. Last Monday, I had completed another set of 25 posts and made a payment request. On Wednesday morning I found once again that my id had been deleted again with all my posts.
I do not understand what sort of forum the admin wishes to build. He accused me of copy pasting merely due to the length of my posts without any further investigation. If someone takes the time to carefully read the posts of some members who have posted over 100 posts it will be quite evident how copy pasting has been done by some of them.
The remnants of a thread started by me can be found
hereBelow I am posting the 3 posts which I had posted on this thread which have now been deleted (these are from local copies i had saved after posting) You will observe "mocacinno" has quoted my last post. I am only doing this so that readers can be convinced that the information posted by me, previously is true, since the admin may make an appearance and start accusing me again.
post 1----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The API at
https://blockchain.info can be used to generate image files with QR codes of a required resolution. Open up any GUI web browser, type
https://blockchain.info/qr?data=your_date_here&size=dimension_in_pixel
in the address bar and press enter. This will open a new web page containing an image of the requested resolution for the QR code that corresponds to your data. The title bar of the browser will indicate the data and the resolution used. If the size parameter is not used, as in
https://blockchain.info/qr?data=your_date_here
The generated image has a default size of 350x350 pixels. The QR code is presented as a PNG image, and can be saved to the disk by right-clicking on the image and selecting the "save image as" or similar option available with most browsers.
On a UNIX like system (such as Linux), you can generate the PNG image on the command line, without using any browser, if you have "curl", as follows
curl https://blockchain.info/qr?data=your_date_here&size=dimension_in_pixel >filename.png
This will save the image to filename.png which can be opened using any image viewer.
To illustrate an example, if you need the QR code for the bitcoin address 19HHqF5C3MTobxwqojWi1iUYzFiQFtHZ7X as a 256x256 pixel image, use
https://blockchain.info/qr?19HHqF5C3MTobxwqojWi1iUYzFiQFtHZ7X&size=256
as URL. If you need to generate the image file on the commandline, use
curl https://blockchain.info/qr?19HHqF5C3MTobxwqojWi1iUYzFiQFtHZ7X&size=256 >bitcoin_address.png
at the linux console.
Theoritically, this can be used even to generate QR codes for a private key, but this should
never be done, since the moment a private key is transmitted over a network (the internet in this case), the associated bitcoin address will have to be considred as compromised.
end of post 1----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
post 2----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
qrencode and zbarimg are two commandline utilities that can be used to encode (generate) and decode QR codes respectively. They can be installed, along with all required dependencies, on any debian based Linux distribution such as Debian, Ubuntu, Trisquel etc. by running
apt-get install qrencode zbar-tools
as super user (root) from a Linux console. These can be used offline and are hence safe to use even for encoding and decoding private keys.
qrencode is used to generate an image file from a given string, which may be a bitcoin address, private key or anything else. The default output is a PNG file, but there are a large number of options that can be used to change the default settings, which can be seen by running
qrencode --help
zbarimg which is included in the zbar-tools package can be used to decode an image file containing a QR code. Its basic usage is
zbarimg image_file
This will print the text encoded in the QR code to the screen.
This can be useful in a situation where a QR code needs to be scanned but a webcam or a smartphone is not available. A photo can be taken of the QR code using an ordinary camera phone or digital camera, uploaded to the PC via USB or bluetooth and decoded using zbarimg. While this is too cumbersome for ordinary use, it could be handy in an emergency.
zbarcam which is also included with the zbar-tools package can be used to scan and decode a QR code when a web cam is available.
end of post 2----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
post 3----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm leaving a reply so i can easily find this topic. I'm going to use zbarimg image_file pretty often.
I actually never tought about this sollution, i was usually using my phone to decode the qr codes on websites, and mailing myself the decoded text, this tool actually looks a lot easyer!
Thanks!
https://zxing.org is a website where QR codes and many other types of bar codes can be decoded online. You can either upload an image file or submit the URL of an online image containing the code. This can be quite handy when shopping online, and you need to obtain a bitcoin address from a QR code quickly. Another significant feature of this website is that it does not require java script to function. In fact it can be used even with a text only browser such as lynx or elinks. (for those who are unaware - yes, such browsers exist. read more
here)
For more information regarding QR codes visit
http://www.qrcode.com/en/about/index.htmlend of post 3----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
All I can say is be prepared for disappointments if you intend signing up at cryptotalk.net, especially if you intend contributing posts with substance. You are better off trying to earn by blogging.