I also set up a spam blog for no real reason, just for fun. I like how the spams often change the whole look of the site, too, like backgrounds and stuff - I miss out on all that junk because I don't use Outlook express.
What I found is that if your web server also has a mail server running on the same IP address, accepting mail for that same domain, your spam jumps incredibly.
Spam programs seem to not be aware of DNS MX records, so if they find a host called www.wirefarm.com, they will try to connect to port 25 of that host. A well-behaved mail progam will do an MX lookup first and see that mail for my domain is handled elsewhere and send through the proper host.
The effect of this is that if you send me a mail with a real client, I get it, but if your spam-sending program just sends through wirefarm.com:25 it goes through, but winds up on the spam blog.
If you're running a mail server from home on a dyndns address and you have a friend doing the same, you might consider swapping MX records. If you're fortunate enough to have more than one IP address at your disposal, I'd bet your spam problems would go way down if you put mail and web on two different hosts. (At least until the spambots get smarter...)
The song plays perfectly afterwards, of course. Of course, I could write a little perl script and inject "Ripped by Jim from his own CD" and not only mess up the MD5, but also convince a jury that I ripped it myself. If this is the best that the RIAA can come up with, they'll merely embarass themselves further. Future P2P apps will merely have a checkbox that says "Inject Random Bit?"
The other day, I asked a similar question on my site - If I buy a copy-protected CD that won't play on my Mac, can I download the songs in good conscience?
No one's looking to make a living as a cellphone reporter, but what happens when the next Rodney King type situation occurs? Whatever happened to the guy who shot that footage? Does anyone care? He was in the right place at the right time with a bit of consumer-grade technology and he managed to change a city.
In one sense, he added a new system of checks and balances where none existed before.
Look for more of that.
I carry a big camera everywhere and because I do, I get shots that someone with no camera would obviously miss. Here in Tokyo, almost every cellphone has a camera. I doubt many shots will get missed in the future.
The technology has become ubiquitous and cheap - the real value will follow later as people get beyond the "Hi, this is me!" snapshots.
As for the value of blogs as a news source, keep in mind that most of these blog writers are used to having less than 10 readers, yet they still write. When they get something good, it gets noticed and passed around. Eventually it will end up on daypop or fark or one of the other aggregation sites and then you have your news/opinion article. Every day it's someone new, yet there is a steady stream of material. Things like this work themselves out.
Because I can sure use the hardware. Just over a week ago, I picked up a really clean PC from a curb, where it was waiting for the trashmen to come and get it.
Sure enough, when I booted it, there was a failed Windows 2000 install on the hard disk - the poor thing was just too slow to run it, so it was set out on its way to the landfill.
Later that day, I added a 120GB disk, installed RedHat 9 using the server install of Samba, Apache, Webmin, whatnot - no X, since I don't need it for a server. I sold it for $400 and now it's a fully-functional server for an office of 5 Windows desktops, serving files, doing backups, in general, being quite useful.
I'm really looking forward to the quality of hardware I'll be able to get when people upgrade from all of those NT boxes - SCSI stuff, rackmount stuff, raid controllers. Can't wait!
I live in Japan - my family lives in the states. Reason enough for me. I have 8 Mbit DSL - I can do full voice and video on a PC. People always told me that Macs were better at Audio/Video. (Has that changed?)
No mention of that. I hope it's there - Yahoo for OS X has had video for ages and it's a lot less useful than voice. Another thing I'd like is a better shortcut key set than they have. I don't want to *always* keep a mouse in hand. Also a way to minimize all windows at once... I don't see another $140 of value here yet...
One of the responsibilities of the cleaning staff is to give it a good buffing with Brasso and a rag every night. Nope - no chance of fingerprints or dust on that baby. Must be another explanation.
Regardless of how much security this, in reality, will provide, it will provide a tremendous APPEARANCE of security.
Especially if they plan to use those little nuts-and-bolts widgets in the corners and a brushed-steel background. Oh - and a strong, manly, etched font, too!
Funny thing is, I just bought a barebones PC (18,000 yen ~= $130) and the slowest chip I could find for it was an AMD 2200 (~$60). Put it together with 512MB and RedHat8. It doesn't really seem any faster than my 900Mhz. (Which had died.) My server (www.wirefarm.com) is a 300Mhz that performs beautifully, even when it's encoding MP3s (it really does this) and serving up web pages.
- encoding mp3 / divx / etc BladeEnc. Lame. Works like a charm on the 300. Learn the command line a bit and you'll be surprised what your hardware can really do. If you're encoding a DiVx movie, do you really need to *see* it process each frame? Leave out the eye candy and let it do its work.
- high quality divx playback MPlayer or Movix2. Fullscreen with no jumps, stutters on the 900. (Plus, they happily ignore annoyances like region codes and MacroVision. Use your mouse wheel to fast forward and reverse as you like. Skip around the way you like...)
- games games games. War3 at 1280x1024 is beautiful =) Wouldn't know. The only game I play is VI. I think if I liked games, I'd probably buy a Playstation.
- Windows XP =/ Well, there you go... Go download Knoppix and give it a try. I was using it this morning on a 233Mhz machine and it was fine for the web, email and Gimp. The Gimp was a wee bit slow, but did what I needed.
I guess I've just become an old fart about hardware - I used to crave faster hardware, but then again, I was using Windows...
Common misconception. Get her an iBook in the states. Stuff here is more expensive and will generally be Japanese-only Windows, unless you get an import, or a Mac.
An iBook or other Mac will have no such issues and be cheaper in the states. Get one there and save the trouble.
If Sun is using closed protocols that can only interface with other Sun programs, what the hell good are they? The Open Source Community might just adopt their functionality and leave them in the cold. Again.
I would choose an option that offered fewer initial features, but completely open standards. At least then, I'm not relying upon the vendor for functionality.
The appeal to me is that Jabber is an open standard with well thought out open protocols. Anyone can write their own Jabber client in any language. Same for interfaces.
There are libraries that let you write integration code for any program you have. Search CPAN for Jabber and you'll see what I mean.
Can I interface Sun's product with my company's homebrew scheduling system and the online shop I wrote? I know that I can with Jabber.
This is a server that you run in an office, not a competitor to ICQ and Yahoo. The data never leaves your private network, unlike Messenger, which routes everything through Redmond or wherever.
Although I don't carry it with me, I also keep a spare hard drive and a Win2k disk with all the latest patches and utilities that my company uses for the standard install. If worse comes to worse, I just move the users hard drive over to the secondary IDE and then install on a fresh hard drive. Then I can copy the users data onto the new hard drive. After that, the users old hard drive becomes my spare for the next user.
Yours is a logical solution, but probably illegal for most people who would follow your advice. (Though you do mention doing it in your own office, rather in some of the more remote parts of the South Pacific like the original poster asked.)
Not that I'm slamming you, (I'm guessing that your company has one of those blanket licenses) I'm just a bit frustrated from explaining to people why the copy of Microsoft Office or PhotoShop that "the nice computer guy" installed on their desktop to "help them out" could get their company "shut down" in the event of a BSA audit.
Argh. Sometimes I think that software should be much harder to install.
I won't use software that I didn't pay for. Since I'm a cheap bastard, I tend to use Linux.
That run on methane or alcohol. Then just train the robot to store kitchen scraps in its 'stomach' until gas forms. Other times you could let it drink up a bottle of gin when it needed a boost.
Not sure what benefit smoking cigars might have, but it sure would be cool, especially if you named it Bender... Cheers, Jim
Slashdot Mirror
I also set up a spam blog for no real reason, just for fun. I like how the spams often change the whole look of the site, too, like backgrounds and stuff - I miss out on all that junk because I don't use Outlook express.
What I found is that if your web server also has a mail server running on the same IP address, accepting mail for that same domain, your spam jumps incredibly.
Spam programs seem to not be aware of DNS MX records, so if they find a host called www.wirefarm.com, they will try to connect to port 25 of that host.
A well-behaved mail progam will do an MX lookup first and see that mail for my domain is handled elsewhere and send through the proper host.
The effect of this is that if you send me a mail with a real client, I get it, but if your spam-sending program just sends through wirefarm.com:25 it goes through, but winds up on the spam blog.
If you're running a mail server from home on a dyndns address and you have a friend doing the same, you might consider swapping MX records. If you're fortunate enough to have more than one IP address at your disposal, I'd bet your spam problems would go way down if you put mail and web on two different hosts. (At least until the spambots get smarter...)
As an expriment I just tried:
[sputnik57:~/Desktop] jim% md5sum Norwegian\ Wood.mp3
16b64198efdd1c183b97020ca9c69396 Norwegian Wood.mp3
[sputnik57:~/Desktop] jim% echo 0>>Norwegian\ Wood.mp3
[sputnik57:~/Desktop] jim% md5sum Norwegian\ Wood.mp3
5c8d12d1d83338b8a4c39c9401f683ac Norwegian Wood.mp3
The song plays perfectly afterwards, of course.
Of course, I could write a little perl script and inject "Ripped by Jim from his own CD" and not only mess up the MD5, but also convince a jury that I ripped it myself. If this is the best that the RIAA can come up with, they'll merely embarass themselves further. Future P2P apps will merely have a checkbox that says "Inject Random Bit?"
The other day, I asked a similar question on my site - If I buy a copy-protected CD that won't play on my Mac, can I download the songs in good conscience?
Cheers,
Jim
I hear their poetry is pretty awful.
Web servers, mail servers, unlimited uploads and downloads. Whatever you want.
I do all of that and more.
(Yes, my site is running on my home connection.)
Cheers,
Jim
No one's looking to make a living as a cellphone reporter, but what happens when the next Rodney King type situation occurs? Whatever happened to the guy who shot that footage? Does anyone care? He was in the right place at the right time with a bit of consumer-grade technology and he managed to change a city.
In one sense, he added a new system of checks and balances where none existed before.
Look for more of that.
I carry a big camera everywhere and because I do, I get shots that someone with no camera would obviously miss. Here in Tokyo, almost every cellphone has a camera. I doubt many shots will get missed in the future.
The technology has become ubiquitous and cheap - the real value will follow later as people get beyond the "Hi, this is me!" snapshots.
As for the value of blogs as a news source, keep in mind that most of these blog writers are used to having less than 10 readers, yet they still write. When they get something good, it gets noticed and passed around. Eventually it will end up on daypop or fark or one of the other aggregation sites and then you have your news/opinion article. Every day it's someone new, yet there is a steady stream of material.
Things like this work themselves out.
Cheers,
Jim
Because I can sure use the hardware.
Just over a week ago, I picked up a really clean PC from a curb, where it was waiting for the trashmen to come and get it.
Sure enough, when I booted it, there was a failed Windows 2000 install on the hard disk - the poor thing was just too slow to run it, so it was set out on its way to the landfill.
Later that day, I added a 120GB disk, installed RedHat 9 using the server install of Samba, Apache, Webmin, whatnot - no X, since I don't need it for a server. I sold it for $400 and now it's a fully-functional server for an office of 5 Windows desktops, serving files, doing backups, in general, being quite useful.
I'm really looking forward to the quality of hardware I'll be able to get when people upgrade from all of those NT boxes - SCSI stuff, rackmount stuff, raid controllers. Can't wait!
This news made my day!
Cheers,
Jim
I live in Japan - my family lives in the states. Reason enough for me.
I have 8 Mbit DSL - I can do full voice and video on a PC.
People always told me that Macs were better at Audio/Video.
(Has that changed?)
This was typed on a Mac.
It only seems like ages when you're waiting for voice.
(Something I could do years ago on my PC...)
No mention of that.
I hope it's there - Yahoo for OS X has had video for ages and it's a lot less useful than voice.
Another thing I'd like is a better shortcut key set than they have. I don't want to *always* keep a mouse in hand.
Also a way to minimize all windows at once...
I don't see another $140 of value here yet...
Cheers,
Jim
One of the responsibilities of the cleaning staff is to give it a good buffing with Brasso and a rag every night.
Nope - no chance of fingerprints or dust on that baby. Must be another explanation.
Cheers,
Jim
You're gonna have to just download the whole movie using BitTorrent to see and hear those scenes...
Sorry.
Regardless of how much security this, in reality, will provide, it will provide a tremendous APPEARANCE of security.
Especially if they plan to use those little nuts-and-bolts widgets in the corners and a brushed-steel background. Oh - and a strong, manly, etched font, too!
Tsuyoi Zo!
Cheers
Jim
Funny thing is, I just bought a barebones PC (18,000 yen ~= $130) and the slowest chip I could find for it was an AMD 2200 (~$60). Put it together with 512MB and RedHat8.
It doesn't really seem any faster than my 900Mhz. (Which had died.)
My server (www.wirefarm.com) is a 300Mhz that performs beautifully, even when it's encoding MP3s (it really does this) and serving up web pages.
- encoding mp3 / divx / etc
BladeEnc. Lame. Works like a charm on the 300. Learn the command line a bit and you'll be surprised what your hardware can really do. If you're encoding a DiVx movie, do you really need to *see* it process each frame? Leave out the eye candy and let it do its work.
- high quality divx playback
MPlayer or Movix2. Fullscreen with no jumps, stutters on the 900. (Plus, they happily ignore annoyances like region codes and MacroVision. Use your mouse wheel to fast forward and reverse as you like. Skip around the way you like...)
- games games games. War3 at 1280x1024 is beautiful =)
Wouldn't know. The only game I play is VI.
I think if I liked games, I'd probably buy a Playstation.
- Windows XP =/
Well, there you go...
Go download Knoppix and give it a try. I was using it this morning on a 233Mhz machine and it was fine for the web, email and Gimp. The Gimp was a wee bit slow, but did what I needed.
I guess I've just become an old fart about hardware - I used to crave faster hardware, but then again, I was using Windows...
or did others stop caring a lot about speed somewhere around 1Ghz?
...new around here...
Cheers,
Jim
You make a reasonable post. ...Then you lose all credibility with that asshole .sig.
I donft get it...
Common misconception. Get her an iBook in the states.
Stuff here is more expensive and will generally be Japanese-only Windows, unless you get an import, or a Mac.
An iBook or other Mac will have no such issues and be cheaper in the states. Get one there and save the trouble.
(I live 'over there')
Jim
If Sun is using closed protocols that can only interface with other Sun programs, what the hell good are they? The Open Source Community might just adopt their functionality and leave them in the cold. Again.
I would choose an option that offered fewer initial features, but completely open standards. At least then, I'm not relying upon the vendor for functionality.
The appeal to me is that Jabber is an open standard with well thought out open protocols. Anyone can write their own Jabber client in any language. Same for interfaces.
There are libraries that let you write integration code for any program you have. Search CPAN for Jabber and you'll see what I mean.
Can I interface Sun's product with my company's homebrew scheduling system and the online shop I wrote? I know that I can with Jabber.
Jim
This is a server that you run in an office, not a competitor to ICQ and Yahoo.
The data never leaves your private network, unlike Messenger, which routes everything through Redmond or wherever.
Cheers,
Jim
Does it do anything that an open-source, free Jabber server can do?
Just wondering...
Jim
From my current download:
saving: redhat9 (1769.2 MB)
percent done: 11.9
time left: 2 hour 01 min 48 sec
download to: redhat9
download rate: 359 kB/s
upload rate: 47 kB/s
Really nice piece of kit.
Cheers,
Jim
(Yes, I'll keep it running for a couple of days after its completed.)
Although I don't carry it with me, I also keep a spare hard drive and a Win2k disk with all the latest patches and utilities that my company uses for the standard install. If worse comes to worse, I just move the users hard drive over to the secondary IDE and then install on a fresh hard drive. Then I can copy the users data onto the new hard drive. After that, the users old hard drive becomes my spare for the next user.
Yours is a logical solution, but probably illegal for most people who would follow your advice. (Though you do mention doing it in your own office, rather in some of the more remote parts of the South Pacific like the original poster asked.)
Not that I'm slamming you, (I'm guessing that your company has one of those blanket licenses) I'm just a bit frustrated from explaining to people why the copy of Microsoft Office or PhotoShop that "the nice computer guy" installed on their desktop to "help them out" could get their company "shut down" in the event of a BSA audit.
Argh. Sometimes I think that software should be much harder to install.
I won't use software that I didn't pay for. Since I'm a cheap bastard, I tend to use Linux.
Cheers,
Jim
That run on methane or alcohol.
Then just train the robot to store kitchen scraps in its 'stomach' until gas forms.
Other times you could let it drink up a bottle of gin when it needed a boost.
Not sure what benefit smoking cigars might have, but it sure would be cool, especially if you named it Bender...
Cheers,
Jim
An appropriate story on Tetsuwan Atomu's birthday.
(In 1952, the story was written that he was born April 7th, 2003.)
It's already the 7th here in Japan...
Maybe another 20 years and such a robot is feasable? 10???
Cheers,
Jim