I support the use of DNSRBLs (not by use alone, but it should augment a content-filtering system,) with the exception of SORBS. I have found it to be far too aggressive, more so than SPEWS. In fact, an ISP with which I partner wound up on SORBS, and during the removal process they discovered that a number of the recommended donation recipients will not accept the donations because of the myriad complaints over the process.
This probably belongs well up in the replies, but I can't scroll through any more discussions about Ubuntu (call me lazy:)
I ran into the problem of incompatible keys while working on two Dell desktops.
Neither machine would boot from Dell's own Windows XP Home Edition CD, and of course the key on the Dell COAs would not work with an OEM CD, which would boot.
So I downloaded the install floppies from Microsoft. The six floppies would not boot the Dell CD either, since the CD label differs from the OEM CD, and even though I eventually was able to get the system running from the Dell CD (do not ask me how, I do not remember, mostly due to the frustration of the whole situation and the time spent) the Dell key would not work, apparently due to the difference in the boot floppies.
Microsoft will not help because the CD is OEM (and Dell Special OEM at that,) and Dell will not help because the computers are out of warranty. So I had to tell the owner that the only way for me to get Windows installed on the computers was for him to buy the operating system he already owned. I told him just to buy the upgrade, and I fudged it with a Windows 98 OEM CD I have.
I really do not care that this technically violates the licensing agreement: he owns the operating system already and should not have had to purchase it again. Microsoft can kiss my ass for making my job so much more difficult. And for that matter, so can Dell.
It's called AROS, the Amiga Replacement Operating System, and it's based on compatibility with the AmigaOS 3.1 API. I don't think they call it a "port", though. Check out http://www.aros.org/.
To disagree with some of the posters above... Amiga isn't dead, but it is dying at the hands of Amiga, Inc., for all I can tell. I like reading ignorant and uninformed people spewing forth about how dead it is, etc., when the reality seems that Amiga is one of the liveliest dead platforms around.
Usability and GUI would be great, but I'd prefer stability. I have had crap luck with PalmOS Garnet on my LifeDrive, and it has pushed me away from Palm. I am one application away from leaving Palm and using my MIDP2 Java phone instead.
Their statement is exactly the reason why I have been migrating away from DNSBL use solely, and modified my "no whitelist" policy -- DNSBLs are useful, but by themselves lack effectiveness.
In the case of ORDB, out of a couple hundred thousand email rejections last week, only five were due to an ORDB listing. In my configurations, ORDB is fourth in line to other DNSBLs, like the SBL/XBL, which catch a good 73% of crap before ORDB even has a chance.
My girlfriend recently decided that she wanted a Treo, and I recommended that she get the 700wx with Windows Mobile. I have had, well, crap experiences with PalmOS-based devices, but that's another story altogether. As another aside, I will say I'm disappointed with the lower resolution screen on the 700wx.
Anyway, Sprint had the Treo 700wx on special for $399, after $100 instant and $150 mail-in rebate. She's been a customer with Sprint for eight years and never cashed in on a replacement rebate. In fact, the only replacement she had she bought out-right when her old Samsung finally bit the dust.
Fine print: this is only for new customers. After eight years of loyal service, and even convincing her entire family to switch to Sprint PCS, they offered her $75 off the phone. While she was working her way through a few supervisors, and let me also mention that the first two people with whome she spoke had accents so thick that even the local Sprint store rep could not understand them, I called Verizon and asked them about their replacement policies. The phone is $299, and they do not care if you are current or new, and current customers qualify for upgrade pricing at 18 months.
She stuck with Sprint as they gave her the PCS Vision Data unlimited plan for $25 per month, and bought the phone elsewhere. And FYI, here in Tallahassee, Sprint PCS Vision is not very much faster than my Cingular EDGE, so phooey on the commercials.
Now, I have had some bumps with Cingular (I think I have them in my journal,) but they have ALWAYS taken care of me when I called them on the problem (two that I can think of.) The only phone I ever bought from them was the Sony Ericsson T60d way back in 2002 when I first got my service. Since then I have bought the T62u, T637, and now my K790a, mostly because they did not offer the phone I wanted, especially this K790a (I'm getting giddy writing about it.) So I really cannot speak for Cingular's replacement/upgrade policies.
But I digress. The only problem I have with Cingular disconnects is when I travel through areas which are known for bad coverage, like the 2.5 miles between my neighborhood and the city limits. Their data support has always been helpful and (gasp!) knowledgeable. I emailed data support about EDGE/GPRS IPs not having proper DNS resolutions and that was fixed within a couple of weeks! I am told that they are working on provisioning which would also allow me to use EDGE/GPRS data while I am talking on the phone.
I do have one gripe, and I am not really sure to whom it should be aimed. Whenever I call a couple of customer who use a Sprint local exchange competitor's T1 for phone, if no incoming lines are available my call simply disconnects without error or notification. THAT'S annoying, but I suspect it is the terminal switch causing that.
One major issue I do have with Cingular, and supposedly they are looking into placing a mobile cell unit, what they call a "COW", to cover this, is FSU home games. Forget about getting online, making a call, or text messaging while at Doak Campbell Stadium -- doing so is a crap-shoot at best.
So, other than a couple of large flub-ups over the past five years, I have found Cingular to be responsive and satisfying. I do not think I will be "churn" for some time.
If you have not played it yet, do so. It is interestingly addictive. My girlfriend watched me play it for a long time, what seemed like an hour but could have been much shorter or longer. In the end I got frustrated because we could not figure out how to get me to evolve into what I would consider the third level of the game -- I had already eaten everything there was to eat. Maybe it was just a bug in the version I downloaded.
The 68010 issue was due to an instruction (MOV EA?) being made a Supervisor instruction rather than User. There were at least a couple of programs which emulated this instruction on-the-fly by catching the trap.
As stated, not following the rules broke MANY programs during the move from 68000 to 68020 and above as many programs used unused bits in the A-registers (24 bits used on 68000/68010 versus all 32 bits on later CPUs) to hold data. Bad idea.
IIRC, Apple had a similar problem -- something about a "pure" application and different bit-addressing modes of the OS. Ran into a similar problem back in 99, then again in 00.;)
I need to requalify that... if an ISP, phone company, et al is informed that it has a customer doing Something Bad, *then* it should take action. The majority of pro activeness these days is to criminalize everyone involved in an activity, and ask questions later. I do not subscribe to this philosophy.
So, if ComCast has a spammer, it should terminate the account. If Embarq has someone making threatening calls, it should work to monitor and eventually shut the line down. And so on. But we should not be watched all the time "just in case" we do something illegal.
Never been audited. My comment was meant as more of a stab at the whole "Kill A Commie for Mommy" idea for forcing ISP data retention -- logs of all ISP user activity. I do not believe that an ISP should be any more responsible for what its users do than a phone company is responsible for customers' crank calls or a toll road operator is responsible for reckless drivers.
I work closely with several ISPs, and have worked for one myself. AFAIK they are not required to keep logs, period. In fact, one of them I work with deletes logs on a regular basis.
The whole idea of data retention is horse shit. The data is not "evidence" until requested by court order. If the data is gone by then, too bad. With a proper court order, the MIB can monitor 'till their hearts' content to obtain new data. Proactive monitoring (pre-crime) is anti-American.
Because, as has been stated so clearly, if you are against the government and its policies, then you are with the terrorists. Therefore you can be claimed as an enemy combatant, and thus stripped of your rights.
OT Agreed, but since we're heading down this track.
In the case of fast food coffee, there has to be a balance struck with safety. Water at 180F is not safe. And I would hardly compare McDonald's coffee to Boyds:)
Only if you ask McDonald's:) 180F water is extremely hot and carries much more energy than water at 145F, therefore taking much longer to cool down, passing much more heat to the cooling medium (ie your leg, etc.)
Simply put, anyone who calls me without my consent is leeching from my resources, namely time and money, though others may come to mind. I broke my toe once running from the bathroom to answer the phone and it turned out to be one of these types of calls. It probably goes without saying that my toe was not the only thing which wound up broken (poor phone.)
I pay for a telephone line for MY convenience, not someone else's. And I find it unpalatable that, in order to NOT receive phone calls which I do not solicit, I must pay a monthly or yearly fee. The cost of such anti-annoyances should be levied on those who perpetrate the annoyance, not those who wish to avoid it.
Simply put, my phone is publicly listed so that friends, family, and acquaintances (past or present) may have an easy reference to get hold of me -- again, this is my convenience. Not for marketing types to harass me. (as a quick aside, I might have as much of a problem if the bastards would take my first NO THANK YOU as an answer.) Another part of this convenience which torques me is the CID spoofing or blocking: CID was supposed to be a way to avoid such phone calls, but with so many systems which do not provide CID information (my girlfriend's office call-out, some cell phone carriers, and so on) sometimes you simply HAVE to answer those OUT OF AREA or UNKNOWN calls. And again, call blocking services (like Sprint/Embarq's Privacy ID) levy additional costs unto me and undo inconvenience unto those to whom I really do wish to speak.
My preference is that they should NOT be allowed to call, period. If the United Way wants to spend money on getting the word out, there are much better venues than bothering me, such as TV, radio, and newspaper ads, billboards, and so on.
If you do not take action, then the problem persists and has the potential to increase in severity. If enough people do this, calling agencies will take notice and work to conform with the law. Then if people have problems with the law, or even now, people can contact their local congress-critter and let him or her know about these objections.
The law is there for a reason, folks. You would be wise to take advantage of any part of The System which actually works in your favor.
Some already do, like myself. I have over a couple thousand spam trap email addresses scattered across several dozen domains which feed a DNSRBL using Spamikaze. I make that RBL available to close colleagues.
I do straight-up DNS blocklisting. No filtering, just straight rejection. I also provide a link in the rejection which takes the offender to a simple page which explains the block, explains my email policies, and offers a solution contact. For IPs which are listed due to poorly maintained dynamic vs static IP lists, I make exceptions and move on. ComCast is really good for moving static IPs around on a whim, for one. Out of the ten RBLs I use, the one with the biggest impact on my customers' contacts is SpamCop. I have never once had report of a false positive using the SpamHaus RBL or XBL.
Right now my systems block almost 65% of incoming email as spam, using a combination of ten RBLs, my automatic Spamikaze block list, and my own access list of over 50,000 entries of hand verified spammers. I also block entire countries (China, Brazil, Korea, and Argentina.) Customers are aware of my blocking policies, which are carefully scrutinized before implementation. Some lists have even been removed after short term usage. If customer do not like the blocking system, they can be exempted by account or domain, and then I recommend spam filtering software for use on their end. Or I am happy to move them to other services. Haven't lost one yet.
Blocking IPs based on RBLs is very useful for small operations like myself. It's easier to deal with the odd reports of blocked email than the massive complaints about spam. I'm not a fan of filtering because of the increased resource load placed on the mail system. I am not a fan of "tagging" since many spammers get paid for every deliverable email. If you do run a spam filtering system, it should reject during the SMTP session.
Even so, I determined many months ago that the DNSRBL scheme is being outpaces by the advent of zombie spam and virus spewing home computers. It is often cat-n-mouse unless you have reliable and reliably maintained lists of dynamic IPs from of which 99.9% of incoming email (a true, metered statistic) is illegitimate. Thus, I am forced to shell out the money to set up another server which can provide content filtering and spam tagging with configurable threshholds for immediate rejection.
My best recommendation for years has been to use ISP mailservers as smart hosts, but that falls the wayside when ComCast, Cox, Earthlink, et al wind up on SPEWS or SpamCop. Well, shit. What now? There are companies which, like myself, offer paid SMTP egress with a strict no-tolerance policy for spammers. Pink contracts are a plague, and I would rather go bankrupt than offer safe haven to a phuqn spammer.
In an ideal world, lawyers who hate spam (and believe me, all of my lawyer customers absolutely despise spam) would refuse to take cases of spammers. Realistically, lawyers will take cases like e360's just in case they are telling the truth, and they really aren't spammers.
But this case is clever. e360 and other alleged spammers are going after the providers of lists because they would never win against a private party running a server which blocked its email. Let alone several hundred or thousand. But maybe the demise of MAPS and (I shudder to think) SpamHaus would harken an even darker era for spammers, when admins create, share, and aggregate their own small lists. Then the blood would really flow.
And that's enough of this thought train. Good night.
The next sector link is contained in the first two bytes of the sector, or the word contains a $00 and the length of the block in bytes (thus marking the last block.)
Actually, it is not all that scary to support. Almost all of my supported sites run SBS2003, and I and they love it. It provides a clean and easy support structure, though it suffers the "dammit" effect that most software suffers in the way of missing or round-about ways of getting to some features.
The eggs-in-one-basket thing is inevitable in small business. As has been said before, many small businesses do not have the budget to support multiple boxes and IT/support staff. The wizards in SBS2003 make administration nearly a snap, and the rest of the process can be handled with clever automation. SBS can be the foundation of a multi-server environment -- at one site we have three, the SBS server, a TS server, and a WebServer for.Net apps. I would like to add a fourth for handling their specialized apps which require their own SQL engines, to take the load off the main SBS server. In the end, though, what does help is a good disaster plan.
First off, DO NOT RUN A SERVER ON A SINGLE HARD DRIVE. Read that again several times, repeat it, write it on a chalk board a hundred times, spell it out in your Alphabits. Even RAID1 is better than nothing.
Secondly, have a good and reliable backup solution. Tapes are great, and there are several well-priced alternatives which can provide reliability and durability. I prefer tapes, and for large installations an AIT or DLT-V4 drive is great, while smaller installations can handle DAT72.
Secondly-and-a-half, keep an up-to-date ASR tape and floppy on hand! I keep one of these for each customer locked in a fire-resistant and water-resistant media vault.
Thirdly, TEST your backup solution. Build another box, do an install and restore the backup. Make sure your plan works, lest you be caught with your pants down when it counts. VirtualPC, VMWare, etc. are great for this if you do not have extra hardware lying around. You *do* have the Action Pack, right??
Fourthly, have an action plan in place in case one of your clients (or your own site) suffers a catastrophic failure. Be ready to order new equipment, test and restore backups, and spend a day or more on-site getting things back up and running. Fire, frost, or frippery can and do happen.
Fifthly, have recovery software available. I purchased RTools a while back, with FAT, NTFS, and RAID recovery tools. Some people prefer OnTrack or some other tools. I have had great results with RTools. While not the Alpha-Omega of site recovery, such software can prove invaluable in the process. But it early, learn how to use it, and be prepared.
BTW: In reference to the issue of new hardware, REMEMBER MS LICENSING. If you build systems, STAY AWAY FROM OEM SOFTWARE. But it is cheaper, right? Yeah, until your motherboard dies and, technically, so does your OEM licensing. Buying canned systems is not so much of a problem since you can (generally) rely upon the OEM to provide an exact replacement. But if you build your own or order a custom system, things change VERY rapidly, and your favorite Socket AM motherboard may not be available for long after AM2 comes out. (Ran into this problem with a PIV 1.7 rig with the original socket. UGH!)
Attend your local InfraGard general meetings, consider becoming a member. These meetings are often very interesting, especially when they cover topics such as this. You will have a chance to learn from the processes and mistakes of your brethren in the industry. I like to hear tales of state agencies who learned lessons the hard way:)
In essense, you have to be a tech Boy Scout and always be prepared. I always kinda liked the term "Technology Samurai." I cannot say that I am ready for every possible disaster, but I like to think that at this point I have a good start.
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I support the use of DNSRBLs (not by use alone, but it should augment a content-filtering system,) with the exception of SORBS. I have found it to be far too aggressive, more so than SPEWS. In fact, an ISP with which I partner wound up on SORBS, and during the removal process they discovered that a number of the recommended donation recipients will not accept the donations because of the myriad complaints over the process.
Ah, well.
This probably belongs well up in the replies, but I can't scroll through any more discussions about Ubuntu (call me lazy :)
I ran into the problem of incompatible keys while working on two Dell desktops.
Neither machine would boot from Dell's own Windows XP Home Edition CD, and of course the key on the Dell COAs would not work with an OEM CD, which would boot.
So I downloaded the install floppies from Microsoft. The six floppies would not boot the Dell CD either, since the CD label differs from the OEM CD, and even though I eventually was able to get the system running from the Dell CD (do not ask me how, I do not remember, mostly due to the frustration of the whole situation and the time spent) the Dell key would not work, apparently due to the difference in the boot floppies.
Microsoft will not help because the CD is OEM (and Dell Special OEM at that,) and Dell will not help because the computers are out of warranty. So I had to tell the owner that the only way for me to get Windows installed on the computers was for him to buy the operating system he already owned. I told him just to buy the upgrade, and I fudged it with a Windows 98 OEM CD I have.
I really do not care that this technically violates the licensing agreement: he owns the operating system already and should not have had to purchase it again. Microsoft can kiss my ass for making my job so much more difficult. And for that matter, so can Dell.
It's called AROS, the Amiga Replacement Operating System, and it's based on compatibility with the AmigaOS 3.1 API. I don't think they call it a "port", though. Check out http://www.aros.org/.
To disagree with some of the posters above... Amiga isn't dead, but it is dying at the hands of Amiga, Inc., for all I can tell. I like reading ignorant and uninformed people spewing forth about how dead it is, etc., when the reality seems that Amiga is one of the liveliest dead platforms around.
"Amiga: Dead and Loving It!"
Usability and GUI would be great, but I'd prefer stability. I have had crap luck with PalmOS Garnet on my LifeDrive, and it has pushed me away from Palm. I am one application away from leaving Palm and using my MIDP2 Java phone instead.
Their statement is exactly the reason why I have been migrating away from DNSBL use solely, and modified my "no whitelist" policy -- DNSBLs are useful, but by themselves lack effectiveness.
In the case of ORDB, out of a couple hundred thousand email rejections last week, only five were due to an ORDB listing. In my configurations, ORDB is fourth in line to other DNSBLs, like the SBL/XBL, which catch a good 73% of crap before ORDB even has a chance.
Many thanks to them for the work over the years.
My girlfriend recently decided that she wanted a Treo, and I recommended that she get the 700wx with Windows Mobile. I have had, well, crap experiences with PalmOS-based devices, but that's another story altogether. As another aside, I will say I'm disappointed with the lower resolution screen on the 700wx.
Anyway, Sprint had the Treo 700wx on special for $399, after $100 instant and $150 mail-in rebate. She's been a customer with Sprint for eight years and never cashed in on a replacement rebate. In fact, the only replacement she had she bought out-right when her old Samsung finally bit the dust.
Fine print: this is only for new customers. After eight years of loyal service, and even convincing her entire family to switch to Sprint PCS, they offered her $75 off the phone. While she was working her way through a few supervisors, and let me also mention that the first two people with whome she spoke had accents so thick that even the local Sprint store rep could not understand them, I called Verizon and asked them about their replacement policies. The phone is $299, and they do not care if you are current or new, and current customers qualify for upgrade pricing at 18 months.
She stuck with Sprint as they gave her the PCS Vision Data unlimited plan for $25 per month, and bought the phone elsewhere. And FYI, here in Tallahassee, Sprint PCS Vision is not very much faster than my Cingular EDGE, so phooey on the commercials.
Now, I have had some bumps with Cingular (I think I have them in my journal,) but they have ALWAYS taken care of me when I called them on the problem (two that I can think of.) The only phone I ever bought from them was the Sony Ericsson T60d way back in 2002 when I first got my service. Since then I have bought the T62u, T637, and now my K790a, mostly because they did not offer the phone I wanted, especially this K790a (I'm getting giddy writing about it.) So I really cannot speak for Cingular's replacement/upgrade policies.
But I digress. The only problem I have with Cingular disconnects is when I travel through areas which are known for bad coverage, like the 2.5 miles between my neighborhood and the city limits. Their data support has always been helpful and (gasp!) knowledgeable. I emailed data support about EDGE/GPRS IPs not having proper DNS resolutions and that was fixed within a couple of weeks! I am told that they are working on provisioning which would also allow me to use EDGE/GPRS data while I am talking on the phone.
I do have one gripe, and I am not really sure to whom it should be aimed. Whenever I call a couple of customer who use a Sprint local exchange competitor's T1 for phone, if no incoming lines are available my call simply disconnects without error or notification. THAT'S annoying, but I suspect it is the terminal switch causing that.
One major issue I do have with Cingular, and supposedly they are looking into placing a mobile cell unit, what they call a "COW", to cover this, is FSU home games. Forget about getting online, making a call, or text messaging while at Doak Campbell Stadium -- doing so is a crap-shoot at best.
So, other than a couple of large flub-ups over the past five years, I have found Cingular to be responsive and satisfying. I do not think I will be "churn" for some time.
If you have not played it yet, do so. It is interestingly addictive. My girlfriend watched me play it for a long time, what seemed like an hour but could have been much shorter or longer. In the end I got frustrated because we could not figure out how to get me to evolve into what I would consider the third level of the game -- I had already eaten everything there was to eat. Maybe it was just a bug in the version I downloaded.
One word: Trade Wars 2000 :)
I absolutely LOVE this book. Why not buy it from the author?
The 68010 issue was due to an instruction (MOV EA?) being made a Supervisor instruction rather than User. There were at least a couple of programs which emulated this instruction on-the-fly by catching the trap.
;)
As stated, not following the rules broke MANY programs during the move from 68000 to 68020 and above as many programs used unused bits in the A-registers (24 bits used on 68000/68010 versus all 32 bits on later CPUs) to hold data. Bad idea.
IIRC, Apple had a similar problem -- something about a "pure" application and different bit-addressing modes of the OS. Ran into a similar problem back in 99, then again in 00.
I need to requalify that... if an ISP, phone company, et al is informed that it has a customer doing Something Bad, *then* it should take action. The majority of pro activeness these days is to criminalize everyone involved in an activity, and ask questions later. I do not subscribe to this philosophy.
So, if ComCast has a spammer, it should terminate the account. If Embarq has someone making threatening calls, it should work to monitor and eventually shut the line down. And so on. But we should not be watched all the time "just in case" we do something illegal.
Never been audited. My comment was meant as more of a stab at the whole "Kill A Commie for Mommy" idea for forcing ISP data retention -- logs of all ISP user activity. I do not believe that an ISP should be any more responsible for what its users do than a phone company is responsible for customers' crank calls or a toll road operator is responsible for reckless drivers.
I work closely with several ISPs, and have worked for one myself. AFAIK they are not required to keep logs, period. In fact, one of them I work with deletes logs on a regular basis.
The whole idea of data retention is horse shit. The data is not "evidence" until requested by court order. If the data is gone by then, too bad. With a proper court order, the MIB can monitor 'till their hearts' content to obtain new data. Proactive monitoring (pre-crime) is anti-American.
225 years or so... is it time for revolution already? Better consult with the French, they used to be pretty good at that.
Because, as has been stated so clearly, if you are against the government and its policies, then you are with the terrorists. Therefore you can be claimed as an enemy combatant, and thus stripped of your rights.
Remember, the Republican party was once the third party to the Democrats and Wigs. So, yes, it can happen.
OT Agreed, but since we're heading down this track.
:)
In the case of fast food coffee, there has to be a balance struck with safety. Water at 180F is not safe. And I would hardly compare McDonald's coffee to Boyds
Only if you ask McDonald's :) 180F water is extremely hot and carries much more energy than water at 145F, therefore taking much longer to cool down, passing much more heat to the cooling medium (ie your leg, etc.)
I like this idea, and I will explain why.
Simply put, anyone who calls me without my consent is leeching from my resources, namely time and money, though others may come to mind. I broke my toe once running from the bathroom to answer the phone and it turned out to be one of these types of calls. It probably goes without saying that my toe was not the only thing which wound up broken (poor phone.)
I pay for a telephone line for MY convenience, not someone else's. And I find it unpalatable that, in order to NOT receive phone calls which I do not solicit, I must pay a monthly or yearly fee. The cost of such anti-annoyances should be levied on those who perpetrate the annoyance, not those who wish to avoid it.
Simply put, my phone is publicly listed so that friends, family, and acquaintances (past or present) may have an easy reference to get hold of me -- again, this is my convenience. Not for marketing types to harass me. (as a quick aside, I might have as much of a problem if the bastards would take my first NO THANK YOU as an answer.) Another part of this convenience which torques me is the CID spoofing or blocking: CID was supposed to be a way to avoid such phone calls, but with so many systems which do not provide CID information (my girlfriend's office call-out, some cell phone carriers, and so on) sometimes you simply HAVE to answer those OUT OF AREA or UNKNOWN calls. And again, call blocking services (like Sprint/Embarq's Privacy ID) levy additional costs unto me and undo inconvenience unto those to whom I really do wish to speak.
My preference is that they should NOT be allowed to call, period. If the United Way wants to spend money on getting the word out, there are much better venues than bothering me, such as TV, radio, and newspaper ads, billboards, and so on.
If you do not take action, then the problem persists and has the potential to increase in severity. If enough people do this, calling agencies will take notice and work to conform with the law. Then if people have problems with the law, or even now, people can contact their local congress-critter and let him or her know about these objections.
The law is there for a reason, folks. You would be wise to take advantage of any part of The System which actually works in your favor.
But did they? I remember all this BS was promised to us back in the 80's. Who was conjecturing it then?
Some already do, like myself. I have over a couple thousand spam trap email addresses scattered across several dozen domains which feed a DNSRBL using Spamikaze. I make that RBL available to close colleagues.
I do straight-up DNS blocklisting. No filtering, just straight rejection. I also provide a link in the rejection which takes the offender to a simple page which explains the block, explains my email policies, and offers a solution contact. For IPs which are listed due to poorly maintained dynamic vs static IP lists, I make exceptions and move on. ComCast is really good for moving static IPs around on a whim, for one. Out of the ten RBLs I use, the one with the biggest impact on my customers' contacts is SpamCop. I have never once had report of a false positive using the SpamHaus RBL or XBL.
Right now my systems block almost 65% of incoming email as spam, using a combination of ten RBLs, my automatic Spamikaze block list, and my own access list of over 50,000 entries of hand verified spammers. I also block entire countries (China, Brazil, Korea, and Argentina.) Customers are aware of my blocking policies, which are carefully scrutinized before implementation. Some lists have even been removed after short term usage. If customer do not like the blocking system, they can be exempted by account or domain, and then I recommend spam filtering software for use on their end. Or I am happy to move them to other services. Haven't lost one yet.
Blocking IPs based on RBLs is very useful for small operations like myself. It's easier to deal with the odd reports of blocked email than the massive complaints about spam. I'm not a fan of filtering because of the increased resource load placed on the mail system. I am not a fan of "tagging" since many spammers get paid for every deliverable email. If you do run a spam filtering system, it should reject during the SMTP session.
Even so, I determined many months ago that the DNSRBL scheme is being outpaces by the advent of zombie spam and virus spewing home computers. It is often cat-n-mouse unless you have reliable and reliably maintained lists of dynamic IPs from of which 99.9% of incoming email (a true, metered statistic) is illegitimate. Thus, I am forced to shell out the money to set up another server which can provide content filtering and spam tagging with configurable threshholds for immediate rejection.
My best recommendation for years has been to use ISP mailservers as smart hosts, but that falls the wayside when ComCast, Cox, Earthlink, et al wind up on SPEWS or SpamCop. Well, shit. What now? There are companies which, like myself, offer paid SMTP egress with a strict no-tolerance policy for spammers. Pink contracts are a plague, and I would rather go bankrupt than offer safe haven to a phuqn spammer.
In an ideal world, lawyers who hate spam (and believe me, all of my lawyer customers absolutely despise spam) would refuse to take cases of spammers. Realistically, lawyers will take cases like e360's just in case they are telling the truth, and they really aren't spammers.
But this case is clever. e360 and other alleged spammers are going after the providers of lists because they would never win against a private party running a server which blocked its email. Let alone several hundred or thousand. But maybe the demise of MAPS and (I shudder to think) SpamHaus would harken an even darker era for spammers, when admins create, share, and aggregate their own small lists. Then the blood would really flow.
And that's enough of this thought train. Good night.
Right. We download a song from an album that we *think* we want, then we say "Man, this sucks. I'm glad I didn't buy this shit."
End of story. So, yes, you could answer that music downloads hurt music sales, but that only identifies the symptom and ignores the actual problem.
The next sector link is contained in the first two bytes of the sector, or the word contains a $00 and the length of the block in bytes (thus marking the last block.)
The very same. I would appreciate if you could quantify your complaints, as obviously we have very different experiences.
Actually, it is not all that scary to support. Almost all of my supported sites run SBS2003, and I and they love it. It provides a clean and easy support structure, though it suffers the "dammit" effect that most software suffers in the way of missing or round-about ways of getting to some features.
.Net apps. I would like to add a fourth for handling their specialized apps which require their own SQL engines, to take the load off the main SBS server. In the end, though, what does help is a good disaster plan.
:)
The eggs-in-one-basket thing is inevitable in small business. As has been said before, many small businesses do not have the budget to support multiple boxes and IT/support staff. The wizards in SBS2003 make administration nearly a snap, and the rest of the process can be handled with clever automation. SBS can be the foundation of a multi-server environment -- at one site we have three, the SBS server, a TS server, and a WebServer for
First off, DO NOT RUN A SERVER ON A SINGLE HARD DRIVE. Read that again several times, repeat it, write it on a chalk board a hundred times, spell it out in your Alphabits. Even RAID1 is better than nothing.
Secondly, have a good and reliable backup solution. Tapes are great, and there are several well-priced alternatives which can provide reliability and durability. I prefer tapes, and for large installations an AIT or DLT-V4 drive is great, while smaller installations can handle DAT72.
Secondly-and-a-half, keep an up-to-date ASR tape and floppy on hand! I keep one of these for each customer locked in a fire-resistant and water-resistant media vault.
Thirdly, TEST your backup solution. Build another box, do an install and restore the backup. Make sure your plan works, lest you be caught with your pants down when it counts. VirtualPC, VMWare, etc. are great for this if you do not have extra hardware lying around. You *do* have the Action Pack, right??
Fourthly, have an action plan in place in case one of your clients (or your own site) suffers a catastrophic failure. Be ready to order new equipment, test and restore backups, and spend a day or more on-site getting things back up and running. Fire, frost, or frippery can and do happen.
Fifthly, have recovery software available. I purchased RTools a while back, with FAT, NTFS, and RAID recovery tools. Some people prefer OnTrack or some other tools. I have had great results with RTools. While not the Alpha-Omega of site recovery, such software can prove invaluable in the process. But it early, learn how to use it, and be prepared.
BTW: In reference to the issue of new hardware, REMEMBER MS LICENSING. If you build systems, STAY AWAY FROM OEM SOFTWARE. But it is cheaper, right? Yeah, until your motherboard dies and, technically, so does your OEM licensing. Buying canned systems is not so much of a problem since you can (generally) rely upon the OEM to provide an exact replacement. But if you build your own or order a custom system, things change VERY rapidly, and your favorite Socket AM motherboard may not be available for long after AM2 comes out. (Ran into this problem with a PIV 1.7 rig with the original socket. UGH!)
Attend your local InfraGard general meetings, consider becoming a member. These meetings are often very interesting, especially when they cover topics such as this. You will have a chance to learn from the processes and mistakes of your brethren in the industry. I like to hear tales of state agencies who learned lessons the hard way
In essense, you have to be a tech Boy Scout and always be prepared. I always kinda liked the term "Technology Samurai." I cannot say that I am ready for every possible disaster, but I like to think that at this point I have a good start.