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Wednesday December 19, 2007

Moved

.… and after some period of awayness, I’ve moved house, and with that been offline (literally) for 2 weeks, and now, back.

09:42 PM | Categories: Travel | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Tuesday August 14, 2007

Boring Tech

So over the years I’ve been tweaking my spam filtering, updating spam assassin, adding blacklists in sendmail. And over the years its coped pretty well. Of late though I’ve noticed spam levels going up.

So given a few minutes I’ve had a quick look through some of the spam and realised what’s going on.

Way back when I started, I added some backup MX records to send my mail on somewhere else if my home mailserver died (after all it is just an old PC on a DSL line).

For years this hasn’t caused me any problems. But looking at things now it seems that the spammers are using the backup MX records rather than the main ones. This bypasses most of my inital spam protection (running at the mailserver) and instead leaves it all to spamassassin. That does a great job, but still leaves me with a mailbox full of spam to sift through. Yes I could send to /dev/null, but would rather check things out.

So now I’ve tweaked the backup MX records so the email is rejected and SPAM levels for now are down again.

So now spammers are also rendering backup MX records a liability rather than a benefit. Shame that.

06:47 PM | Categories: Technology | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Wednesday July 4, 2007

Drip

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6270346.stmIs it really summer? June was apparently the wettest since they started recording wetness.

And July’s certainly no scorcher.… heck we had a hail storm yesterday :)

I guess on the upside you could say the weather is far from predictable (unless you’re talking about tomorrow, ‘cause I’m pretty sure it’ll rain… at some point).

09:17 PM | Categories: Thoughts | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Sunday July 1, 2007

Up in smoke

The threat of fines, and driving bans doesn’t stop people speeding.… have to wonder if the latest tactic will stop people smoking in public places.

08:51 PM | Categories: Thoughts | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Sunday April 15, 2007

+1

Flicking through Sky (Satellite TV service in the UK), and they have a number of channels, labelled +1. So you’d have a channel called More4, and another called More4 +1.

The contents of the +1 channels are always the same as the none +1 variant but delayed by an hour.… so an hour behind (helpful if you missed the start etc.).

Thing is, I can’t undestand why they call them +1. Surely it’d be -1, as they’re an hour behind?

09:59 AM | Categories: Thoughts | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Friday April 13, 2007

n800

http://www.nseries.com/products/n800/index.html#l=products,n800Back at the end of feb Abi kindly bought me a Nokia N800 for my birthday.… no it’s not a phone.

Obviously I’ve had it for a while now, so can report that it’s still pretty cool. I’ve not used the bluetooth connectivity much, just use it around the house using wifi. The battery lasts a reasonable length of time, it’s not too slow, the screens great and it’s pretty damn good at accessing the internet, rss, email etc. etc.

It’s definately a niche product, but if you have a need to fill that niche, and you’re not expecting it to be something it’s not (eg. it’s most definately not a PDA), then you’ll probably find it quite cool also.

08:58 PM | Categories: Technology | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Thursday February 8, 2007

Change

Abi started her new job today, so was at the train station bright and early this morning. Me, I ended up working from home, I had enough problems getting the car off the drive let alone the other 21 miles to work.

Work was as ever.

Abi’s train is due back in about 20 minutes, then I’ll venture out and see if I have more luck driving, than I did this morning.

07:38 PM | Categories: Work | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Thursday January 25, 2007

Upgraded Security

I’ve made some changes to my network at home in an effort to improve security. Before any changes I was using a Belkin wireless firewall and router, which provided some limited firewalling and security. Unfortunately because I have a linux handheld that doesn’t like WPA, it’s wireless mode was WPA. Still, both give some security… unlike one of my neighbours who has a wireless router with no encryption, and providing DHCP too.

Anyway, the upgrade consists of the Belkin staying as my first line of defence, mainly as it has an ADSL modem built in. It also continues to provide a WEP wireless access. Sitting behind that is now a Sonicwall firewall appliance. This provides control between my LAN and the internet. It also has a seperate DMZ zone where my web and mailserver sits. The splitting into zones provides some finer control over access.

At this point if someone where to find out my WEP key, or force their way past the Belkin, they’d only have access to my internet connect outbound, and the same web, ssh, email inwards that the rest of the internet already has. Likewise if they can get onto the mail/web server, they’ve another firewall to get past. The sonicwall would stop the rest.

On the LAN also (though I’m in two minds to move it to the DMZ), is a second wireless access point router. This provides a WPA wireless route into the LAN, again with basic firewalling. The WPA should give a little more protection, though I’m still thinking of moving it to the DMZ.

I’ve also set the sonicwall to block the WPA Wireless access point from accessing anything (LAN, WAN and DMZ) overnight, to act as a little more deterent.

All in all the Sonicwall gives me more much control over my firewalling, and a nice split between LAN which isn’t accessible from the internet, and DMZ which is. And the two wireless zones give me the option of having WEP available but not exposing the crown jewels while I do.

Not that you couldn’t do all this with a linux box or two, some network cards and a copy of Smoothwall (something which I was going to do, and may still, but for now is on the back burner), but this was a bit easier and the boxes are a little smaller.

09:16 PM | Categories: Technology | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Wednesday January 24, 2007

White

Snow today, first time this year, and to be honest, there wasn’t any at the tail end of last year. Not too heavy, just made getting out of the local neighberhood a bit tricky (backend of the car constantly trying to overtake the front), but that was only for a few minutes. All melted by the time I set off for home, though I’d not be surprised if there were some more to come later this week.

10:15 PM | Categories: Work | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Saturday January 20, 2007

Not Much To Report

Not much to report really. The weather’s been breezy, to say the least. I’ve been zooming around Dan Seto’s home island… virtually. And obviously working as well, though I can’t say much about that. My sister’s joined the police (she’s been waiting about 2 years), the younger of my two brothers has moved to Australia (though he may be back when his visa runs out), and the other is off in a Submarine for the next four months. All change for them this year.… who knows what’ll happen here :)

09:06 AM | Categories: | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Wednesday January 10, 2007

My spam is changing

My Spam has changed of late. My email spam is now made up of about 50% normal spam, and 50% mail delivery failures. Nope, I didn’t send the email. And it didn’t come from my server either. But some annoying spammer has decided to use an email address based on my domain names. So I get lots of bouncebacks, usually from spam filters, non-existent addresses and full mailboxes. What fun!

Spam comment postings to here have changed now too. Instead of them being directed at months old posts as they used to be, now they’re straight to brand shiny new posts instead.
They still don’t get through though, they’re all moderated away.

I wish we could all start again with email and come up with a solution that stopped spamming, cause it does my head in. I hate the stuff.

10:38 PM | Categories: Technology | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Tuesday January 9, 2007

iPhone

So, apple are going to make an iPhone, and apparently revolutionise the mobile phone market. I’m not sure quite how they’ll do this yet. I’m not convinced it’ll be the technology that’ll be the cause of the revolution. After all, lots of phones already emulate some of the current iPods features. And of course while there’ll be new stuff, it may not make much of a difference. After all 3G brought us video phone, and blackberry email, and neither has taken the lions share of the market. But what has proved really successful is sms texting, old tech, very simple and very popular.

So I guess that while the new iPhone might manage some neat convergence, and might add some new features, there’s only two ways they’ll revolutionise it. The first is some amazing killer app of the phone. Not sure if they’ll manage it, but would love to be proved wrong, only time will tell.

The other is to take on he business aspect. The way mobile phone packages are done in the UK hasn’t changed that much in years. Minutes, texts, off peak, on peak, cross network.… it’s been the same for years.

If Apple can turn that around then they could well make some radical changes.… but somehow make a few quid, and if they’re doing it in partnership with an existing operator, then they’ll want their share of the loot too.

I guess it’s the later aspect of the iPhone, that’ll be interesting, but don’t be surprised if the next result is paying the same, but in a different way, after all, why would you want to make ‘less’ money than everyone else?

08:31 PM | Categories: Technology | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Monday January 8, 2007

HD

Blu-Ray are saying they’ll win, no problems, they’ve got more content. HD-DVD think they’re in for the long-haul. And to add to their “see, we’re right”… they’re pointing at LG’s new dual format player, and pointing out that LG used to be firmly in the Blu-Ray camp. In all honesty I don’t think that shows anything more than LG are sensibly not halving their target market. If the sides stay reasonably even, I’d not be surprised if more hardware manufacturers go the same way.

08:27 PM | Categories: Technology | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Saturday January 6, 2007

Green

Green has been a pressing force for a good few years now. But of late everyone seems to have jumped on the band wagon. Last night, as I was watching TV, HSBC were telling me about their “Green Sale”. And Sky movies themselves, had a 12 year old telling me to turn everything off when I was finished with it.

Now I’ve nothing against saving the planet a little, but turning stuff off when it’s not needed for a while, after all that’s what light-switches are for, and standbye for that matter (Though you have to go further now, and actually turn it properly off). If nothing else with the massive recent inflation in electricity and fuel prices it’ll save me a few pennies.

I’m worried though by two things. The first is sliding backwards technologically. If we’re all concentrating so much on power drain, usefulness, turning things off, but may well be that we’ll start to soften our desire for technological improvement. Imagine if the next wave of HD-DVD didn’t sell so well, not because of overbearing copy protection and format wars, but instead because households across the country thought “Blimey, 5 more Watts power demand, I’ll stick with the current DVD player”.

I’m hoping that it’ll be a temprorary blip, as manufacturers and designers suddenly realise they’ve yet another design restriction to fight against.

The other problem I have is that for some of the supposed big pollution, there aren’t many viable alternatives. I’m sure I can take a bus or train around the country, but nothing is really a viable alternative.

I can’t for example use public transport to get to and from work each day. I can get to the physical place but it won’t be my work place for long if I can’t get there until 10:30, and have to leave again at 4pm.

And there’s the problem with public transport… it only caters for the masses (And when it doesn’t), and you run nearly empty busses, surely it’s not really that green anymore?

Surely what’s really needed isn’t the government forcing us to move house, change jobs and all hop on a bus, but viable alternatives instead. And I don’t mean cutting the subsidy on LPG, but instead funding real development and then encouring us all to buy buy subsidising it heavily.

Carrots not sticks, then perhaps it’d all happen a bit quicker and with everyone a bit happier?

09:45 AM | Categories: Technology | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)