Dot Product

A constitutional ban on gay marriage. Decency rules by the FCC. The list goes on and on. It’s the politics of distraction, and I hope that everyone is smart enough to realize this. I hope this trick doesn’t work, and the candidates are forced to address the issues that make a real difference in the daily lives of Americans and our future: The Economy and Foriegn Policy!

Bravo to Alan Greenspan for speaking up on the issue of Social Security funding. It’s a pity that all those voices which have been raising this issue (SS liquidity in the face of Baby Boom retirement) for years have been ignored. Even with Greenspan’s influence, you can see politicians scurrying to distance themselves from his appraisal. Time to stop slapping the snooze button and face up to the problem. It’s not going to go away.

Yesterday, I upgraded by iBook to Panther (OS X.3). I just could not resist it any further. The thing that finally pushed it over the edge for me was the Expose feature, which are hotkeys that can be used to “expose” the desktop, or rescale and arrange all the windows so they can all be seen at the same time for quick selection. Both of these save me enormous headaches when I’m writing in Word, with multiple spreadsheets and browser windows open. Very cool.

I haven’t installed the Xcode tools yet, but based on the demos I’ve seen, it should pay for itself quickly in productivity gains. I’ll give a report when I’ve got my latest project up and building in the new tool.

This has to be seen to be believed: a game of ping pong, matrix style!It’s a pity they didn’t have a larger black background, but it’s fun none-the-less!
Many thanks to Chris for this gem!

One of the things Imagiware provides for web hosting customers is access to mailing list software, such as Mailman or Majordomo. We encourage the customers to use an “open+confirm” subscription policy for public lists, which means that every subscription has to be confirmed by the person being subscribed. Confirmation is usually facilitated through an e-mail sent to the address being subscribed. This seems like a perfectly reasonable policy, but some customers have been reluctant to do this for fear of cutting their subscriber base growth rate. The validity of that fear shall be discussed another time.

For those customers who keep an “open” subscription policy (ie: one without the confirmation step), a new problem has cropped up. In the war on spam, some folks have decided to start adding “spamtrap” email addresses to open lists as a means of shutting down list delivery. Here is the word from a SpamCop Admin:

> A spamtrap is an unused address whose sole reason for existence is to see
> if people will send unsolicited mail to it. Trap addresses are almost
> exclusively the nonexistent addresses at small vanity domains owned by us
> or our pals. Basically, *all* mail to those domains is fed directly to our
> spam processing system. The addresses are not monitored, do not send mail,
> and are not used by anyone for any purpose. Some have been hidden in the
> code on web pages as bait for harvesting robots.

So far, SpamCop has been very responsive in removing our servers from their blackhole lists. However, the time that it takes to address these issues is increasing. It is unclear *who* is adding these spamtraps to the lists. While it is plausible that the spamtrap owners themselves are doing the subscriptions, as a way of forcing people to adopt/require an “open+confirm” policy, I see wider possibilities.

One possibility is that this is a new “dirty trick” on the competitive landscape. Finding a spamtrap address is trivial, so shutting down an open list is a quick and free way to cut somebody’s audience size and cause headaches for their system administrators.

A variant on that trick might be used by spammers who wish to create friction between legitimate list owners and people who are trying to stem the flow of unsolicited garbage. By subscribing spamtrap addresses, the spammer invests a miniscule amount of time, while system admins and spamfighters must spend a non-trivial amount of time fixing the problem. The force-multiplication nature of this technique makes it cheap and highly effective. Not good.

We’re moving towards a requirement that all lists must use “open+confirm”. We’ve held back to accomodate a number of large customers, but we’re fasting approaching a point where it won’t be worth the hassle to allow open lists.

Dave supplied the fun video of the woman singing in the computer room (mentioned below), and pointed out the source, which contains more hillarious video and audio.

Not all of the footage is funny though, but still worth viewing. They have the school bus rollover footage that received some attention last fall. That footage is something that EVERY parent who has a child riding the bus needs to see. I know that crash safety is a difficult issue for school buses. Between the technical problems from size and age issues, to cost concerns in school districts already strapped for cash, there aren’t any easy solutions. Somebody has to have an idea that will work and make the ride safer.

One of the first jokes I ever remember my Dad telling me went something like this:

Person 1: “Why do you keep hitting yourself with that hammer?!?”
Person 2: “Feels so good when you stop!”

Ok, so he didn’t quit his day job to be a comedian, but the punchline rings true. My iBook has returned, and it sure feels good to have it back.

This was sent to me by my friend Dave. He apparently got it from one of his college physics students.

As part of my exile from the land of Mac OS X, I have delved into the RSS feed aggregators that are available for Windows. I started by looking at the clients mentioned in the Mercury News article mentioned in this post.

My judgement: NewsDesk seems to be the best option at the moment. AmphetaDesk did not appeal to me due to the user interface. Ditto for FeedDemon, though I think my prejudice there is based on a recently acquired aversion to Microsoft Outlook (don’t get me started). And NewsGator operates within Outlook, so you know why that didn’t make the cut.

My opinion is that NetNewsWire (Mac OS X only… sorry) is still the best out there, though if anyone has other suggestions, I’d love to hear them.

Ok, I admit it. I’m a technology packrat. Unless something is broken, I’m reluctant to dispose of it… since it might come in handy later! This especially applies to computer hardware. Over the years, I’ve accumulated enough spare hardware to build at least 3 complete computers. Well, “complete” if you don’t count the required keyboard and monitor. Still, when the call came in that my neice needed a computer to do her homework on, it was time to prove that all the parts in the closet still had a purpose.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: when you can buy a new machine for $400, why bother cobbling together parts, scrounging for driver disks, and installing an operating system on a machine that doesn’t have a prayer of running the latest Microsoft OS? I use the same answer as the climbers who forego the tram ride to Sandia Peak and hit the trail: because I can.

Still, such hubris is not without dues. I know many people who would rather jump into a pool of lemon juice and razor blades than install Windows 98 on a frankenbox. Indeed, it if doesn’t work out, and all the work is for naught, then I may be wondering about the sanity of such an enterprise myself. But, so far things are going well. More updates as warranted.

Over the last two weeks, my iBook’s backlight has started to give it up. At first, it was an occasional dimming, as if the machine were going to sleep while I was still typing. A little percussive maintenance, and things would return to normal. Today it got bad enough to force drastic measures: taking it to the repair shop.

I scoped out the repair situation last week, mindful that the iBook wouldn’t heal itself. The bottom line: the iBook must be shipped to Apple for repair… the local shop doesn’t “do” screen problems. Worst case scenario: 10 days without the iBook and a non-trivial chance that the hard drive might not come back with my stuff on it. I don’t know WHAT that is all about, though maybe it’s just their way of frightening the average droog to backup their stuff before handing it over.

I didn’t realize it until I started working out alternate computing arrangements for the 10 days: this little repair job was going to be more personal grief than having my house fumigated! I do *everything* with that computer. Now I am banished to the land of Windows 2000, which isn’t so bad since I do most of my coding in that environment. Still, the switch of email clients and loss of bookmarks, not to mention NetNewsWire… it’s almost too much.

But, I’m done grumping about it. I’ve decided to look at this as an opportunity to see how almost everyone else operates. I’m going to feel their pain. I know many of my friends out there will tell me to switch into Linux, to soothe the pain of iBook-loss, but wheres the fun in that. Besides, I’ve got a business plan and presentation to write, and that means Microsoft Office.

My lifeline to all the files I’ve left behind is a 128MB USB microdrive. I’m pleased how well it’s worked so far. The only thing it doesn’t have is all the email that I’ve opted to store locally. I can live without it for now.