Monthly Archives: October 2004

Comment spam

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Sigh

I’ve been getting hit with a lot of comment spam recently … pain in the a–.

I found a nifty plugin, however, that let’s me dump comment spam based on certian criteria. Pretty nice.

So far it has worked well … although I had some confusion when I was testing it … because I happened to get some new spam just before I implemented it. I thought the test spam had just been held for moderation instead of being dumped alltogether.

A bit of research, and another test, showed that the plugin was working fine.

Escape Hybrid

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Ginny and I test drove the new Ford Escape Hybrid SUV today. It runs on both gas and electric power.

It’s quite a nice ride … very roomy, comfortable , nice pickup, smooth ride, good feel.

Kind of disconcerting, however, when the gas engine shuts itself off a few minutes after you turn it on.

I’m going to give this vehicle some serious thought when we go car shopping next year (the RAV is about at the end of it’s useful life, I think).

Only a few things really give me pause…

  • The four wheel drive model does not have a high range and low range. This means it’s not all that useful if you get stuck in snow.
  • The battery is included in the full vehicle warranty … which is 8 years or 80,000 miles. Unforunately, I tend to drive MORE than 10,000 miles / year. The RAV is 8 years old and I have 165,000 miles on it. I’m not sure if there is a extended warranty option
  • It’s new technology … and largely unproven. Not sure if I want to be a ‘beta’ tester for a car. The RAV had been available at least 1 year before I got mine.
  • Rather pricey … for a SUV. $28,000 is the base price (Not 100% sure on that). I could probably get a similarly equiped SUV (minus the hybrid, plus proper four wheel drive) for about $22,000.

Well, it’s certianly something to consider … we’re not going to be looking for a new car until next spring (unless something bad happens to the RAV).

Mailing list runs afoul of Rolex

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As a mailing list operator, I found this item quite interesting …

Rolex wants spam removed from list archives.

It has come to Rolex’s attention that your company is the Bulletin
Board operator for http://lists.freeswan.org. Your Web Page enables the
following vendors to advertise and conduct sales of counterfeit and
infringing Rolex watches bearing the Rolex Trademarks:

Vendor Exact Location of Counterfeit Rolex
Watch Posting on
http://lists.freeswan.org Web Site/
Bulletin Board

Now two things immediately come to mind about this…

  1. Obviously Rolex’s attorney’s lack clue one when it comes to the source of this ‘violation’. I suspect they are using some kind of web robot (or even Google) to find references to ‘Rolex’ spam on web pages and, thinking the site is actually responsible for the spam, tries to strong arm the content off.
  2. Why do mailing list operators leave their posting policy wide open? It’s really not unreasonable to require that only people who subscribe to the list are allowed to post. This is the policy for ALL my mailing lists.

Obviously this kind of thing isn’t going to effect me … as non-subscribers are not allowed to post on my lists. But the total lack of knowledge on the part of Rolex is disturbing.

Autumn Colors

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I finally got some autumn color pictures.

This weekend was extraordiarily busy … clothes shopping, cousin’s bar-mitzvah, try to get wireless networking installed at my brother’s house, more clothes shopping, bar-mizvah party, fix some plumbing (no flood), a show at the Marriott, and dinner afterwards.

Before the show, Ginny went to volunteer at a Kerry / Edwards campaign phone bank … after I did some plumbing repair (considered a resounding victory … only had to go to Menards twice and didn’t flood the street) I wandered over towards the theater.

I was very early … so I grabbed my camera and tried to find a forest preserve to walk around in. Couldn’t find the forest preserve, but I did find a nice park on Oxford Drive in Lincolnshire. It had a pond, playground, and was near the DesPlaines river.

Got a few nice pictures … obviously plenty of ducks 🙂

Dark

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I really like the autumn … I like the colors, the tempature, the smell, etc.

The one thing I don’t like about autumn is the fact that it doesn’t get light until much later in the day.

I don’t much like the fact that it gets dark a lot earlier either … but it doesn’t bother me near as much.

Note to self: Put a nice autumn themed picture on this post.

Ginny is getting a new camera

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Found a great deal on a Canon Digital Rebel … about $700 after rebate. It’s even a reputable vendor.

Since Ginny’s been chomping at the bit for a new camera, I figured it was too good a deal to pass up.

It should be here sometime this week. I had thought about hiding it and giving it to her around the holidays, but I figured she would kill me if she found out I had it for 2 months and didn’t give it to her.

We’ll probably sell the HP 315 … but I am kind of interested in getting a camera that has decent resolution, but is really small. Maybe one of the lower end Canon’s?

Hot water is good

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This is in the ‘things to remember’ category … turn the hot water back on after doing plumbing work.

I had to replace the saddle valve, that feeds the humidifier, on the hot water heater yesterday. When I opened it up in the morning, it started leeking bad. Luckily when I closed it it stopped leaking.

Getting a new valve wasn’t hard … and instsallation wasn’t a big deal either (although I had to open up the hole in the pipe to 1/4″). I did, however, turn the hot water heater temp down since I also turned the water feed off.

I replaced the valve, no leaks, no broken bones, no floods (all things good).

This morning, however, I got into the shower and had to turn the water temp up very high… then I realized I had forgotten to turn the temp on the water heater back up.

Oh well. There was enough hot water to get clean … and now the temp is back up to normal.