General

Here’s a new variation on the Nigerian scam that I just received:

From: UNIVERSAL TRUST AGENCY (infounitr@netscape.net)
Date: Sat May 17, 2003  2:53:21 AM US/Eastern
To: (my email address)
Subject: LOTTERY WINNING NOTIFICATION !
Reply-To: infounitr@netscape.net



                UNIVERSAL TRUST AGENCY
Ref. Number: 2367/678-0436
Batch Number: 3566465021-SOS/03
ATTN: Sir/Madam.
We are pleased to inform you of the result of the Lottery Winners
International programs held in The Netherlands on the 9th May, 2003. Your e-mail address attached to ticket number 86378056-21 with Serial Number 4204-678 Drew lucky numbers 7-21-27-55-69-71 which consequently Won in the 1st category, you have therefore been approved for a lump sum pay out of $2,000,000.00 (TWO MILLION US DOLLARS)
CONGRATULATIONS!!!
Due to mix up of some numbers and names, we ask that you keep your
winning information confidential until your claims has been processed and your money Remitted to you. This is part of our security protocol
to avoid double claiming and unwarranted abuse of this program by some participants.
All participants were selected through a computer ballot system drawn from over 20,000 company and 30,000,000 individual email addresses and names from all over the world. This promotional program takes place every three year.
This lottery was promoted and sponsored by Bill Gates, President of the World Largest software, we hope with part of your winning you will take part in our next subsequent stake that will be held in October 2003 of US$20 Million international lottery.
To file for your claim, please contact our
FIDUCIAL Agent MR. HARRY MOORE of UNIVERSAL TRUST AGENCY for your Winning Processment, Legal Documentations and CLAIM:
TEL: 0031-630-014-840 (AMSTERDAM - THE NETHERLANDS).
Please be aware that your Paying Bank will Effect Payment Swiftly upon satisfactory Report, Verifications and validation provided by our processing Agent; that would be designated to your file.
Remember, all winning must be CLAIMED not later than 26th of MAY 2003. After this date all unclaimed funds will be included in the next stake. Please note that in order to avoid unnecessary delay and complications please remember to quote your referente information's in all correspondence.
Furthermore, should there be any change of contact information, please inform our Agent as soon as possible.
Congratulations once more from our members of staff and thank you for being part of our promotional program.
Note: Anybody under the age of 18 is AUTOMATICALY DISQUALIFIED.
Yours Sincerely,
Betty van Keulen (Mrs.)
Lottery Coordinator

Cody loves the patio at my new place, especially since my old home didn’t have an enclosed patio. When he wants to go out there, he starts to make a lot of noise.

He was out there for most of the evening, but I wanted to close the door because it was getting too hot & humid. He didn’t want to come in, so I picked him up and carried him in. He protested very loudly.

As soon as I put him down, he attacked me and bit my foot.

Joel Spolsky has a good solution for spam:

“If the European Union can change the money that 300 million people use all on one day, we can change our email protocol. Let’s find a protocol with decent authentication and with micropayments to make spam uneconomical, and let’s set a deadline, maybe two years in the future, when SMTP will simply be turned off. Everybody will know it’s coming, just like Y2K, and everybody will have to be ready.” — Joel Spolsky

[via Jeremiah Rogers’ Weblog]

I just received spam at the address [mike_cohen at bellsouth dot net], which I’ve *never* used anywhere. Nobody except Bellsouth knows I have that address, since I use it *only* to sign on to my DSL service.

I’m drowning in spam at most of my email addresses. As little as 6 months ago I got almost no spam, now I get several pieces a day, and every morning I have to delete lots of spam. This is really frustrating. Email is getting to be nearly useless.

I just wanted to use this to plug my favorite Star Wars Spoof (because I know Don :), Star Wars:Macbeth.

From Mac-Mike.com:

By now everybody has heard of the 15-year-old Quebec kid who used a borrowed camcorder to record himself playing Star Wars but forgot to erase the video when he returned it to a friend. The result: A video that is making the rounds of every major blog and gaming site, with music and effects dubbed in. The spoofed up tape has made it all over the world and been downloaded 1.5 million times. Here’s a post explaining it. Here’s a link to the original video and the doctored one. Apparently, this is today’s Web trend. Here’s one someone did of…

I’m back on a new server. After BounceWeb’s reseller server (which hosted MC-Development.com) was down, I moved this domain to Geek-Hosting, the same server which hosts MacMegasite.

This actually shares the same account as MacMegasite (it’s actually a subdomain), which allows up to 5 domains with 200M of space & 8G of bandwidth.

The server doesn’t support Berkeley DB, which I formerly used for MT on the old server, so I had to export all of the entries & re-import it into the mysql database on this server.

I just went to the gym at my new condo for the first time and I feel great.

I haven’t gone to the gym in more than a year when I was living in River Manor because I didn’t want to join a health club and there was no gym in the complex. My old apartment had a gym, and I really missed it. The one here is even better, and all of the equipment is very well maintained.

BTW, I posted some pictures of the new place here.

Guess who sponsored the bandwidth for this little goody? I’ll give you three guesses, but you’ll only need one. Thats right, our good friend in Redmond, Microsoft. I downloaded it initially expecting to find some PR created, self-satisfied text that light heartedly made fun of itself (if only to show the reader that this really was a thoughtful treatise and not just a long commercial). However, I was surprised to learn that it was based on an MIT mailing list called “Unix-Haters”. Very fun to read, the text seems too genuine and unpolished to have been written by any PR group.(Oliver) [Lockergnome Bytes]

Does anyone else find that the Sony Ericsson T68i has really awful reception & sound quality?

I find that sometimes it’s so bad it’s unusable, especially indoors. I put my SIM card in my old Nokia 5190 (which, thankfully, is unlocked) and I found the reception to be much better.

I actually managed to get a pill down Cody’s throat, without getting bitten! As the vet suggested, I stuck it in some peanut butter and forced it in his mouth.