General

Today another spam was sent using a different return address, my bigfoot address that I never use and forgot about. This appears to be different than the previous spam, related to some money making scheme.

I just cancelled my bigfoot account to get rid of that.

I’m starting to get pretty upset. I plan to get rid of more email addresses that I rarely use and possibly even shut down my other sites as well. I don’t have time to deal with this.

I’m considering possibly shutting down MacMegasite. Although it’s starting to become moderately popular, I’m not making any money on it and I really don’t have the time to maintain it.

That forged spam from a few days ago wasted a lot of my time and I don’t want to have to deal with something like that again.

Sorry I haven’t written too much for a few days. I’ve been busy with work and dealing with the spam problem.

I’ve temporarily forwarded the affected address to a hotmail mailbox with an auto reply and it looks like I’ve stopped receiving bounces, so if there’s no more by the weekend and no further forged spams, I’ll reactivate that address.

I’ve wasted lots of time today dealing with the results of that spam. I kept marking the bounce messages as junk in mail.app, so by now most of them are being filtered directly to my junk folder. I’ve received well over 200 bounces and only about 3 complaints. I’ve contacted a few sysadmins and hopefully some of them will be able to help me track down these people and shut them down.

Last night I received a piece of spam, and a few hours later I started receiving many bounces containing the same spam which looks as if it was sent from my email address. By this morning, I had over 200 bounces.

The original spam said that I replied to someone’s personal ad, which I didn’t, since I’m NOT looking for any dates. It also includes a link to a web site in Estonia (country code EE).

I’m really mad and I plan to take legal action against anyone involved. I also plan to make sure the web site it refers to is shut down.

Yahoo! News – Yoko Ono Urges Peace on Lennon Death Anniversary

Yoko Ono called for peace and global solidarity Sunday, the anniversary of the murder of her husband, the Beatle John Lennon, in New York 22 years ago.

“Even little children sing the song ‘Imagine,’ which shows John’s spirit is living all around the world even 22 years later,” Ono, 69, who is in Japan to take part in a concert honoring Lennon, told Kyodo news agency in an interview.

The Miami Herald | 12/09/2002 | Miami Circle was medieval trading hub

Medieval travelers reached the distant trading point by foot. They offered stone tools made hundreds of miles away. They coveted local baskets and beads. They bargained, bickered and bartered.

Then, deal done, they rested. At the mouth of the Miami River or in hamlets in Weston and elsewhere in Broward County.

The Miami Circle and its surrounding site help prove that, long before Europeans arrived, South Florida served as a medieval crossroads and commercial hub similar to those that thrived in Asia and Africa, experts said Sunday.

Yesterday was a good news/bad news day.

First the bad news. There’s a lot of construction in my neighborhood, which means a lot of trucks & construction equipment. As I was going out to lunch, an oversized truck attempted to turn on to my block as I was leaving. He didn’t see me & I quickly pulled into a driveway to get away from him. He still managed to scrape the rear bumper of my new 2003 Toyota Corolla. Here’s how it looks.

Now for the good news. I finally received my final paycheck from Microbytes for the end of October. It was dated Nov. 12 and only mailed out Monday. So far Absolute has paid me on time for both pay periods since I became an employee, and they now have direct deposit working. I’m still doing the same work, but now I get paid on time for it.

Link and Think.

Today is World AIDS Day, two decades and folks are still looking for a cure. Brad has coordinated Weblog observances of World AIDS Day for the past few years, so please check out the sites participating in this year’s Link and Think.

This week’s Economist carried a story about a prediction that AIDS will orphan over 40 Million children by the end of the decade. Now think a moment, before one goes on about how money on AIDS should be spent on other disease research, about 40 million orphans in a part of the world undergoing the equivalent of Europe’s 30 Years War, and where radical Islam has built a stable base of support. Money spent on anti-retroviral drugs extending some parent’s life may mean one less child soldier.
In a self-interested framework, the life you save might save yours as well. [More Like This WebLog]

The Joy of Tech!

So that’s what Cody is doing when he jumps up on my desk.