Reinke Faces Life

QNEXT could have been a useful solution to my need to move files between my various machines. It would be really nice to have the data structures move automagically between machine securely. I think p2p could be the "answer" if an appropriate client could be found.

http://www.wridea.com/index.php

WRIDEA — a web-based note pad?

One of my "open" ids has been taking a load of spam. Technically, I measured 158 spams. Two made it past the Google GMail filter. Thanks, Google. It's enought to make one turn on controls and tools to prevent strangers from emailing in. 

LINKEDIN appears to be off line. One never knows with the inet if it's the site or any or all of the myriad links between you and them. Has to be a better way?

It fails with a less than helpful message. "There was a problem with the transfer. Please try again or contact support for assistance".

Well it is, was, advanced as a beta. I guess I'm spoiled with Google's betas that are better than Microsoft's finished products.

And what is wrong with error messages that had a simple number.

I remember the IBM mainframe days when I had to code user errors like "IEZFJOHN001 – CVT not found! Big problem. Operator notify issue a type one alert!". A friend of mine reported that "my" error message was actually triggered during a system upgrade. Other system utilities either failed silently or caused OC4s and OC6s. My friend was able to tell the staff that he knew the anal retentive who wrote that code.

Hey, when I was a baby programmer, I didn't want a screw up on my watch. If the CVT wasn't where it was supposed to be then I didn't want to get blamed for losing it.

As I recollect, that program had 11 different error conditions. All equally improbable. But, I was conscientious and an uber nerd those days!

My friend actually won a bet on it. They didn't have the source code for it, and many other utilities. He bet that he could have the source code in hand in less than an hour after he called me. I had to hustle to find it in my garage. I was able to offer him either a listing or punch cards. Come to think of it I don't the he ever sent me my half of the six pack. 

Now, does anyone need some logical character manipulation Fortran subroutines? How about some assembler reentrant routines to do time sync?

Ahhh, those were the days when I had "real" skills. 

I noticed, when MOZY called my attention to the fact, that it hadn't take a backup for nine days. No reason that I can see. When I "forced" it using program options, it worked. So why did it take a vacation? Interesting in that it's supposed to be mindless. Guess you can't depend upon anything!

From the Ashes of Blue Frog

May 26, 2006
From the Ashes of Blue Frog
the LOOSE wire blog
technology: usage and abusage. By WSJ columnist Jeremy Wagstaff 

***Begin Quote***

The Blue Frog may be no more,  but the vigilantes are. Seems that despite the death of Blue Security in the face of a spammer’s wrath, the service has built an appetite for fighting back.
***End Quote***

Jeremy posits some interesting questions:

***Begin Quote***

Actually I thought the link Blue Frog used wasn’t unsubscribe (which is usually fake, since if it wasn’t would then pull the spammer back within the law) but the purchase link. 

***End Quote***

I THOUGHT that the Blue Forg team was doing analysis to find the beneficiary of the spam. AND then that beneficiary was petitioned to give relief.

I would not want to bear the wrath of the inet public should say a major company be found benefitting by spam. I'm thinking of the spammers that offer an XYZ gift card for signing up.

***Begin Quote***

Any member who is on the spammer’s list (developed by the logical subtraction from their original list by their new cleaned list) will now be vulnerable to the kind of mass email attack that Blue Frog’s destroyer launched.
***End Quote***

I'd suggest that deliberately letting the spammers "collect" salted email addresses could be a strategy. If for example, an ISP, Google GMail, and or Yahoo "allow" all email addresses thru. Spammers would get no feedback about bad addresses. They would lose a good way to cut their problem down to size.

For example, let's assume 8 character names, like A12345467@XYZ.com. That address space has (36)**8 possible combination. Let's further assume that a spammer sends via his botnet a spam to that address space. Assume that our spammer puts return addresses that he can check. That feedback allows him to reduce his target space. He'l get some confirmation from vacation type messages and the absence of a bounce. He can determine what are valid addresses in the @xyz.com space. If we deny him the feedback of bounces, then everytime he wants to spam, he has to cover the domain.

We lose the ability to know about bouncing emails, but … … if we use receipt, we'll knwo what doesn't get thru.

Just a thought! 

What a bunch of hooey.

First, I really don't need their usb drive. I was going to use it to put a bootable Linux on it. (I have a perverse sense of humor!) 

Second, my request was in less than an hour after it was made. (Thanks to an email alert from Google!) So the supply ran out excuse is a bunch of Baraba Striesand.

Third, it an interesting piece of propaganda they're shoveling. "OEM operating system licenses live and die with each PC–they are not transferable." Oh really. And what defines a PC. The case? Where you stuck your tag. The COA? That comes as a book. I'm not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV. But isn't this an assertion after the contract is made. And further, isn't their relationship with Mister Dell. Whoa re they to tell me what my agreement with Dell is. Now let me understand this if I build my own box, buy all the aprts including the OS, then I can put my OS where I want it when I want it. But, if I buy the box from DELL and say the other board dies, then you expect me to buy another copy of the OS?

Wrong. Linux for me. Very shortly.

The mystery for me is why we put up with this in the first place. 

===

From: Microsoft [mailto:procurement@email.microsoft.com]
Sent: Friday, May 26, 2006 1:22 PM
To: reinkefjSubject: The mystery of the missing USB drive
Thank you for your interest in the Mystery Solved Windows® licensing promotion. We've received your request for more information to help clarify Microsoft® Windows Desktop Licensing pre-loaded on the USB drive. Unfortunately, this Mystery Solved promotion was available in the U.S. only and while supplies last. Supply is depleted at this time, so we encourage you to please utilize the online alternative today. Simply download* the Windows Desktop Licensing reference files directly at:www.microsoft.com/mysterysolved/corp

o help simplify Windows Desktop Licensing, keep these points in mind: 
There are two legal ways to acquire a full Windows Desktop license: through your hardware vendor (OEM/System Builder) or Full Packaged Product.
 
Volume licensing covers Windows Desktop operating system upgrades only.
 
OEM operating system licenses live and die with each PC–they are not transferable.

Again, thank you for your interest in Mystery Solved and for helping us spread the word about proper Windows licensing.

Sincerely,
Microsoft Corporation
     
*Internet connect time charges may apply. Offer available through June 30, 2006.

© 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft and Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.      

Interesting that every so often, like this morning, LUGGABLE didn't really awake from hibernation correctly. It was so slow as to be unusable. Outlook was complaining about not being shutdown correctly. Interesting also that I had to do a restart and everything is now hunky dorey. So perhaps, XPPROSP2 for the laptop needs soem further testing? I'll have to start to try and measure the affect or just do a hard stop when I shif locations. It can be rather useful to just pick up where one left off. But, this morning, I'd guesstimate I waste a good hour before throwing in the towel. Hmmm?

http://www.okopipi.org/

***Begin Quote***

In the meantime:

    * Okopipi-announce The announce list (very low traffic)
    * Okopipi-discuss General discussion the Okopipi project
    * Okopipi-dev A discussion of Okopipi's development
    * Okopipi-press Okopipi in the press
    * The Okopipi Wiki
    * The Okopipi IRC channel Hosted by the folks over at freenode. Also accessible over the web here.

***End Quote***

I'll be keeping tabs on this effort. The Blue Forg team had credentials. People that I recognized and respected. Hopefully this effort will attract the same type people.

I like the idea of going after the spammers by cutting off the money. I would be interested in hearing, now the Blue Frog quit, exactly how they forensically tied spam to beneficiary. It's all about the Benjamins. If we can't get to the beneficiary web site or phone number, how about the ISPs and Hosting Companies? There has to be a tie between the spam and the profiteer. Else it's just clog in the pipe.

Maybe email can't be free? But, I'd hate to give it up without a fight! 

http://www.zamily.com 

***Begin Quote***

What is Zamily?

Zamily is a social networking site that connects families together. You can use this site to connect with family, share stories, recipes, news, events, and keep in touch with loved ones.

***End Quote***

Pretty sad. And, what if different wings of your family doesn't get along? :-)  Pretty sad. 

(1) Solid case of not finding a text string in a text file.

(2) General feel like it has "downgraded" it's search capability. When it first came out, I never had it fail to find what I was looking for. Now, it does. Interesting? 

http://news.tbo.com/news/metro/MGBO3GM5INE.html

***Begin Quote***

Mike Palazzolo said he routinely faxes his daily special to regular customers. When a couple of them asked to be taken off his mailing list this year, the manager said he was unable to remove the numbers from his fax machine's speed dialer and instead entered a long series of identical digits in their place. He assumed those numbers would be meaningless, but they turned out to be Ebsary's fax number. 

***End Quote***

Now I am not sure if I believe the excuse. But it does point out that the side of technology that faces humans is often cryptic, forgettable, and the documentation stinks. I have about five cheap remotes at home whose instruction books are probably in some recycling landfill somewhere (don't distract me with that rant!). I can't program them but I can't part with them. So, I can empathize with this fellow. I see some hidden assumptions in this that make this little morality play even more interesting: (1) government "laws" that interfere; (2) free local calls; (3) Lawyers in general; (4) the fax machine maker (i.e., I sold it that end my problem. Now go ahead and use it. I dare you!); and (5)  an incomprehensible user interface. Dontcha just love it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/arts/book_week.shtml

Monday  22 – Friday 26 May 2006
Brain Matters
By Katrina Firlik, abridged by Doreen Estall, read by Vicki Simon
***Begin Quote***

Katrina Firlik, a young American neurosurgeon, is one of the scarce females from a rare species in medicine. She describes her fascination for the brain and its workings and malfunctions, and tells of the chief moments of her long training as a neurosurgeon. Through cases she has encountered: the carpenter with the nail in his brain, the schoolboy who is thrown out of his car and has a blood clot on the brain which grows before her eyes, the child with raging bacterial meningitis, the teenage girl with severe epilepsy, she reveals the astonishing achievements and the limitations of neurosurgery.
***End Quote***

An absolutely "neat" listen.  

In this case, I was playing with GNBK doing some alumni research. (Sweet) And then I decided to do some networking (turkey) work. I decided that GNBK would be useful there as well. But, I want to keep the two well separate. SO I created a GMail account for the purpose. THEN when I tried to use it. GBNK reported that the "internet was unreachable". I don't think so. So I went and signed out from GMail and everything works fine. Guess there not prepared for the multiple gmail id situations. BUT, it should give a wrong error message.

http://videntity.org/

***Begin Quote***

Are you sick of filling out web registration forms and remembering a mountain of passwords?

Me too! I must have filled out hundreds of web forms in my lifetime, each asking for pretty much the same information. And usually these websites don't even really *need* any personal information, they just require a unique identification for a person, and a way to prove that the person controls that identity. At their core, that is what all those registration and login forms and verification emails boil down to. I started Videntity.org as a way to avoid all this hassle.
***End Quote***

Yup.

I'll try anything and everything.

So I took out an identity http://reinkefj.videntity.org/ and then went for a spin at Live Journal.

Appears to work.

Now if it was "accepted" everywhere, it's would be useful.

When using GNotebook, I have had Internet Explorer 6.0.2900.2180.sp2 go nuts TWICE. It, on its own, spawned a bunch of extra windows. I assume it kept going until it ran out of whatever. Now I have never seen IE6 do that before. I don't know what causd it. I've used without it happening. And, I've never seen that behavior with Firefox1503. So be advise!

In my unscientific study of email trends, I am taking more spam on my non-hidden short "human being readable" email addresses. Sigh, we know who controls the inet.

The hidden and random sting ones seem to be pretty immune. The hidden ones are never exposed to any one but me; no significant risk there. The random string ones are the ones where the address portion is just a long random string. And they seem immune; guess no spammer wants to chase them.

I have lot's of dedicated email addresses for lots of different purposes and have also “lost” a lot of addresses to spammers.

In the losing, I discovered "alpha spammers". They use alpha progression to eventually “discover” every address.  I wised up to it when some dumb spammer had “reinke @att.net, reinkea@, reinkez@ reinkeaa@, …” in the To field. They eventualy discovered every one of my @att.net addresses since they all looked like reinke xxxxx @ att.net! So, I have adopted the long random strings as the “user” part.  Also since no one invests any time in the “name”, I can change it when needed (i.e., if it starts to be spammed). 

Since 99% of the use of an email address is to be hit by “reply”, no one cares. AND I have many ways for people to get back in touch, like http://public.2idi.com/=reinkefj, so it seems to work for me. 

I'm going to have to abandon more of my non-hidden short "human being readable" email addresses. Sigh. I'm probably going to have to look into more of the alternatives.

My web-based email web form at http://public.2idi.com/=reinkefj has been very immune to spam. Who knows how long that will last.
Some of the various providers have some interesting features like only accepting email from sources in your address book. I'm going to look into them.

I use lots of platforms — LUGGABLE, OLDLAP, DSKTOP, WORKTOP, SPOUSETOP, ANCHOR, JOKE, BROKETOP, and OFFAL. Each of those has, or had, a specific purpose. When I wonder how I keep, kept, or am keeping everything straight, I always come back to "email". Each machine has it's "own" email address. "Directives" can be sent from a "master" email to these secret email addresses and form a todo list when appropriate. It should be possible to form up a private Google or Yahoo group to keep it all flowing nicely. Interesting concept? It works for me. When all you have is a hammer, then every problem is a nail. Pity what happens to a screw!

http://www.elephantdrive.com/ 

***Begin Quote***

How much does it cost?

ElephantDrive is free during the beta period, but ultimately will be offered as a paid service. The current plan is to launch the paid service in June 2006, with standard accounts tentatively priced at $9.95/month for 10 GB of storage, decreasing for larger accounts. We are offering the service free during the beta period not in effort to trick users, but because your feedback is extremely valuable to us and will help us create the best possible product.

There will always be free accounts of limited size available, and we will never “hold your data hostage” if you decide not to continue with ElephantDrive after it moves to a paid service. In the event you decide that ElephantDrive is not for you because of pricing (or for any other reason for that matter), we will hold you data for at least 30 days while you move it to an alternative location and then remove it from our system for your privacy and protection.
***End Quote***

Another offer of free web space? Wow an embarrassment of riches. What data shall I put here? Obviously nothing too valuable or irreplaceable. I've actually started "pairing" free services. Put data store X on vendor A and B. Put data store Y on vendor C and D. Two of them won't go belly up at the same time. Will they? And it's just backup data.

Hmmmm? 

An irate inet fellow was grousing about the "good" names are gone and "they" want 100k$s (new dimension of money  — hundreds of kilo dollars) for them. What is one to do?

Being an injineer, trained to solve other people's problems at the drop of a hat, I came up with a question and at least one alternative.

Question: What makes a domain name "good"? Short, memorable. Maybe?

I understand well the game that is being played on us.

https://reinkefj.wordpress.com/2006/05/17/yahoo-wants-to-get-you-interested-in-registering-a-domain-why-bother/

BUT having said that you need to be in the “game”.

I have two thoughts.

(1) Go offshore. I took Reinke dot cc because it was my last name and available. The "CC" in dot-cc refers to a tiny island chain in the Indian Ocean. It's the Cocos Islands, a 5.4-square-mile territory of Australia, population 650. Maybe I'll go visit someday? So QWERTY in Western Samoa is available. Just checked. You could be G @ QWERTY dot Web Site. Or there is .nz for New Zealand, .kz for Kazakstan. Mississippippians can go to .ms for Montserrati. Or Marylanders to .md for Moldova. There's lots of TLDs out there.

OR

(2) Go long. Buck the trend. Become G at QWERTY PLUMBING CONTRACTOR dot com which is also available.

I’m not so sure that the common wisdom is correct on short domain names. Yes, if you’re advertising on TV and you want someone to remember your phone number or website then you have to be as memorable as possible. In your case, I don’t think that applies.

Just my thoughts for what it is worth.

Remember you’re reading a fellow who uses <14 character random string> @ ISP dot net.

Will you every remember and type that? No. (Hell NO! but you could in a pinch, if you really really wanted to?)

But it’s very usable because you either reply or fire off a mailto weblink. 

So does dot com or short really matter? 

My answer is no.

Your Mileage May Vary. 

Now let me see if I can beat you to those names and sell ‘em to you for a big profit.  Was that QWERTY or YTREWQ? Dot CC or WS or TV or RADIO.

(You get the idea. Beat'em at their own game.)