Spam FAQ Part 2

In Part 2 I'll give an overview of what must be the most annoying situation regarding spam, and one which you can do nothing about!

The situation is that you open your email up one morning and have to download thousands of what we call 'bounced' email messages. These are emails that have been sent by a server that has received an email that it doesn't know what to do with. This is mainly caused by an unknown address.

What's happened here is that the spammer has used your domain as the email and added a random name to the front. For example sdfertuhty@planstoprosper.org.uk. What the spammer aims for is to get their url link in the email into someone's inbox. They need an address to send it from so they harvest actual domains and just add random names to the front. In most cases they can send it from any server so they hijack a machine or a server and send out thousands if not millions of emails using random domains. So one day it's the turn of your domain to get chosen. So they send out these emails which would seem to be sent by you, but they're not. They have to have somewhere to send them so they again harvest domains and make up the name part. Hence a lot get rejected and bounced. And unfortunately they get bounced back to you.

And the annoying part is that there's absolutely nothing you can do to stop it happening.

You can minimise the annoyance however by deleting all emails that get bounced to random@youremaildomain.com before you need to download them. The spamming still goes on but you just don't see it.

Keep visiting www.planstoprosper.org.uk for Spam FAQ Part 3!

mp3tunes, EMI and the RIAA

Like most people who use a pc I have ripped all my songs onto a digital format for storage and convenience. When I buy a cd the first thing I do is to rip it and make a copy. Then I take the copy in the car to listen to. I do this because I know that the cd is likely to get damaged in the car. CDs don't get put away, they get dropped, picked up with dirty hands etc. When the cd becomes so damaged it doesn't play properly I put it in the bin and burn another copy. This way the original remains in good condition.

What I also do is to store the ripped copy in an online storage facility. This means that should my hard drive go bang I won't lose all my songs which I've paid for. This online storage is provided by mp3tunes.com and is a commercial service which uses password protected access to my files. The password is known only to me and no-one else. mp3tunes.com allows me to play my music through a web based interface or other players. I can even play it through a Squeezebox without involving my pc! I believe that mp3tunes.com also limit concurrent connections to an account to 2 so it's not really much use in distributing pirate copies of anything.

And this setup suits me fine. I buy music, I listen to my music where and when I want. Everybody's happy. Almost.

It seems that someone wants to shut mp3tunes.com down, or at least relieve them of serious amounts of cash for, well I'm not quite sure what yet. You can read the request to the courts here. The Exchange Morning Post puts forward an excellent understanding of the issues here.

On a positive note a judge has denied EMI's request for mp3tunes to hand over copies of the 100 million files that users have submitted to their personal, password protected lockers. I really cannot understand why a major record label would want access to my personal private files, I really don't. Hopefully this episode will be the death rattle of a dinosaur unwilling to work in the modern age. DRM is now all but dead and the music industry should be working to create new channels to reap the benefit of digital music. Unfortunately they seem to be trying to screw as much money as possible from companies and individuals before they collapse.

Truth is Treason in the Empire of Lies: Linspire "Fact Sheet" Coming Soon

Former CEO of Linspire, Kevin Carmony seems determined to stir things in his attempt to wrest control of Linspire/CNR from Michael Robertson and Larry Kettler.

I find the way that Kevin Carmony is going about this to be distasteful. He is making what seems to be unfounded allegations by wrapping them up as 'facts' which he'll bestow upon us at a later date. Kevin Carmony seems prepared to cause collateral damage to Lispire as he casts apersions on Michael Robertson and Larry Kettler.

And it's not as if he even considers Linspire to be worth it! He jumps ship from Linspire and sucks up to the Ubuntu community and now his flavour of the month is Apple.

His blog alleges that Linspire has defrauded a federal bank and looking at previous posts in his blog it seems he's informed the authorities about a company that has attempted to 'defraud a federal bank'.

Kevin Carmony's Blog: Truth is Treason in the Empire of Lies: Linspire "Fact Sheet" Coming Soon

Nokia E65 Tips and Tricks Part 3

Not too much in this post but it's something that I searched high and low for when I first got my Nokia E65. The problem was how to locate applications that had been minimised or 'left behind'.

For example the Skype application has a 'minimise' option. This I did and then wondered just how I was going to find it again. The answer is simple but not obvious. Hold the menu button down for a couple of seconds and you get a pop up of all running apps. Then scroll to select and press the middle button to go to that app or 'c' to close the app. The 'menu' button is the bottom left, one in key that looks like the moon orbiting an invisible earth.

Nokia E65 Tips and Tricks Part 2

I have to admit that I sometimes feel left out in terms of pc applications as I run Linux (Linspire). For example my Nokia E65 comes with an Application Suite. I'm not too sure quite sure about everything it does as it's not going to run on my laptop. But sometimes it would be good to know.

I'm pretty sure though that there's some sort of a sync facility on there to synchronise calenders and to-do lists between the E65 and something like Outlook. But since I canned Outlook a long time ago when I switched from Windows I now use Google Calendar to manage my diary. But here's the bonus - I can sync directly between my E65 and Google Calendar!

There's an application available called Goosync which lets me synchronise stuff. As their website blurb says:

Synchronize your Google Calendar with your mobile phone or PDA.

GooSync will seamlessly synchronize almost any mobile device with your Google Calendar. It's quick and simple, sign-up and start syncing.

Upgrade your free account to our premium subscription and get access to GooSync Contacts and Tasks as well as advanced calendar sync features.

Never be without your vital information again!

And it works bloody well. I'm using the free version which has some limits to it's capability, but that works well enough for me for now.

Joomla Hacked

Had one of my sites defaced recently by a turkish hacking group. It is a site running Joomla and one where I foolishly hadn't updated the excellent Acajoom newsletter component.

The wakeup made me update all my Joomla sites and components and modules. In doing so I discovered a few visits on some other sites where the visitors were checking for unsecure scripts.

So if you see the following in your search logs I'd recommend getting the component upgraded or removed asap!

inurl:"com_acajoom" mailingid

option=com_acajoom

com_acajoom

In fact if you see any searches in your site related to Joomla components or modules then you need to be aware and start checking logs.

Benny Hinn Communion Service

Went to my first Benny Hinn event last night (21st March) and had a wonderful time. It was held at the ExCel Center in London's Docklands and it was also my first visit there. I have to say I was impressed by the ExCel Center, easy parking, easy to get out and the concessions weren't too expensive considering.

The service was packed, really packed. 12,600 people attended the event with several thousand turned away. We arrived over 2 hours early and had to sit about half way back in the arena. With one hour to go the place was full with repeated calls to find available seats.

Everything started off with a fantastic time of praise and worship backed up by a huge and talented choir. A fantastic choice of songs and hymns. Pastor Benny was just like what you see on TV except maybe his voice was a little deeper than I expected. As it was a communion service the event was centred around that. Everyone was provided with a small 'tub' containing a wafer and grape juice. It was good to take communion with so many people. The service ended with the usual number of people laid low by the Holy Spirit.

What I didn't realise was that Pastor Benny hasn't actually laid hands on these people. Healing and miracles occur during the service, or before and those you see on stage are there to provide hope and encouragement and to build up faith in the rest of us.

I'm holding onto the promise of healing for myself and my loved ones. Certainly this event has increased my faith in God's promises.

And my thoughts on Pastor Benny? He doesn't come across as a faker or charlatan as some claim, even those within the church. In my mind he is someone who loves people and wants to do God's work to the best of his abilities.