csquared.org

I've been getting an inordinate amount of email spam as of late -- on the order of 30 spams to 1 legitimate message. Spamassassin was doing a good job of tagging spam, but I needed more... I didn't even want it to hit my inbox in any shape, way, or form. I use domain forwarding to a single address for my email. That way, I can use "some.registration@domain.org" when I'm registering for something so I can see who's selling my email address ([Reuters.com] did that just recently, and it pissed me off. But, I digress.) The downside is that a spammer can send an email to "male.enhancement@my.domain", and it'd get through without bouncing. So, after poking around a bit, I found out about procmail. From the [procmail faq|http://zer0.org/procmail/mini-faq.html#description]: {{{ Procmail is a mail processing utility, which can help you filter your mail; sort incoming mail according to sender, Subject line, length of message, keywords in the message, etc; implement an ftp-by-mail server, and much more. }}} Procmail was easy enough to set up. Instead of forwarding email to gmail or whatnot, I forward it to a *nix pipe: {{{|/usr/bin/procmail ~/.procmailrc}}} The .procmailrc sets up some variables. The important part is the "INCLUDERC" directive, which is where the rules or "recipes" are stored.

Select text with your mouse (left click, then drag), then middle click to paste. Handy feature from the *nix environment for Win32. Check it out: [http://fy.chalmers.se/~appro/nt/TXMouse/]

I was recently IM'd from a buddy of mine via Yahoo! Instant Messenger. He signed in, sent me a link to a GeoCities page, and immediately signed off. As our conversations usually center around beer drinking and work, I was immediately suspicious. After navigating to the link, I was prompted to enter my Yahoo! username and password. Upon closer inspection, the form would email the username and password to [havinfunfun@gmail.com|mailto:havinfunfun@gmail.com]. Further poking around found that other geocities pages with similar urls had the same type of attack. I emailed Yahoo!, The Google Team, and the hosted script provider and provied them details about this dickhead's attack. So, here's a bone to all you spammers out there: Feel free to spam the shit out of [havinfunfun@gmail.com|mailto:havinfunfun@gmail.com].

My new PC:

Why you can't get a "straight" WinXP bundle, I don't know...

Need to get a dedicated video card, too.

My latest cover design:

Out of print for about 25 years, this is the book that got me hooked on Leo's work. You can buy it from Great Authors Online.

On several sites I administer, I've had to deal with comment spam. Not just one or two comments, but hundreds. While Jeremy Andrew's Drupal [spam module|http://www.kerneltrap.org/jeremy/drupal/spam/] helps, I've taken the additional step of denying access to these shitheads. Here's how to do the same. # If you haven't already, install Jeremy Andrew's Drupal [spam module|http://www.kerneltrap.org/jeremy/drupal/spam/]\\\\ # After you've been hit, execute the following query: \\{{{\\select distinct hostname from spam_log where entry like '%insert action%'}}}\\ # Select all of the hostnames, then edit your .htaccess file thusly: \\{{{\\\\deny from [hostname from query above]\\\\}}}\\

I don't know if I have enough power to force mate...

I'm a member of Electronic Arts' online gaming community, Club Pogo. Generally speaking, it's a nice place to kill some time.

I've been on a chess kick lately, playing dozens of games over the past couple of weeks. So, I head over to chess this morning, and "sit down" at a table. My opponent started a rated game, but refused to move because of the fact I'm a Club Pogo member.

Unfortunately, if I were to leave, it would count as a loss and my "Unfinished Rated Games" tally would go up. By the same token, it would count as a win for this goof-ball.

Now, that would normally not be a big deal -- it's just a game, right? Well, normally, I'd agree, but the whole principle of it annoys the hell out of me.

Completely apropos of nothing, I noticed I've been neglecting the site since... November of last year. I really need to post more often.

[Google Base|http://base.google.com] allows a content provider to categorize content for Google users. Gonna have to check this out.

The cover designs I did for [Lord Conrad's Crusade|I designed another book cover...] and [The Empire of Texas|My Third Book Cover] are now available for purchase on [Great Authors Online], [Leo Frankowski's Book Store], [Booksurge.com], and [Amazon.com]. Now, if we can only get more traffic to [Great Authors Online]...