growse.com

growse.com http://www.growse.com So completely not gay en Thu, 21 Aug 2008 11:55:50 GMT Wonderful SPAM http://www.growse.com/news/comments/wonderful-spam/ I started a bit of an experiment a while ago. I'd stop the historical logs on my mailserver from being deleted and then see how much spam I get in a year. I started this on April 21st, and here's where I'm up to. My mailserver has rejected 143,737 messages from 105,062 hosts. Of those messages; 80,586 messages were rejected because they were attempted to deliver to known blacklisted addresses and 41,543 were blocked for attempting to use me as a relay. Interestingly, this means that 85% of the spams I get through I don't need to run through spamassassin at all, which saves fairly significantly on processing time. I suppose a quick word about what I use and how it's configured. I use <a href="http://spamassassin.apache.org/">spamassassin</a> and <a href="http://www.exim.org/">exim4</a>. I like exim, mainly because once you get past it's rather strange configuration setup, it's really powerful. My mailserver is configured to be the primary MX for my domain. When mail comes in the door, it's inspected to make sure that the target address really is a domain I own and that the full address hasn't been blacklisted. If either of these is true, the connection is closed. If the mail is accepted, it is then run through spamassassin. If the mail was delivered over an authenticated connection, then the server assumes it's coming from a person allowed to use it as a relay, and then forwards it on. Spamassassin is configured to do it's usual bunch of checks, with a few tweaks to scoring. I run bayesian checks against a postgres database of data and that's fairly good at sorting stuff out. If the message goes above a certain threshold, it gets dumped in a spam folder which I then later use for bayesian learning. Anything else gets dumped in my inbox. On the whole, it works well. I get the occasional false positive and have to copy stuff out of my spam folder. Any mail that I reject normally gets passed onto my secondary MX server, which is just a forwarder to my gmail account. Whilst 95% of that ends up in gmail's spam folder, some mails which I've said are deffinately spam end up in my gmail inbox. Looks like I do this better than Google :) Things I want to investigate in the future are greylisting and tarpitting. I've just not got round to figuring these out yet and seeing as this is currently working quite well, I've not much motivation. One bored day I will though. And yes, the BEST MAN DIARY is coming. Soon! http://www.growse.com/news/comments/wonderful-spam/ Thu, 21 Aug 2008 11:55:50 GMT Eee bah gum http://www.growse.com/news/comments/eee-bah-gum/ Well, it's been a week now since it ended and in many ways, I'm still recovering. The RACE ACROSS EUROPE was certainly an experience and I think a fun one at that. I'll do a full diary with ADDED BONUS GPS TRACKS once I get my act together and figure out how to spell. In other news, my Eee turned up! In the end, I cancelled my amazon order because they were being stupidly slow. They pushed the date back a number of times, and I just got bored of waiting. Browsing around the internet, I stumbled upon Ebuyer, who excitingly told me that if I ordered in the next 4 hours, I could have it the day after. Add to that, they suggested the right memory upgrade and were cheaper than Amazon. So, I cancelled the previous order and re-bought from Ebuyer. Satisfyingly, it arrived the next day. It's amazing. It's also tiny. The first thing I did was to wipe Xandros off and stick on Ubuntu. Thankfully, there are some guys over at <a href="http://www.ubuntu-eee.com/">Ubuntu Eee</a> make a version of Ubuntu that comes with some Eee-friendly pre-configurations, such as making the font smaller and other niceties. However, it doesn't include rather important things like the WLAN or LAN drivers, so you have to get these from somewhere else and move them over with a USB key. The screen's small, but has 1024 pixels width, so sensible things fit on that. The keyboard is also rather small, but with a bit of practice, I can touchtype almost as well as on a fullsize version. My biggest annoyance at the moment is figuring out how to enable the palm detection for the mouse. The mouse area is quite big and as a result it's very easy to accidentally tap the area with your palm as you type, leading to random other things on the screen being selected. I know that palm detection on these sorts of things is possible, it's just a question of figuring out how. The physical mouse buttons are rather stiff, but they'll loosen over time. I've not tried the bluetooth or the webcam yet, so there's plenty to tweak with yet. All in all, a good purchase. http://www.growse.com/news/comments/eee-bah-gum/ Sun, 17 Aug 2008 17:37:25 GMT Not long now http://www.growse.com/news/comments/not-long-now/ So, it's suddenly here. This Friday I have to travel to a part of London at a specified time and for 9 days after that, I have no idea where I'll be. It's the mystical magical RACE AROUND EUROPE! Of course, there is reason behind this. I would not choose to embark on such a silly and ill-conceived adventure without there being some motivation, some element of CHALLENGE! I mentioned that it's a RACE! and that necessitates the inclusion of other CHALLENGERS in the RACE! We are, naturally, competing to see who is the BEST MAN. The winner will then be appointed the BEST MAN at someone's wedding in October. I make it sound like the wedding will be chosen at random, but it should be made clear that this is not random, this will be a spectacular wedding of HISTORIANS. I am one of the CHALLENGERS. There are five (5) other CHALLENGERS. We know nothing. Most of the ENTOURAGE accompanying us on this trip also know nothing. All I know is that I don't yet have nearly enough of the things that I need to ultimately successful in the RACE. I do not even know if I will have access to the INTERNET once I am out on the road. If I do, you can expect frequent updates to this particular publishing venue. If I do not, there will be only silence. Rest assured though, the RACE! will be heavily documented for later publication. I will occasionally take copious notes and may even entertain the idea of taking PHOTOGRAPHS or VIDEO-like material. I must go now, to buy THINGS for the RACE! http://www.growse.com/news/comments/not-long-now/ Tue, 29 Jul 2008 17:00:11 GMT Getting a Huawei E220 3G working on 3 with Ubuntu 8.04 http://www.growse.com/news/comments/getting-a-huawei-e220-3g-working-on-3-with-ubuntu-8-04/ I've never pre-ordered anything in my life. But when I saw that the Eee 901 was on <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B001C9Z3ZU?ie=UTF8&tag=pht-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=B001C9Z3ZU">pre-order at Amazon</a>, I seized the moment and ordered. A little expensive, compared to the 900, but should be worth it. I've gotten a bit annoyed with having to carry a huuuuuge laptop everywhere, so something tiny that I can just use for web / email / ssh out and about would be ideal. However, this is all fine if I were to be near a wireless access point. But what if I'm in the park? Enter the Huawei E220 HSDPA 3G modem. These USB thingies tend to come with the mobile internet bundles you see from the various mobile companies. The one I've got is hooked up to <a href="http://www.three.co.uk">3</a>. I know this works on windows - there's software on the modem itself that you can pull down and run. However, I've no plans to run windows on the Eee, so I've just spent the last hour figuring out how to get it working in Ubuntu. Turns out that if you know how, it's surprisingly easy: <ol><li>Go to <a href="https://forge.betavine.net">https://forge.betavine.net</a></li><li>Download and install the latest VMC Card Driver Linux</li><li>Plug in the modem - you should see some messages in the syslog about finding the device. If you're not sure, check to see if /dev/ttyUSB0 exists. If it does, you're in business. If not, you're screwed.</li><li>Load up the Vodafone app - I found it in my applications menu</li><li>Give it a phone number of *99#, any username / password you want and an APN of three.co.uk. The DHCP DNS servers didn't work for me for some reason, so I put in the <a href="http://www.opendns.com">OpenDNS</a> servers as static instead. Try it DHCP first though</li><li>Press 'connect'</li><li>Yay!</li></ol> All I need to do now is wait 10 days for the Eee to show up :) http://www.growse.com/news/comments/getting-a-huawei-e220-3g-working-on-3-with-ubuntu-8-04/ Sat, 12 Jul 2008 15:42:06 GMT It's cold up here, and why the internet will fall over http://www.growse.com/news/comments/it-s-cold-up-here-and-why-the-internet-will-fall-over/ I had the exciting chance to visit the great city of Nottingham on Friday. Turns out that my employer also employs a bunch of people based there, who write lots of software. As part of an awareness and education drive, a few of us visited to tell lots of coders what the term 'security' is meant to mean. I digress slightly from reality - it was actually a pretty useful day and a good amount of valuable work was done. I do need to rant about train fares however. I turned up at St Pancras on Thursday to catch the fast train up to Nottingham. Having frequently visited Stockport from London, I was expecting to pay about £40 or so. So I was slightly surprised to find that the cheapest fare was an open single at £63 and that if I wanted a return, I would need to hand over about £120. Thankfully, I was going on to Stockport on the Friday, so I bought a single. When I came to buy my ticket to Stockport, it came to £14. That's 20% of the price to go basically half the distance. I know people like to think Londoners are rich, but that's capitalising on it a bit far. And in true spirit of being h'up norf, it started pouring with rain the instant I left London. I feel I must comment on <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSN2635186520080627">this story</a> about how Icann hopes to allow anyone to buy a TLD. One the one hand, this is a genius move. Make tonnes of money by selling something that effectively costs nothing to manufacture and allow companies to release themselves of the pesky naming restraints imposed by those silly .com, .uk or whatever domains. However, I foresee two problems. Firstly, what stops me buying .bank, then buying SSL certs for natwest.bank, barclays.bank, hsbc.bank etc. etc. and firing off a bunch of emails to the rest of the world inviting them to log into the brand new internet banking site? The domain will look like the bank, the user won't get any SSL warnings in their browser and everything will look just fine. Of course, Icann could always decide to not issue me with .bank on the basis that I might abuse it, but I'm sure someone will think of a way around that. The second problem I predict is that it just won't work. There were a number of TLDs that were made available a few years back (.mobi, .travel, .name I think) and you hardly see any high-profile sites using these. In fact, I saw one commentary that hypothesised that people were swayed away from sites using these TLDs on the basis that the company behind them couldn't afford a 'real' .com domain. And even if there is takeup of the new TLDs, I don't see companies abandoning their existing domains. So maybe this problem will sort out the phishing problem. See someone using a non-traditional TLD, and they're probably trying to take all your money. http://www.growse.com/news/comments/it-s-cold-up-here-and-why-the-internet-will-fall-over/ Sat, 28 Jun 2008 18:08:00 GMT A distinct lack of a suntan http://www.growse.com/news/comments/a-distinct-lack-of-a-suntan/ I had a good time. I really did. I spent most of the last week lounging by the pool, and when I wasn't lounging by the pool, I was lounging by the beach. Occasionally I would sleep or eat, but this didn't happen very often. Actually, I lie - I went snorkelling and parasailing and both of these things were amazing. I think I will go again next year, but I'm worried about the large student loans statement I just received in the post. I need to phone them up and shout at them for not taking money from me over the past 3 years through PAYE. Muppets. Then there's the huge skiing holiday that I want, along with the big house and eventually I start to realise that it might be 4 years until I have another holiday. Oh well. http://www.growse.com/news/comments/a-distinct-lack-of-a-suntan/ Thu, 19 Jun 2008 20:02:46 GMT A holiday? How exciting! http://www.growse.com/news/comments/a-holiday-how-exciting/ It's finally here, the day I get to jet off to some far away beach in some hot country. I booked this one a while back, but it didn't really feel like it would happen for a long time. In fact, I had the mindset that my holiday was ages away right up until this morning, when I woke up and remembered I'm getting on a plane tonight. The thing about the Maldives that I particularly liked was something I read on some letter the travel agent said. The highest ever recorded temperature is something like 38 deg C. Hot, but not excessive. The coldest temperature on record is apparently 17 deg C, and you don't get many days in the UK warmer than that. I've no idea if those are accurate, but I'm happy that there doesn't seem to be any seasons. Just a rainy bit of the year, followed by a dry bit. I should be back next monday. If I can figure out how, I'll be updating my fabulous new <a href="http://www.twitter.com">twitter</a> feed that I've thrown on the front page. Talking of twitter, I had an interesting idea of updating twitter automatically from a mobile with built in GPS. Then you could simply update a feed once a day with your location and nearest city. Then <a href="http://www.bytesurgery.com">Robin</a> pointed me at <a href="http://www.fireeagle.com">FireEagle</a>, so someone seems to have already thought of that. Must give it a go. Still, I'll probably write several versions of my own and get frustrated before abandoning the idea completely. Watch this space. http://www.growse.com/news/comments/a-holiday-how-exciting/ Sun, 08 Jun 2008 10:19:11 GMT I think I want a new latop, but I'm not really sure why http://www.growse.com/news/comments/i-think-i-want-a-new-latop-but-i-m-not-really-sure-why/ I've been doing a bit of thinking recently about getting a new laptop. I've never really owned my own laptop before, and using the office one for personal projects is a bit inconvenient. After watching everyone around me buy huge shiny MacBooks, a feeling has precipitated in my mind about exactly what I don't want in a laptop. Namely something big, expensive and heavy. Don't get me wrong, I admire the quality and the engineering that goes into something like a MacBook Pro. I admire the expertise that's gone into turning BSD into OS X. I just don't want to pay for it, or carry it around. The logical place to look at this point is the <a href="http://eeepc.asus.com/">Asus Eee</a>. This is on its third revision or so by now, and actually has a decent screen res (1024x600 on the latest), 20Gb of space, upgradable RAM, and most importantly a teeny form-factor and price tag. Now I know a lot of people get worked up, because the original Eee was very cheap, and the latest one is a bit more expensive, but to be honest I don't really care. It's cheaper than I'd expect to pay for something that small. I have a number of issues which prevent me from running out there and getting an Eee. Firstly, the battery life. It sucks. Officially it's 2 hours 30 minutes, but many reviews are putting it at under 2 hours. This really isn't very good - I think I read a comment somewhere that said the problem would be a lot better if they supplied a separate battery charger. Presumably so that you can buy two batteries, and charge one up whilst using the other one. A reasonable point, but I still don't want to carry spare batteries to the park with me. Secondly, they're just about to bring out a version which has the Intel Atom CPU in it. Now, this may do wonders for the battery life, which is a good thing. However, it's not out until June, so I'll see what happens then. Thirdly, everyone else is jumping on the bandwagon. I played with an <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/19/hps-umpc-2133-revealed/">HP UMPC</a> the other day, and I was impressed. It ran Vista, had a huuuuge amount of space in it, and a crazy screen resolution. However, as a result, the screen was practically unreadable, the battery life was still crap, and it got very very hot. Still, a good first go. The one I'm really keeping my eye on is the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSI_Wind_PC">MSI Wind</a>. Same price as the Eee Atom, but better specced. 6 hour battery life as well. If the reviews of these are good, I might just get one. http://www.growse.com/news/comments/i-think-i-want-a-new-latop-but-i-m-not-really-sure-why/ Mon, 19 May 2008 12:04:32 GMT This can't be good http://www.growse.com/news/comments/this-can-t-be-good/ I'm still ill. It's been over two weeks now and I've gone through the entire spectrum of really really annoying symptoms. I've no clue what's going on. I've just booked a holiday to the Maldives. This is rather exciting as I've not been on a proper beachy holiday for over 4 years now. I'm apparently staying in a "beach bungalow" which differs from a "water bungalow" in that it's on the beach and not in the water. Sensible move I think. In the meantime, I have 4 weeks to look forward to beachyness and have to instead figure out a word that almost means "integrity", but not quite. Hopefully I'll be better in a month. If I'm not, I want my money back. http://www.growse.com/news/comments/this-can-t-be-good/ Wed, 07 May 2008 11:09:45 GMT Illness strikes! http://www.growse.com/news/comments/illness-strikes/ I've not posted in a while, mostly because there's not a lot to say. My employer changed their name, and the number of people who work for them, which is exciting enough if you're into that sort of thing. Recently though, my spare time has been taken up with a new hobbey: illness. I've spent the best part of the last week spluttering and hacking my way through various meetings and bits of work and have caused a lot of people to look at me pitifully and say "Oh dear. Are you ok?". I should have stayed at home, but unbelievably there's too much to do. So I struggle on, my large stash of lockets in front of me and a large concentration of emptiness around me as millions keep their distance. It's made even worse when I think I could have been playing Mario Kart all this time. Which reminds me: Mario Kart Wii is great! Having played the N64 version quite a lot in the past, I had become delusional with the whole thing. There were those I competed with who knew all the secret glitches in the game that allowed you to miss out 90% of the track and win in record time. These same people seemed to be happy to label such activities as 'fair' on the basis that I had the equal opportunity to exploit the bugs left in by the poor, overworked coders. With the Wii version, no more! I shall triumph for a number of reasons:<ol><li>The Wii lives in the same house as me</li><li>It's newer, so there will be fewer glitches (completely flawed argument, I know)</li><li>I'll find my own way of cheating</li></ol> I sense a triumphant weekend of beating everyone I know at this singular triumph of karting fun. http://www.growse.com/news/comments/illness-strikes/ Thu, 24 Apr 2008 13:35:28 GMT