jeremy's blog

Okay.  I'm not sure that there's actually a site out there that breaks down the features of each console into something that an avid console user is interested in (honestly, nobody really cares all that much about tech specs--look at the success of the Wii).  So, here's a nifty summary.  For the record, I own a Wii and a Xbox 360. My friend, Justin, has a PS3.

More...

At work, we're going to have a SumoBot competition based on LEGO's own NXTlog Sumo Competition.  Each of us (there are four, so far) starts with the base Mindstorms NXT kit, adding any other official LEGO parts that we desire, to create an intelligent and adaptive robot designed to knock its opponent out of an arena.

Our work compeition uses pretty much all the same rules as LEGO's.  I'll report more as I get into my bot-building.  Up until now, it's mostly been me trying to find the missing parts that were in a small box in my kit...LOL

Fighting spam in a way we can all [visually] appreciate...


"Spamtrap" - watch the video

For some time now, one of my private e-mail accounts has been getting flooded with spam.  I host my own e-mail server, so it's up to me to take action against the spammers.

My first inclination was to revert to a piece of software I've used in the past, MailWasher.  MailWasher is awesome, allowing me to view each e-mail at my convenience and choose whether to let it through or to delete it and/or bounce it back to the sender.  It not only communicates with the public blacklist servers to identify known spam, but it also has its own intelligent spam detection for sniffing out the spam that may be coming from elsewhere.  It even tells me if it's known spam or possible (or probable) spam.

But, it seems as though the amount of spam I've been receiving has been continuing to increase.  This is extremely frustrating for me, 'cause while MailWasher will still correctly identify 99.9% of the known spam, it has to use my home Internet's bandwidth to contact my mail server to bounce e-mail, revealing a valid e-mail address in the process.

The solution: installation of a spam filter on my mail server.  This spam filter is very simple.  It will check the IP and/or e-mail address of the sender against public blacklist databases.  If one of those databases says the sender is a spammer, the mail server immediately tells the sender that it's not allowed to deliver mail here.  What that means is that any and all known spammers get stopped BEFORE their message comes anywhere near my inbox.  In fact, it won't even let them get to the point of verifying the destination e-mail address (my mail server enforces the requirement of a valid destination address).

This should block about 80% of the spam I've been getting.  I'll leave MailWasher to handle the remaining "unknown" spam.

.::{WiiNintendo.net}::. Wii Sports Experiment, Results!

Whoever said video games were bad for you?!  Thanks to the Wii, all that "wasted" time and energy can finally be beneficial.  :-)

This is a pretty heart-felt story that I ran across on the PI today.  I don't normally post stuff like this, but this one seemed like it needed to be noticed.

Ex-Issaquah star Kim Evanger: A young, extraordinary life cut short

This is freakin' cool!

I ran across perhaps the best commercial for a video gaming console that I've ever seen.  I realize the length may prohibit it from being aired on TV very often, but this is a great commercial!  Check it out:

So, I finally did it.  I went on eBay and bought myself a Wii.  I ended up spending about $88 more than I would have if I'd gotten it in a store locally, but given that everyone is sold out and probably will continue to be sold out for the next 6 months, I was able to justify it.  I even used my liquid spending account (aka Paypal) to purchase it, so I won't even notice a dent in my finances.  :-)  Now, I just have to wait a week for the damn thing to arrive.