Tag: ISP

bookmark_borderNew and Shiny

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My new PC has arrived!

I spent a fair chunk of time last night un-installing the supplied software, and installing my preferred choices and all in all it’s pretty darn sleek, fast and quiet. Still a few things to tweak and tinker with but, by and large, it’s all setup how I like it.

I’m still using Windows, XP not Vista, and I’m still with DELL as the past 5 and half years have been largely hassle free. Of course I’ve future proofed things as much as I could (plus they had a double RAM offer, although that now seems a little ludicrous..).

For the geeks then:

  • Intel Viiv Core 2 Duo Processor (2.4GHz, 1066MHz, 4MB)
  • Dual Channel DDR2 677MHz (4×1024) – they wouldn’t give me two 2GB modules.. buggers.
  • 500 GB (2x250GB) Serial ATA (7200 Rpm)
  • 256MB Nvidia GeForce 7900GS
  • Dell 20″ UltraSharp Wide Aspect Digital/Analogue Flat Panel
  • Audio Integrated HDA 7.1 Dolby Digital capability
  • 16x DVD rewriter (and I’ll slap my other one into it later on)

It’s Vista capable but given the widespread issues that seem to be multiplying daily, I’m holding off until later before, maybe, upgrading. It’s also the first PC I’ve owned that didn’t have a floppy drive.

Now all I need to do is get my cable modem to keep a connection for more than 5 minutes and I’m sorted… vaguely recollect that I need to supply the MAC address of the new PC to my ISP…??

So, as soon as I get my connection sorted I’ll be able to get on with the two site designs I need to get finished this month, and kick off some Scottish Blogs activities. And, of course, I’ll finally be able to catch up with all my favourite blogs.

bookmark_borderNot Planned

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I’m a planner. I plan. It’s what I do.

But sometimes things happen and plans need to be adjusted.

I received a somewhat alarming email from 34sp, an ISP I use for a couple of sites I run, including this one. Apparently a couple of my sites were hacked recently. I don’t visit the sites in question very often so it wasn’t something I noticed, although as they were both only ‘down’ for a few hours I seriously doubt that anyone else noticed either. Thankfully both sites have now been restored to their previous state.

Of course this mean that I’ll need to change my FTP passwords and review my internet security in general. I very much doubt that my machine has been hacked, and I’m fairly careful when sending emails around but it pays to be vigilant, and a few additional precautions won’t do any harm. Of course I don’t want to go over the top but it’s funny how these things make you more paranoid than usual.

And whilst I’m at it I need to get the miniblog working again. I’ve tried a couple of plugins and neither have worked. Admittedly I think recent changes to WordPress haven’t helped much, but until things settle down on that front I’m just gonna go with some custom code. More hassle for me but at least it should work, and will protect me a little the next time I upgrade WordPress.

These things were not planned.

However I did manage to go out for a run this morning, that WAS planned, and there will be more on that, later.

bookmark_borderTemperance

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March already, doesn’t time fly.

Actually that’s a bit of a worry as March is going to be a VERY busy month for me, and I’d much rather that time helped out as much as possible by slowing itself to a crawl. I’ve already mentioned most of the things I’ll be working on in March although two of those projects are, at this moment, shrouded in mystery. One of the projects will remain that way, but the other will be given a little more depth on Friday, so do drop by as it may interest you.

Site News
Apparently the ISP that hosts this site, and many others, had a few problems yesterday. So don’t worry, you didn’t break my bit of the internet (and thankfully neither had I). Annoying as these things are I have to admit that I can’t really get worked up about it. C’est la vie.

Real Life News
Man at top of stairs in train station is still there, shouting a lot. I’m getting very close to asking him if it mightn’t be a better idea for him to sling a ticket machine over his shoulder and help DECREASE the queues he’s apparently so worried about, than to be standing shouting out the feckin’ obvious at several hundred decibels as I walk past every morning.

Either that or I may “introduce” him to a ticket machine. Forcibly and sideways.

ULS Seminar
Tomorrow at 11.30am I’ll be standing in front of a room full of strangers trying to explain what blogging is, and I’d like to thank (again) everyone who took the time to offer me some feedback. I’m confident in my ability to waffle and now even more confident that I have an excellent set of slides to back me up.

What I DO need to figure out is what to post tomorrow as it’s likely I’ll pull my site up as an example. Do I go high-brow and ponder something deep and meaningful – what IS the best way to get that last scraping out of the bottom of a jar of Nutella – or stick with something more traditional – kitten photo anyone?

Suggestions welcomed.

bookmark_borderMoving address

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*Sniff… It is with great… *sniffle… emotion, that I … *sniff…

Oh, OK, not THAT kind of moving address.

I’m moving email address. One of the first services I signed up for (in 1996 I think) was a Bigfoot email forwarding account. I’ve got two accounts with them, one forwarding to my home account, one to my work account. This meant that for many years I could give people the same address no matter my ISP or job location. Unfortunately the spammers have caught up with Bigfoot and discovered the @bigfoot.com suffix, and the number of spam emails I am receiving is rising rapidly week after week. Bigfoot are trying to do something about it but they haven’t made any in-roads for several months now, so it’s time to so my fond farewells, adieu, adieu and all that.

So, if you DO have any details stored as my home email address, you’ll need to change them I’m to: ‘gordon [at] snowgoon.co.uk’ (do I still need to tell people that [at] means @ and to remove the spaces?)

Now I did read a good article about fighting back against spam a few weeks back so I’m off to dig it out and see if there is anything more I can do.

bookmark_borderError

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My ISP has been updating it’s backend servers and services. I know this is a geeky thing, but I now have control over my own error messages!! 404 403 & 500.

Sigh… Simple things…

Ohhh and in case you wanted to know… 403 = Forbidden, 404 = Not Found, 500 = Internal Server Error More Info…