A little bit before their 10pm PDT planned maintenance window, YouTube’s home page was returning an Internal Server Error page. Within five minutes it was back, but it was then reporting that their maintenance had started – still 20 minutes or so before the original time of 10pm PDT. Guess their maintenance team got fed up waiting for the 10pm start and just decided to start a little early…
This is one of three Devicescape commercials that are now available on YouTube (I’ll be posting the other two later this week as well). Have you tried it yet? If not, download it for free and check it out. You can get it for Windows XP, Windows Vista, Mac OS X, Windows Mobile, the Nokia 770 and 800 web tablets and the Linksys WIP300 VoWLAN handset.
Woke up this morning to over 1000 bounce messages in my inbox, and a steady stream being added as I deleted them. Seems that once again somebody has decided to use my domain name for their spam, sending out thousands of emails (no doubt using a network of unprotected machines running that garbage that Microsoft calls an operating system and claims is the most secure out there, confirming how little they understand about security). Some of those messages are being blocked by spam filters and bounces returned to me. Others, I’m sure, are getting through.
All the ones I’ve looked at so far are using jewbluedonkeygox as the sender’s email address, although if this abuse of my domain name follows the pattern of previous ones they will start to change that soon.
Something needs to be done about this kind of behaviour, and the only obvious place to strike is the seller of the garbage being advertised in the spam. They are obviously funding these messages, either directly or more likely via referral codes. That kind of activity needs to be made so expensive for them that it is not worthwhile. Allowing them to just block the one referrer does nothing; most of these spammers have enough referral codes that they will not really notice a single one being blocked.
Came out this morning and noticed that the two gerbera daisies we have in the front garden now still had water droplets on them from their early morning sprinkling. That was much too good of an opportunity to pass on, so I went out with the camera and shot a few pics.
The others are in the Flickr stream.
Second time this week that I have taken photos of the dinner that I have just prepared for myself. Tonight it was a penne pasta dish with vegetables in a tomato based sauce. Earlier in the week it was a stir fried noodle dish.
Guess I should get out more, but I did get some outdoor shots (the Encinal, the Bay Bridge and some rusty chains behind the ferry building).
Encinal, one of the two Alameda-Oakland ferries, races under the bay bridge heading towards the SF ferry building last night.
Unfortunately, when she arrived the line of commuters waiting patiently for her to take them home were informed that she had a small mechanical problem and couldn’t make the return journey to Alameda and Oakland.
A shot of a segment of my PowerBook’s keyboard, glowing in its night mode. It looks totally different by day, and in fact most of the time at night since I don’t tend to use it in rooms that are pitch black dark.
Of course, if I did, it is nice to know that the keyboard would glow so that my fingers would be able to find their way to the correct keys… you know, using the little eyes that are there in every fingertip…
Sat down at the ferry terminal this evening on my way home, and next to me on the seat somebody had left a copy of San Francsico Bay Area Homes Magazine.com (that .com really is there on the cover!). On the back cover was the photo I’ve added to this post, and a summary description of a 5 bedroom, 5 bathroom house in San Francisco’s Seacliff area.
I remembered reading about this house a few weeks back, but couldn’t remember what the story was. Tonight, I found the story again. The house is owned by Gateway Computers’ founder’s wife, but they’ve never lived in it. Instead, they spent a small fortune (around 8 houses here at Bayport worth) in rennovations and now have the property on the market for $25.9M. And the real estate agent believes somebody will buy this as a second or third house and pay cash for it! I’m in the wrong business 🙁
Seems that I am not the only one who finds Windows Mobile to be unbearable to use. Martin Varsavsky of FON also finds that Windows Mobile devices are below par. He summarises the three top phone platforms with this statement:
The way I see things Nokia helps me play, Blackberry helps me work, but Windows Mobile just slows me down.
A long time ago, about 7 years in fact, I pulled a list of silly things that tourists say out of a paper in Vancouver because they amused me. While unpacking boxes yesterday I found it again and thought I’d share my favourites with you:
- Do you drink salt water or fresh water?
- What’s the fastest way to drive to Vancouver Island?
- What’s that in real money?
- How much is $8.95?
- Do I have to get Canadian money while I’m here?
- Is there any money I can get that’s all one colour? It’s too hard in different colours.
- If I come up there with my kids can someone show me how to build an igloo?
- What’s the weather going to be like when we visit in two weeks?
- Can I go see polar bears in Victoria?
- If it rains on Monday, can you guarantee it won’t rain on Tuesday?
- Are the trees real?
- How much do your totem poles grow each year?
- Do you guys speak English or Canadian?
- Can I get the Canadian flag in a different colour?
- Is it called British Columbia because you’re part of England?
- I have a pistol I want to bring across – is that OK?