My email is spam

Technology,

While replying to a fellow hockey players email this evening I ran across a strange mail delivery failed message.

    550-x.x.x.x blocked by ldap:ou=rblmx,dc=bellsouth,dc=net
550 Blocked for abuse.  See http://www.att.net/bls_rbl/ for information.

Thought that was rather strange, never been accused of sending spam before and keep a pretty close eye on what’s coming from my machines.

Following the link took me to three resources for third party spam detection databases. They were.
http://www.spamhaus.org/index.lasso
http://www.mail-abuse.com/index.html
http://ipremoval.sms.symantec.com/
When looking up my domain none reported the IP as being on any blacklist but when looking up my routers IP I got some interesting information. This is from mail-abuse.com.

January 20, 2003: If you are a COMCAST customer and are seeing messages that your IP address is on the MAPS DUL, please contact COMCAST directly. You may also want to review this page as well.

If you are a mail user with a standard mail client (such as Eudora, Pegasus Mail, Netscape Mail, or Outlook Express) and you can’t send mail because your IP address appears on the MAPS DUL, it is probably because your mail program is set to use a mail server other than the one your current Internet access provider provides you. Most ISPs usually prevent this type mail relay with their own anti-relay software, but depending on their configuration they may check the MAPS DUL before they check for unauthorized relay.

If you use a mail (SMTP) server on your own computer, or you share your Internet connection with several other people on a local network with a proxy server such as Whistle’s InterJet, and you can’t send mail because of this list, it is because your recipients cannot tell the difference between your legitimate mail delivery and a spammer’s trespassing on their equipment. However, there is a very easy way to work around the MAPS DUL and get your mail through, and it may even speed up your mail in the process.

How about that a message can be seen as spam if the smtp server sending the message is not in the domain of the source IP, i.e. an open mail relay. I guess that would make sense. I may have to start pushing mail through Comcast or switch to imap if this continues.

Post Thanksgiving drama

Personal

On Thanksgiving day we headed off to San Diego, CA to visit friends and catch some r & r. That was short lived as Friday morning came bright an early with a call from the kennel roscoe and cooper were at. Roscoe had somehow gotten cut and needed to be taken to the vet, we’d later learn it was from “happy tail” and banging it on the wall of the run. A follow up on Saturday and all was well, he was back at the kennel with some drugs to keep him calm and no other reports came the rest of the trip.

When I picked them up this morning it was as if nothing was wrong, crazy guy. Didn’t care his tail was all wrapped up curled underneath him and tapped loosely to his belly. Smart as that would keep him “from banging it on the wall of the run” and give the wound a chance to heal. So once we got home I decided I should check to see if things were ok with the bandage, that was the beginning of a bad idea. I untaped the tail from his belly and started to undue the bandage when I thought “hey I haven’t checked with the vet should they be doing this ?”, so I stopped and he was fine all day. I did touch base with the vet and will need to come in on Thursday to have them look at it. Being outside though and in the dog house not much to WACK it against so that’s a plus. But then after work I brought them in the basement and within 15 minutes he hooked the bandage on the recliner and ripped it off. Holy crap !!!!

So Kay and I wrestled with him for about 20 minutes to get the bandage back on tied down and hopefully good till Thursday. And yes taking care of business is a challenge as the tail being between the legs does not offer for good clearance. We’ll have to monitor that.,

Back to Ubuntu

Technology

Earlier this year, after the motherboard went bad in the laptop (v2000), I reverted back to the I200 that I loaded Debian on. Since 2005 I’d been using Ubuntu and before that it was Red Hat all the way back to the 6.0 days. So switching distros was no big deal and in a way I was looking forward to it after getting the motherboard replaced. Ubuntu is based on Debian too so it wasn’t a big switch just more raw and makes the experience different. So when the latest version was released seemed reasonable I give it a try, and earlier this week I did,

From a user perspective the biggest change is the polish on the UI, with Compiz direct integration it has come a long way in a short time. So far I’m pleased….. and why I didn’t partition /home by itself all these years I’ll never know. Live an learn I guess. Oh and no special configuration after the fact audio, video, networking, all worked out of the box. At this pace interesting times are ahead.

New fence delayed

Personal

Today was going to be the day the old fence came down and the replacement went up, but the rain had delayed it a bit. No complaints as we can use it. Maybe they can start on Wednesday or Thursday and finish before the weekend.

And they is a fence and deck outfit, I’m letting someone else do the digging.. ha, ha

Update: They, McClanahan Fencing and Decks, came out yesterday afternoon to tear down and put up posts. Tomorrow they should be out to finish things up. For now you can see the work in progress. An update will come with a few more of the finished product in a few days.

Update2: Fence is done and the feed is updated with new pics. The old fence is down, except for behind the house, that will come in time.

NHL staying in Nashville still a crap shoot

Personal,

After picking up a copy of the Scene this afternoon I came across another article waving at professional hockey as it headed out of town… or at least that was the impression I got. What struck me the most was:

The bottom line here is that a group of well-heeled private individuals are spending $193 million on an asset that was first purchased a decade ago for $55 million, was valued by Forbes last year at $134 million, and has little to no chance of ever finding long-term operating success as a local franchise.

I can only hope that will not come to pass, if so it would be disappointing to say the least.