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Dr. Jackal and Mr. Hide

After Two and a half years of blogging (mostly RANTS) with a “few” techie articles, I have decided it is time to stand up tall and be counted by the masses, to this end i have started a 2nd blog, siliconpizza.com

This New blog will be focussed on my warped view of technology , it’s use and abuse, news, discoveries etc etc and within my limited command of my mother tongue, the english language, it should present a professional picture of my life and the technology that infects it.

Don’t worry blog.species5618.net will continue to carry the usual and occasionaly amusesing personal views on life

Feed Burner

Not a big fan of stats and numbers, but what the hell
I have hooked my blog RSS feeds through feedburner.com, using their “myBrand” feature
so the New feed URLS are

Main Blog Entries http://feeds.species5618.net/Blogspecies5618net
Comments http://feeds.species5618.net/CommentsForBlogspecies5618net

WordPress 2.3.1

WordPress 2.3.1 is now available. 2.3.1 is a bug-fix and security release for the 2.3 series.

2.3.1 fixes over twenty bugs. Some of the notable fixes are:

  • Tagging support for Windows Live Writer
  • Fixes for a login bug that affected those with a Blog Address different than
    their WordPress Address
  • Faster taxonomy database queries, especially tag intersection queries
  • Link importer fixes

Get 2.3.1 from the download page and enjoy.

??TEST, TEST, upgrade seems to be Ok

SKy+ migration

For a few years i have had an Early , V1, Pace 3000 sky plus box with a big disk MOD.Over the past few months this has become increasingly unreliable, locking up, not coming back after a cold starts etc etc.

Enter Ebay, 40 quid for a used pace 3100 box.
Now the fun starts, I then discover that different veriosn of SKY plus use different file systems, BUGGER

Enter Sky Copy plus?? the lastest beta (1.2.0.1), will for format conversions 🙂

Quick Download, connect to my laptop with a maplin PATA USB2 adaptor, ??convert and bob’s your aunties live in lover

I had a lovley surprise this morning, 1600 bounced spam emails in my “selective catch all” mail box

I use the term selective, as it has a huge (3000+) blacklist, that and the RDNS connection filtering I run, keeps my normal spam, in the mail box, down to less than 10 a day, with some 3000 being actively rejected.
There is a big debate around whether “catch all” is a good idea these days, But I find it soooo usefull, to be able to use a slighly different email address for any site I register with, especially when outfits like autotrader (autotrader@) leak email data to nigeria like a holey thing and inteflora (flowers@) sold my email address on,

This mornings little treat was not rejected by the RDNS process as they all came from legit mail relays, as bounced email. Which basicaly mean some arsehole is spoofing email from my domain. having been hear before, it is usually followed by a barage of don’t email stuff like this please email from the less astute netizens

I also have reason to believe that one of my work email address’s is being use to spoof spam too, as I have one or two bouced email arrive there too

Media and social bollocks

Dr Jame watson (the DNA GOD) caused a “racist” stirr when he said “Black people ‘less intelligent'”
see this times article

He made this statement based on their typical DNA make-up

I bet if he said, he knows why blacks have bigger cocks, as it is in their DNA, everyone would have laughed if off !!

School nostalgia

Well that time has come to go an visit secondary prospective schools for my son to attend next year. Last night was the turn of my old school Crypt School, Gloucester. I left there in FEB 1986, having completely screwed my A-Level mocks. and I was surprised (and shocked) by what i found
some parts of the school have changed (some for the better) radically in the last 21 years, some parts however, like the school hall, seem to be stuck in a time bubble, and are exactly has??I remember it, the colour, the small, the chairs, the stage, the decor etc
Then came the wonder round the school, when??I stumbled on the 1983 school photo, what a shock to see myself and some of the many friends I had since forgotten. During the tour??I met two old friends, Jeremy Matthews and Heath Long, I had not seen Heath since I left 21.5 years ago.
Then came the biggest shocks, Mr Spear, (A geography teacher while I was there) and Mrs Preston (my 3rd year, year 9 in modern lingo) is still teaching at the school, and yet even more shocking Mrs Preston, remembered and recognised me. OH MY GOD was I really that nasty to her !!!!

Hellooooooooo !

My wife let it slip she regularly reads my blog..

I Got into some serious trouble over this post, which i made from a PDA, in my hotel room, on the morning of our wedding

100 MPH blogging

Currently sat on a first great?? (debatable) ??western train from paddington to swindon

Some of the carriages have been through a re-fit, and now have Laptop power, one socket for every two seats, well cool

so Add Laptop and 3G mobile phone, and we have 100+ Mph Blogging 🙂

In hot water, NOT !!!

At 0715 this morning, I crawl out of bed, drag my self to the bathroom and start sth shower (tank feed, via pump mixer tap job). After waking up the kids i retuen to the bathroom to a COLD shower ! DOH !!!!!!

On futher investigation, the HOT water was warm , to turn off the cold tap and have a quick shower,

Now to find the problem.

  • Radiators are warm,??So the boiler and pump seem to be functional??
  • Check the Clock, All correct and appropriate lights on
  • Check the Cylinder stat, touch it with a screw driver and it went click , and the pump wurred into life.

Seems like the Cylinder stat was STUCK open, (Off)

A??Trip to B&Q should sort that out…..