Merry (belated) Christmas and Happy New Year!

Didn't get to post anything last week, so a belated Merry Christmas an a Happy New Year to everyone!

Patiently waiting for the magic hour, just a little more than two hours away in this time zone. Can't believe it's almost 2006 - I remember being wrapped up in all the Y2K stuff... doesn't seem like its been 6 years already.

Bon Jovi's playing on the TV now - *damn* these guys are starting to show their age... starting to make me feel old. I remember seeing them in Denver back in the day, when McNichols Arena was still around. How quickly the time flies...

Citizen to market big-ass flexible clock

Imagine a clock made of thin, flexible plastic film. Now imagine that clock filling half of your living room wall.

Engadget is reporting that watchmaker Citizen is doing just that - they are preparing to market a 52-inch wide wall clock made of a flexible film called e-ink. The LCD-looking clock on steroids extends battery life by 20 times vs. regular clocks and can be read from any angle.

The price? $4000.

Ouch. I think I'll wait a while on this one.

Damn its cold!

Wonderful - the temperature's dropping again. The week before last we had an overnight low of -20F... last night it got down to 2F.

Yeah, I know that December at 5000 ft above sea level is suposed to be cold, but we've been spoiled by mild winters of late. I cringe at what my natural gas bill this month will look like. Sigh.

EFF, State of Texas files lawsuits against Sony BMG

Looks like Sony's not going to get off easy after all. In a press release linked from Digg, the EFF has announced that they are filing a class action lawsuit against Sony BMG over the rootkit fiasco. In addition, Slashdot is reporting that the Texas Attorney General is also filing suit over Sony's anti-consumer practices.

This is an interesting development, especially after Cary Sherman, the president of the Recording Industry Ass. of America, brazenly stated Friday that Sony did nothing wrong.

Maybe this will be a painful reminder to you, Sony, and your ilk... yes, you own the music, but you *do not* own our PCs. Keep your hands off.

Expect more of these suits to come. The defecation is about to hit the rotary oscillator.

More pwnage! Gamers frag Thompson's book in comments on Amazon.com

Double the pwnage, double the fun!

Jack's been taking heat on Amazon.com in the form of reader comments on his new book, Out of Harm's Way, according to an article on Gamepolitics.

In response, he threatened Amazon with legal action if they didn't immediately remove the negative comments, saying:

"If these ALL of these reviews which violate your own "review rules" are not down from your Amazon.com site by 7:16 pm Sunday, November 20, then I shall have to proceed accordingly..."

Well, the deadline has come and gone. There are now a total of 162 reviews, most of which are negative. The few positive comments look like they could easily be straight from Jack himself.

Waiting with baited breath to see how he reacts in the morning...

Jack Thompson disbarred in Alabama, thrown off videogame case

Karma's a bitch, isn't it?

Jack Thompson's behavior is beginning to catch up with him. He was scheduled to appear in an Alabama case, Strickland vs. Sony, where he is suing Sony, Walmart, Take Two Interactive, Rockstar Games and GameStop, claiming Grand Theft Auto caused a man to shoot two cops and a dispatcher there.

Defense attorneys made a motion to have him removed from the case due to misconduct relating to his patterns of harassing behavior toward his critics. He withdrew from the case to prevent the issue from having an impact on the case.

Gamepolitics is reporting that on Friday, Circuit Court Judge James Moore rejected Thompson's attempt to withdraw from the case. Furthermore, he has revoked Thompson's Pro Hac Vice, or visiting attorney admision for the State of Alabama, effectively throwing him off the case and disbarring him in the state. The judge also noted that he was referring the matter to the Alabama Bar for "disciplinary action".

Judge Moore was quite explicit in his comments toward Thompson, saying "Mr. Thompson's actions before this Court suggest that he is unable to conduct himself in a manner befitting practice in this state."

As expected, ol' Jack responded in typical fashion by firing off a letter to the Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission, saying:

"I have had the disturbing experience of appearing before the above jurist in a high-profile wrongful death action, Strickland v. Sony... In my opinion, Judge Moore has violated...the Alabama Canons of Judicial Ethics by his unfortunate, improper, and prejudicial acts in this case, at the expense of three bereaved Alabama families."

Nice going, Jack... you're just dying for a contempt-of-court ruling, aren't ya? Of course, why not? You show contempt for everyone else... why not a judge?

Sony tries to pull a fast one on its customers

Well, seems like a lot has happened since my last post. Looks like Sony is the latest shining example of corporate asshattery.

Many other sites have covered better than I could ever hope to, but I'll summarize:

To "protect" their "intellectual property" (we call it music around here), Sony BMG chose a digital rights management (DRM) product to prevent people from "stealing" their music. The problem is they included a bit of code in their DRM software which hides itself from the operating system, and by extension, the user. This bit of code is what we call in the IT biz a "rootkit". A rootkit is software that is used by hackers to hide the fact that they have penetrated your system to install whatever nasty tools they use to take control.

While Sony says in the fine print of their license agreement that they will install software to allow you to listen to their music on your PC, nowhere do they state that they are making a low-level, fundamental change in how your PC works. Worse yet, any hacker can now hide code on your PC to take control of it simply by appending "$sys$" to the beginning of the file name so that it disappears from sight.

Sony downplays the dangers of the rootkit and publishes a service pack to remove it - turns out the remover doesn't really work, though.

Very quickly, people began to take advantage of the rootkit, first as a World of Warcraft cheat, then as a means to install trojan code to seize control of a PC.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation issues an open letter demanding that Sony recall the CD. They also ask for people who have been infected by the rootkit to contact them regarding the possibilities of a class action lawsuit.

Word spreads like wildfire through the Internet. Many blogs and tech news sites discuss the details of the story. Word eventually spreads to the traditional press, giving the story wider coverage.

Then, to add insult to injury, it's discovered that Sony may have included open source code in their DRM suite (specifically, portions of the LAME MP3 encoder package) without following the requirements of its license, the LGPL. Apparently Sony feels its OK to violate other peoples' copyrights as long as they are protecting their own.

BoingBoing has a detailed timeline of all the events to date.

It's bad enough that Sony treats their customers like criminals - to have them steal other peoples' software to create a software monster that violates the security of their customers' PCs is simply outrageous.

Sony BMG's global digital business division president Thomas Hesse has been quoted as saying "Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?" This, I feel, is the most damning statement of all. In effect they're saying that "our customers are too dumb to notice that we've hacked their PCs, so we'll do anything we damn well please".

The problem, Sony, is your customers include a pretty clued-in group of individuals who *will* catch you trying to pull stunts like this and scream from the rooftops to make sure the non-technical portion of your customer base finds out.

Related Links:
Initial posting on Sysinternals regarding rootkit
Slashdot discussion
Google search for "Sony rootkit"

Thompson escalates attacks on Penny Arcade; gamers respond with parody letter

Penny Arcade's news page for today mentions a gamepolitics.com article regarding yet another escalation in the Thompson vs. gamers battle: Thompson has now fired off a letter to the FBI asking for an investigation and arrest of Gabe and Tycho. Unfortunately, gamepolitics.com seems to be down for now, possibly due to increased traffic relating to recent incidents involving Thompson.

In response, Scott Kurtz at webcomic PvP has responded with a parody of Jack's letter, this one addressed to the Justice League.

Well, I guess if Jack can't get the FBI to act, who better than Superman to do the job? ^_^

Chinese crash test pwnage!

Digg has a link to a sw33t video clip of a frontal crash test on the Chinese manufactured Jiangling Landwind. The test was performed at a wimpy 40 mph.


Ouch. That's gonna leave a mark.

The front end shredded, shoved the steering column into the dummy's face and collapsed the whole passenger compartment. Not exactly my idea of highway safety... o_O

Gaming from a different perspective

Wow - it seems like I've been too focused on a certain lawyer lately. It's been "all Jack all the time" lately.

"And now for something completely different..."

Gaming being one of my passions, I spend a great deal of time on various videogame-related sites. I ran across one recently that's a little different. Game Girl Advance is a blog with a different perspective, with a focus on the female gamer.

What, you didn't know there were women gamers? Shame on you... :-)

You'd be suprised. My wife plays videogames as well, although probably not as much as me. We both grew up with videogames (can you say Atari 2600?) so it seems only natural to us, even though most of the world doesn't realize it.

Game Girl Advance is a refreshing read, though. It reflects the fact that gaming is a much more integral part of the culture now than it ever has before.

Jack Thompson under investigation by Florida Bar Association

Well, the game's afoot. Ars Technica is reporting that the Florida Bar Association is investigating Jack Thompson's actions of late, largely due to the efforts of Penny Arcade readers. It seems that the FBA takes a dim view of such antics -- I can only hope that they do the right thing.

Thanks to Digg for pointing out this story.

UPDATE: A similar story is running over on Joystiq... what's interesting is that Jack appears to have posted a letter he sent off to the Florida Bar Association - you can see it in Comment #11. In it he appears to make threats to the Bar itself -- and I quote:

"If The Bar proceeds with any of these, it does so at its own peril."

Wow. Point pistol at foot, empty clip, reload. Wash, rinse, repeat.

You're just asking for a disciplinary bitchslap, aren't ya' Jack.

Jack strikes back

Hmmm... looks like ol' Jack has taken umbrage at Penny Arcade's donation of $10,000 in his name. Personally, I think Gabe and Tycho were pretty classy in doing so, especially after Jack backed out on his promise.

After his short e-mail threat he proceeds to fax a letter to the Seattle Police Department claiming that the PA boys "have decided to commence and orchestrate criminal harassment of me by various means".

Huh. I guess making a generous charitable contribution which just happens to make someone look like a fool is now considered criminal harassment. 'Scuse me, I think I should of made that left turn at Albuquerque...

Emerging details for this story can be found at both Penny Arcade and gamepolitics.com.

Oh, and by the way, this isn't the first time Jack's tried to sic the law on one of his critics...

Followup to Jack Thompson and his magical disappearing donation

There is currently a discussion on Fark regarding his alleged charity donation offer and Gabe and Tycho putting their money up in his name. As always on Fark, comedy gold. Some of my favorite comments:

• "Wow. This guy is weapons grade stupid."
  
  
• "Really? Wow, someone should really record one of his call backs and release it on the net, especially if they have a proper argument prepared ahead of time. Nothing says funny like recorded douchebag."
  
  
• "He's your basic four-alarm power-knob."
  
  

UPDATE: The boys at Penny Arcade got a response from Jack regarding the rescinded donation (scroll to the bottom of the page). In short, his reply is:

"This story is completely false and defamatory. Take it down or else."

Or else what, Jack? Surely an educated man like yourself wouldn't stoop to making threats? Particularly empty ones?

So this is what, 5 - 0 in favor of Gabe and Tycho? Pwned!

Asshat of the Week: Jack Thompson - videogame nemesis or clueless idi0t?

Well, I haven't posted much of late, but keep seeing one particular story popping up. I feel compelled to throw my $0.02 in, because it involves a particular passion of mine - videogames. A word of warning... this may be my longest post yet.

First off, a little bit about myself (the reason for which shall become clear momentarily): I'm an adult, married and a father of two. I turn 40 next year. I have a bachelor's degree and I'm a professional in the IT field. I don't drink much, I *certainly* don't do drugs. Hell, I don't even smoke cigarettes. The worst vice I have is the occasional donut.

And I play videogames.

I don't claim to be the sharpest tool in the shed -- I'm a country boy from West Virginia, at heart. I may not be eloquent, but I can generally get my point across.

But if you were to listen to one Jack Thompson, Florida attorney, you'd think I was the spawn of Satan -- evil incarnate. Why?

Because I play videogames.

Jack is of the opinion that the cause of violence in today's world is sex and violence in entertainment. For some reason, he has singled out videogames as a root cause. He's referred to Microsoft's Bill Gates as "a guy whose[sic] Halo trained Malvo to kill in D.C." He's accused the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB), an industry body who rates videogames to help parents make appropriate choices for their children, of being "in the middle of a criminal conspiracy to distribute sexual material harmful to minors". He's accused the president of the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) of being "a Nazi". Of course, this simply isn't a matter of keeping violent games out of the hands of children -- he wants to utterly destroy the entire industry.

Ho-kay. So he has a beef with the videogame industry. Admittedly, there are some pretty violent games out there, GTA San Andreas being just one example. As a father, I don't let my children play these games, because in my opinion they're not age-appropriate. The ESRB ratings help me determine that, but I also investigate the merits of a game on my own. After all, if I'm plunking $50 on a title, I don't want one that sucks.

No, the problem with Jack isn't his beliefs or opinions - he's entitled to those. The problem is his attitude and his methods. He spouts questionable statistics to support his position. He has difficulty carrying on any sort of meaningful discussion and debate without devolving into name-calling. Anyone with even a passing interest in gaming is immediately discredited -- at best an ignorant fool and at worst an antisocial psychopath. He responds to criticism not with debate and discourse, but with obnoxious e-mails, harassing phone calls, and threats of civil and criminal prosecution. Apparently he doesn't feel his ideals and beliefs are strong enough to stand on their own - for some reason he feels the need to squash any dissent through insults, ad hominem attacks and coercion.

I won't go into the specific examples -- a Google of his name or a look at his Wikipedia article is enlightenment enough. Needless to say he's invited the verbal wrath of the gaming community. Notable webcomics such as Penny Arcade, Ctrl-Alt-Del and VG Cats have poked fun at Jack. Yet he continues on unfazed.

Recently, he's lost the support of other organizations who share his goals. David Walsh, founder of the National Institute on Media and the Family, has written an open letter denouncing Jack's tactics, and have asked him to remove the link to their website from his web page. His response? A personal attack against Walsh in an open letter of his own. Nice way to make friends and influence people, Jack.

Within the past week, Jack has offered to donate $10,000 to charity as part of his "Modest Videogame Proposal" if someone were to create a game involving the murder of videogame industry executives and employees. In a wry twist, within days of the proposal, GTA modding group The Fighting Hellfish wrote a mod for GTA San Andreas meeting his criteria, and even making Jack himself the central character. There has even been at least one case where a text-based adventure game (ala Zork) was written to his specs. Jack's response was to withdraw the charity donation offer, claiming the whole proposal was "satire".

Sorry, Jack, but as oblivious as you are to all the fun being poked at you I don't think you'd recognize satire if it jumped out of a paper bag and slapped you in the face.

The story has a happy ending, though. Mike Krahulik (AKA "Gabe") and Jerry Holkins (AKA "Tycho"), of the webcomic Penny Arcade and founders of the charity Child's Play, has this very day donated $10,000 to the charitable arm of the ESA in Jack's name. Bravo, guys.

As for myself, do I play violent videogames? Sure. A good Halo deathmatch now and then with some friends can relieve quite a bit of stress. I'm a bit of an old-school gamer though... to this day I still have fun playing Duke Nukem or the original Doom. Do I go postal and shoot up my workplace, though? No, I don't. I don't even play violent games exclusively... my current obsession is a PS2 roleplaying game called Xenosaga. Some of my favorites are old-school titles like Asteroids, Gyruss, Galaga, and Defender. Heck, I even enjoy a nice game of Tetris now and then. Yet this somehow makes me a cold-blooded killer in Jack's eyes. Go fig.

Apparently, Jack has been known to crawl the Internet looking for people who have the temerity to speak out against him. Well, Jack, if you stumble across my little corner of the 'net, feel free to drop me a line, ok? You can find my e-mail address in my Blogger profile.

In any case, my congratulations go out to you as the latest recipient of virtualoak.net's Asshat of the Week award. Wear it in good health, sir.

More on ISP changes

Our ISP change will not affect anyone with a virtualoak.net e-mail or DNS alias, as these are managed through a different provider.

Thanks to easyDNS for kindly providing this service.

Changes...

Jeez... I can't seem to post more than once every month or so. I suck.

Lots of craziness and changes lately. First, we received the bad news from our mechanic that our van was, for all intents and purposes, dead. When a mechanic tells you to trade in your vehicle instead of paying him to fix it, you know its bad...

Ended up downsizing from a Dodge Caravan to a Hyundai Tucson SUV. Mind you, its not a big savings in gas mileage, but every little bit helps. Besides, with a family of four plus two dogs, with trips to Nebraska and back, a sub-compact is absolutely out of the question. Oh well. I still have the Saturn for work transportation. It does well enough.

Chelle talks a little about the truck in her blog.

Finally, we get to change ISPs. Been with Sprint Broadband for several years now, and they've done well. My only complaints have been that the upstream bandwidth is a measly 256K and they don't allow servers. Unfortunately, they were the only game in town for a while.

Well, DSL finally arrived and we've signed up with Qwest, although we'll be using their "bring-your-own-ISP" service via qwest.net. I refuse to inflict MSN upon my family. Besides, I need static IPs. We'll give it a try and see how it works out.

"Beam me up..." -- James Doohan dies at age 85

James Doohan, who portrayed Scotty in Star Trek, has died today at the age of 85.

Doohan had been fighting both Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases in recent years. He was a WWII veteran who served in the Canadian Forces and fought at the D-Day invasion.

A versatile actor, he was best known for his role as Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott in the three seasons of the original series, six Trek motion pictures and one episode of Next Generation.

I had never had the good fortune to meet him personally, but several people I know were lucky enough to see him speak at sci-fi conventions. They've told me that Jimmy was always a down-to-earth man, the kind of person you'd like as a grandfather.

I watched Trek quite a bit growing up... I've always felt that Scotty had a part in inspiring my career choice. He was a model for geeks and gearheads the world over.

Godspeed, Jimmy. You will be missed.

Happy 4th of July!

For those readers in the U.S., Happy Independence Day! Stay safe, enjoy the fireworks, and have fun!

Asshat of the week: man claims trademark on word "stealth", other dictionary words

In a story at The New York Times (registration required, via Slashdot), a man by the name of Leo Stoller claims to possess exclusive trademark rights to the word "stealth" in all uses, as well as other dictionary words such as "aerospace", "terminator", "starlight", "fable", and ironically enough "chutzpah", a Yiddish word that means gall, audacity or nerve.

In English one could say this man has balls (or cojones in Spanish). Frankly, I feel another Yiddish word better describes Mr. Stoller...

..the man's a putz.

Through his "company", Rentamark, he actively pursues litigation of "trademark infringement" of many commonly used dictionary words. He's currently suing Sony's Columbia Pictures division over their new movie Stealth, claiming infringement even though he has nothing to do with the motion picture industry. Apparently, Columbia Pictures is counter-suing for declatory judgment, claiming Stoller's suit is frivolous.

Frankly, I hope Sony gives him the legal spanking this loser deserves. The patent and trademark system is farked up as it is without people like him coming in to make a fast buck off of it.

New virtualoak blog - Fountain of Memories

Well, it looks like there'll be another blog joining the virtualoak family - my wife has started her's, called Fountain of Memories. Her blog will deal with her own personal interests, which include scrapbooking and raising a family (which she does quite well, I might add).

If you were looking for her blog and ended up here instead, go to memories.virtualoak.net.

Screen Savers alumni return in weekly podcast

Those of you who watched ZDTV/TechTV in the old days (before the dark times, before the empire... er... G4) will remember The Screen Savers. This show focused on the latest in computers and technology and was hosted for most of its run by Leo Laporte and Patrick Norton, and later by Kevin Rose. It was a fun watch as they would always have some sort of cool hardware or software, or some sort of hack to discuss.

The show underwent a radical transformation when the network was bought out by videogame network G4, and most of the original cast has gone their seperate ways.

Recently, though, Leo, Patrick and Kevin have got back together with other former members of the cast and is doing a weekly podcast called This Week in Tech.

For those who aren't familiar with podcasting, its like a radio show that you can download and play on your iPod, PC or other personal mp3 player.

The show, called TWiT for short, usually runs about an hour long and discusses tech news of the week with a healthy dose of general tech chat. They answer listener questions as well, much like the old show.

Information on ways you can download and listen to their shows can be found on their podcast info page.

digg.com - tech news by and for the users

>
Many of you who follow the goings-on in the tech community know that there are a number of sites that cover news relating to technology. Blogs like Slashdot, Gizmodo and Engadget link to newest in tech issues, and some, like Slashdot, have extensive forum communities surrounding them.

Most sites accept links from their readers, but are approved by the site's operators. Now there is digg, a new tech news site that allows readers to post comments and approve links for the front page via user voting. Where sites like Slashdot allow user moderation of comments, digg gives control of the entire process from link approval to moderation to the users. Usually the content is equal parts of wheat and chaff, but that's normal in a heavily user-driven community - frequently, though, you'll see a few gems posted that make this site worthwhile.

digg is the brainchild of Kevin Rose of thebroken and systm as well as former alumni of the late TechTV's The Screen Savers. digg is definately worth a look if you want something fresh and a little less processed than your average web fare.

Self-Destruct Switches, Part Deux

Following up on an earlier story, Gizmodo is showing off another self-destruct switch - this time, a homebrew project. The modder mounted a keyswitch, two heavy steel toggles, and a Big Red Switch^TM. Each switch must be turned on in sequence to boot the PC.

Additional details on the project at Dottocomu.

Dammit, I've got the itch now - I guess I need to make a trip to the local electronics surplus store and find some cool looking switches.

Own your very own self-destruct button!

This one has been bouncing about the blogosphere the past few days, and rightly so... talk about your must-have geek toy! Gizmodo (among others) is talking about a gadget being sold by the Japanese website LiveDoor (warning - page is in Japanese. You may need to use the Fish unless you can read katakana.)

Ideal for your home, office, ballistic missle silo or secret-evil-genius-lair, this 4-way self-destruct switch will light up a big red lamp with a keyswitch turn, the throw of two toggle switches and a press of the big red button. May not sound like much, but put this puppy on your desk and your cow-orkers will think twice about pestering you.

Retailing for ¥3,990 (about $40US), this gem doesn't seem to be available internationally just yet, although from the reactions I've seen it may not be long - I may be getting one myself...

DIY backyard bunkers

Gizmodo reports on a company out of Miami, FL that is selling prefab bunkers for your backyard. The company, US Bunkers, will ship to you, upon payment of $48,000, your very own 18-ton seamless 12-inch-thick concrete bunker. Shaped like a 20-sided D&D die, no less.

The idea is to provide family protection from all kinds of catastrophies, including tornadoes, flooding, hurricanes and terrorist attacks. Biofiltered heating and air conditioning comes standard, as do lighting, surveilance equipment, an electric door, and your very own porta-potty. They can be installed above ground, buried, or even underwater.

There are practical purposes for these bunkers -- they'd come in handy for emergency shelters in areas recently struck by natural disasters, as well as modular workspaces for polar or ocean research.

Reminds me of the stories I heard growing up where some families, during the Cold War, would dig underground bunkers in their backyards for use as shelter during an anticipated nuclear attack. This is the same concept, modified for the 21st century.

Admittedly, these things look pretty damn cool. It would make a great ham shack for me, or one hell of a treehouse for the kids. Don't think the wife would approve, though... it'd likely be not just "no", but "hell, no". ;-)

Battlestar Galactica returns!



It's hard to believe that it's been 26 years since Galactica premiered on ABC. While it wasn't exactly groundbreaking TV back then, it was unique in that it was a scifi-based show in an era when scifi wasn't all that common in the medium. In fact, many felt it was a "me-too" response by the network to the Star Wars phenomenon of the time. It does hold a soft spot in my heart, though - I remember watching it back then, thinking it was pretty cool. By today's standards Galactica is a bit campy, but back then, to a twelve year old scifi fanatic it just plain rocked.

Fast forward to December 2003 - the Sci Fi Channel airs a "re-imagined" Galactica as a miniseries. The show was (very) loosely based on the original series, with many plot differences (including the recasting of Starbuck as a woman!) although the core story of a "ragtag fugitive fleet" remained the same. It was a much darker, grittier vision than the original series was.

An extremely capable ensemble cast led by the accomplished Edward James Olmos, the new Galactica is now prepared to launch as Sci Fi Channel's newest original series. The show is scheduled as the third component of a Friday triple-bill, preceeded by Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis.

Wow. Talk about a scifi smorgasbord... Friday night TV is starting to look pretty good. I have to admit that the radical changes from the original series turned me off at first, but after seeing the miniseries, I'm really looking forward to the new show.

Cool sites for gadget freaks

If you are into gadgets, gear and tech, two of the sites I frequent will give you your daily fix (and then some).

Engadget and Gizmodo are a couple of tech blogs that cover the technology industry. Providing reviews, previews and commentary on products like PCs and laptops, hi-def video equipment, MP3 players, cellphones and more, these two sites are 'must-see' for the tech enthusiast.

The only down side is that after reading about all the cool toys, you'll want to actually buy them...

Making progress...

Wow... I can't believe how much progress I've made at work in the past few weeks. Usually, the day-to-day support routine prevents me from working on any special projects, things that need to be done but I can't focus enough time on them to get anywhere.

The first problem was to address the increasing problem of spam on the e-mail server. It finally got to the point where the mail server couldn't handle the load anymore -- the disk was constantly getting filled up. I found some time across a couple of weeks and managed to set up a mail relay that filters the mail using SpamAssassin and MIMEDefang. These two open source products are absolutely awesome! I am managing to reject over 2000 spams and sideline another 500 questionable messages daily! And this is with only 100+ users.

My next project is an intranet site for the organization. I'm in the process of setting up Slashcode on a Fedora Core 3 server to do it blog-style. For those familiar with Slashdot (one of my regular haunts), Slashcode is the software that runs the site. It'll save me a good bit of manual coding everytime someone wants something posted - in fact, they can post it themselves and then I can simply edit.

Hopefully this is a good omen - it's already shaping up to be a busy year, so with luck, these tools will help lighten the load a bit.