Have Laptop Will Travel

Bad Behavior 2.0.8 Released

Originally posted on December 15, 2006 @ 1:41 pm

The other day I posted about the rise in spam this holiday season and last night I got a comment from Michael Hampton of Homeland Stupidity the creator of the Bad Behavior script which helps deny automated spambots access to PHP-based Web sites.

Michael was kind enough to let me know in that comment and also a follow up email that a new version would be released in the coming days which fixes a few issues with false positives that I’ve experienced as well as a few of my friends and clients.

Some of the things fixed in this latest release of Bad Behavior:

  • Verizon Wireless EV-DO users are no longer blocked.
  • Blocked requests will be subject to a two-second delay before a response is sent.
  • Some blackhole lists previously used in Bad Behavior have been scaled back or removed.
  • The address for the Bad Behavior Blackhole has been added.
  • Some new spambots have been identified and blocked.

Thanks Michael for your wonderful script and taking the time to personally let me and my readers know about your updated version and the continued progress of Bad Behavior.

To find out more about this release, check out the official Bad Behavior blog.

Heads up for my friends, family and clients who I maintain blog hosting for, you’ve already been updated to the latest release as of this morning, I’m just now posting about it, so if you experience any glitches or false positives, let me know and I will pass it on to Michael to check out.

Philips to blow gamers, literally

Originally posted on January 11, 2007 @ 11:14 am

amBX DemoPhilips has announced a collection of hardware that works together to enhance the PC gaming experience.

This gear will “blow gamers away: literally,” Philips’ big wig, Stewart Muller, told Games Industry.

“What you have is a wall-washer, which displays 16 million colours behind the computer screen. You have two desk fans which blow at different intensity levels depending on what’s happening in the game. You have two satellite speakers with integrated lights.”

amBX LogoHe also added there is a wrist-rumbler and subwoofer but these weren’t demonstrated.

The technology is called Ambient Experience, whose rather hip self would prefer to be called amBX. It seems that everyone is getting on the web 2.0 name bandwagon.

It’s a system which aims to deliver more sensory experiences to games and, in fact, other forms of entertainment.

According to Philips, the amBX hardware works “in harmony with the game to deliver a new sensory experience.”

These brand-new experiences include audio, surround lighting, vibration, and airflow.

It takes what’s pretty much a ‘virtual’ activity, games, DVDs, music and turns it into a far more tangible, immersive experience.

To find out more about this technology, visit the official amBX website.

Skype 3.0 Out Of Beta

Originally posted on December 13, 2006 @ 11:50 pm

Skype LogoI just wanted to let all my technology friends and readers know that Skype 3.0 has officially come out of beta.

So what does that mean? You should go download the latest version which as of this post is version 3.0.0.190 released moments ago.

The Skype development team has really improved the User Interface with this latest release which I’m really enjoying since I’m using Skype a lot more these days for online communications with friends, family and clients all over the World.

They’ve also done a lot of bug fixes and added some new features and improved on others.

Here is a brief list of some of the things added or improved with this release that I’ve noticed:

  • Rich Mood Messages
  • Connection Wizard
  • API: rich mood messages
  • API: public chat support
  • API: FILE TRANSFER object
  • Video quality improvements on low bit rate
  • Updated Extras Manager
  • Updated Internet Explorer and Firefox plugins

Skype has really come a long way in a very short amount of time and over the past year or so since I’ve really started to use it, I’ve got over 100 friends, family members and clients all using it now as a main source of communication for Instant Messaging and online phone calls.

Yay technology. W00t!

If you use Skype and you’re not on my contact list yet, be sure to drop me a message so we can exchange information.

Tis The Season For Holiday Spammers

Originally posted on December 13, 2006 @ 3:06 am

Can of SPAMAnti spam specialists and companies predict an average of 78 billion peaces of spam to be sent daily as we get closer to Christmas.

Anti spam software and mail servers have to work hard to process more and more loads of emails to fight this onslaught of spam but as we all know, this is a cat-and-mouse game.

Sophisticated spammers design and test their spam messages against the current spam definitions. Spam filters will not be able to catch 100% the spam.

Say, a spam filter catches 99% of the spam, there is still that 1% that will be missed. That is 1 out of 100 spam sent. Not a big number. But 1% of 78 billion is certainly a very big number.

The server statistics for Have Laptop Will Travel show that my mail servers are hit with more than a million peaces of spam each day, which is close to quadruple the hits in the previous month… but I don’t like spam!

Mail servers are designed to handle large number of emails, but with the sudden influxes, even the most powerful mail server requires time to digest all the emails. Hence, mail delivery is delayed.

It is unfortunate that my mail server has to work so much harder to process the large load of emails, a large percentage of which is junk mail. Thanks spammers. Lumps of coal for you this year.

And it’s not just spam that is a concern to me, there is also the email viruses and other email-borne threats that inundate our in boxes.

So what am I doing to help prevent this nightmare of spam-tastic per portions from hammering on my servers?

  1. Implemented new measures and procedures to monitor and ensure the effects of spam are kept to the lowest.
  2. Employed more mail servers to alleviate the load of my existing mail servers.
  3. Installed a Barracuda Spam Firewall.

and some other behind the scenes secret sauce which I won’t disclose because the spammers subscribe to my RSS feed.

I’ve also made sure that my personal and work machines are all patched with the latest security updates, all my anti virus products are up-to-date and I’ve done some serious house cleaning on all my hard drives, done a ton of registry fixes and cleaning and triple checked for spy ware and male ware on all my machines.

At this point all is well on the Island of Misfit Toys but it will still require daily monitoring and tweaks but with what I have in place now, I’m better prepared for the storm of spam coming my way this holiday season… are you prepared?

Vista With 2 Gigs Of RAM

Originally posted on October 27, 2006 @ 10:59 am

Windows new Operating System Vista set for release in January 2007 may need double the RAM that Microsoft recommends, a Dell executive said earlier this morning.

In a speech at Shanghai’s Jiaotong University, Dell chief executive Kevin Rollins told Bloomberg News:

I think they tell you maybe 1 gig [gigabyte] of memory is okay. No. Two gigs of memory would be great.

According to Microsoft’s Vista Web site, they recommend 1 GB of RAM for running the operating system’s touted Aero interface. The minimum system requirements, however, claim that 512 MB of memory will be sufficient.

We’ve heard things like this before with Windows XP. They claimed it could run on 256 MB of RAM, which technically it does but it’s so slow and choppy. I tell everyone who wants to run Windows XP to have at least 512 MB but 1 GB would be much better.

Personally I run 2 GB of RAM on my laptop and 1 GB on my desktop. Feel free to check out my detailed system specifications for more information.

According to a September 2006 report by Citigroup Inc., the average amount of memory installed on new computers is 750 MB which is a nice amount of RAM for most applications. If you do a lot of Photoshop work like I do, the more RAM you have the better.

Microsoft has said as recently as this week that Windows Vista remains on track for delivery to volume license customers next month and to the retail channel and end-users in January 2007. We shall see.

I’m sticking with Windows XP Professional for a while until all the bugs get worked out with Vista.