Posts (page 2)
My email is out of control. Spam, newsletters, notifications and once in a blue moon an actual personal email.
My average per day is 100 spam messages, 20 asked for emails and now I have been shrinking these slowly but surely.
Spam. At this point my main email account has been compromised and is in the land of spammer mailing lists. Nothing I can do to change that except to change email accounts which is a pain in the butt to say the least. Fortunately gmail has a decent spam filter so I can just pop open the spam folder and make sure there aren't any false positives in the heap then do a data dump.
Prevention of the disclosure of my secondary email address and further exposure of the primary email has forced me to start using DEA's (disposable email addresses) for registering on websites and other places that "require" a valid email address. (many such places are just farming email addresses for their future marketing efforts) I am currently using www.spamgourmet.com as it is free, easy to use, and offers reply to: masking.
As for the rest of it... I spent several hours going through the inbox and unsubscribing to countless newsletters and such that I never get around to reading anyway. Of course I only use the unsubscribe feature on emails I know I actually subscribed to as spammers use the unsubscribe feature to validate email addresses. This alone has cut my actual email down by about two-thirds and, so far, made it quite manageable to get through the email quickly and keep my inbox clutter free.
This is a work in progress and hopefully I will keep my inbox manageable and turn it into a useful tool instead of a source of frustration. Helpful hints are available at www.43folders.com
Show us something plaid.
Submitted by Soup.
I have updated the Title and Tag line to better reflect what the blog is covering. I feel you should pursue those things you are passionate about. This being my blog is about those things I am passionate about or am an expert on. The one topic that I am the foremost expert in the world on is my opinion so there will be plenty of that here.
Hopefully my life slows down so I have the time to actually put my thoughts and opinions into words that can be shared. At the very least I will try to post updates for the family members so they know what is happening in my corner of the world.
Enjoy.
Okay, So my Norton security suite was pinging me everyday for the last month reminding me that my subscription was about to expire. I was putting it off because I really didn't want to spend the money to renew and I wasn't exactly satisfied with the product. So fate steps in and Leo Laporte and Steve Gibson interviewed one of the people at eEye on the latest Security Now podcast. Steve had mentioned the people at eEye before on the podcast in regards to research into computer vulnerabilities.
A portion of the interview turned into product plug discussed some of eEye's products but of most interest to me was their security suite Blink. The part that really caught my attention was they had made a personal version available for free for the first year so I figure what the heck I will try it out. So this morning I downloaded the free software and for those super privacy conscious out there, yes, you do have to register an email address and yes it phones home. The phone home feature is explained in the license and privacy agreements as how they gather information on new malware and is your cost of getting the free use of the product. For me it is a worthy reason and a way to help contribute to the safety of all that are online.
My impressions so far are very favorable. It has replaced at least 4 programs on my system freeing up quite a bit of hard drive real estate. It runs much more smoothly than Norton ever did. I also ran the included retina scan and found a few vulnerabilities I was unaware of. The Scan found more than 40 possible vulnerabilities on my computer though many really didn't apply as retina is a corporate system vulnerability detection software.
More disturbing though was the 5 malware programs found on my system that had gone undetected by Norton including an IRC worm, a hijacker program, 2 surveillance programs and an adware program. Now to give Norton a little credit (just a little) looking at the malware found I do not believe any had been triggered so they were on the system but had never run. It is great to know they have been found and removed before they could do any damage.
My philosophy to internet and computer security has not been a matter of whether or not I am paranoid but rather whether or not I am paranoid enough. It has become obvious to me that I have not been paranoid enough.
I have seen the first two episodes and probably won't see any more. What looks like what might have been a decent story is, in my opinion, ruined by the excessive and totally distracting panty and boob shots. I will pass on this adolescent fantasy run amok.
I have just watched the first three episodes and I am liking what I see. Great quality graphics though mostly computer generated. Lots of excitement and some interesting characters in this one.
Basic synopsis: After two mountain climbing buddies have conquered the highest peaks on 7 continents they set their goals on the only place higher, space. There is also the hint of geo-political intrigue at this point along with a few moral decision points for different characters.
I am going to keep watching this one.
Well for me it is much the same... work, work, and more work. Hopefully I will get through this and find time to put my thoughts on the blog. Might just expand the scope of the blog to a little of everything as I am always running into disjointed items that I have no place to express.
Random Stuff sometimes shows up on my Tumbleblog at www.tumblr.net.
I am still in the process of relocating and selling my house with the added stress of more hours at work due to a shortage of people.
Anime News:
I have recently started, completed or am in the middle of the following series.
Bleach: I have seen episodes 1 - 114 so far and the movie. I have also watched a couple on cartoon network and must say that the english dubbing on those doesn't work for me. It is too flat and emotionless for such an emotional and passionate series. I will stick to subs on this one.
Finally finished Good Witch of the West. Took Anime-Keep forever to get this one out. I prefer a liitle more frequency than 2 months between episodes. It is a good series though more aimed at the female audience. European monarchy / fantasy / romance genres for the most part. Good depth to the plot line and interesting characters.
History's Strongest Disciple Ken'ichi: This is one of my favorites. I have seen episodes 1 - 8 and look forward to the remainder. Action, comedy and Moe, who could ask for more?
Detective Academy Q: I have seen episodes 1 - 45 and I am not sure if there is more coming or if this is the end of the series. Action, humor and stimulating mysteries kept this one interesting. The characters could have more depth though.
The Third: I finally finished all 24 episodes and this series definitely had closure which is a plus. I really enjoyed the series depth of story and characters. Sci-fi / Action
Ergo Proxy: Very Deep, so deep it may be over my head. sci-fi / action characters and stories have good depth and interest. I like some of the color techniques used in the animation. Can't wait to see the rest.
Death Note: I saw the first 10 or so before it was licensed. I am not sure if I will try and buy this one. It was interesting but not exceptional.
These are only some of what is currently going across my screen. I will add more in the future.
GRRRR... In the past two days I have been assailed by third party software trying to load itself onto my laptop whenever I pop in a DVD. Hot LLama, Twister, and some others... Just leave me alone already, I want to watch a movie not load a bunch of crap onto my computer to see 'special bonus material' that I won't use after two hours. I have limited disk space and do not want it full of programs that I do not know what they are doing in the background under the guise of playing content (think back to Sony Root Kits). When I pop in the DVD I want the movie to start using my default program and I want it to start without throwing up a splash screen and an install dialogue that I then have to work around. Kinda ruins the movie watching mood. /rant
...at least here it is slow posting all that I would like to share. Mostly because life has been busy with a move and other life changes that go with that so finding time to just sit and type has become a very scarce commodity these days. I hope to have all that wrapped up by the end of the year and will try to put something up every few days. Till then, peace.
