So Maybe I’m Wrong…

After posting yesterday about Norton Antispam breaking email downloads, I may now have to eat my words as I've just had the exact same problem happen to a different client. They use NAV but not NIS or Antispam, are with a different ISP and use an email account tied to their domain name. Disabling NAV totally didn't solve the problem; again I had to use mail2web to remove the offending email.

I'm at a loss to explain this at the moment. The most likely explanation is that it's due to a recent Norton common client update, but I don't see why disabling the program didn't help. Both clients were using OE, but afaik there haven't been any updates to that recently. The email that halted this connection wasn't blank, either, it was just a general piece of spam. Any ideas?

Blank SPAM

I've been dealing with an interesting problem at a client's recently, and finally had a chance to figure it out today. Outlook Express would drop the connection to the email server at a certain, specific, email. Only the server connection is disconnected, not the dialup. OE didn't send any kind of delete message, so the same emails would keep getting downloaded over and over. This happened last week, and clearing out all the obvious spam emails via mail2web solved it. This morning it recurred and I had more time to play.

Turns out it was disconnecting after downloading an email with a blank subject and blank body. Apparently Norton Internet Security's SPAM filter couldn't cope with this, and so was terminating the connection. Bizarrely said email seems to have no headers, so I'm thinking that Norton may have proactively wiped them while it was still on the server, or something. In any case, POPFile is now running and Norton's Antispam module is disabled. Hopefully that'll fix it.

My Fan Needs A Screw

Fyi, it would seem there's a worldwide shortage of fan screws.

EDIT: I had to get a whole different case because of the unobtainable screws. This case was a different colour, which meant I had to change the various drives, which messed up my pricing structure so I had to re-jig the whole computer! Little things can make such a big difference!

Useless Critics

I was listening to the radio in the shower this morning. Despite it only being 10 O'Clock, the Michael Parkinson show was on, a regular part of which is the 'entertainment guide' in which they review various films, DVDs and TV programmes. As with most such shows it tends to be a load of garbage and I generallly switch it off, but today I couldn't be bothered. Reviewer Eve Pollard has come out with some gems on this show:

"My DVD of the week is An American Werewolf In London. Now I don't actually have a DVD player [insert some comment about not understanding new technology] but I saw the VHS last week and it was really good"

"I now finally have a DVD player, so am reviewing [I can't remember which film]. However I obviously didn't have it connected up properly as I didn't get any picture, there was only the sound. However I listened to the whole thing and it seemed good."

The above may not have been her exact words, but give you the the idea. At this point, I should add a little background. My favourite TV show of all time is The West Wing. It rocks. I own all the available DVDs and actually watch them, unlike my X-Files DVD collection. Channel 4 started showing series one when we were in college, and I've been hooked ever since. C4 always run the next series immediately afterward on E4. So when series two ended, three started on E4 the next week. Series three finished on terresterial last summer, and E4 showed series four, which as far as I know ended around christmas time. I like to leave a gap between series, so have only watched the shows which have been shown on terrestrial, so I've seen up until the end of series three. Series four is worryingly AWOL: in past years the new series has always started around the end of february on terrestrial, but not this time. This is annoying, but I don't mind waiting.

A common problem with US TV shows is that they've generally already finished in the US by the time they hit UK TV, so there's always the risk of seeing a spoiler. I've tried to avoid anything to do with West Wing, but I saw a headline last year that gave away something major in series four. It's irritating, but these things happen. Ok, end of background. Back to the Parkinson reviewer.

Today it wasn't Eve. The Man Whose Name I Can't Remember Right Now reviewed Monster, then moved onto his DVD of the week. It was West Wing Series Three. He started talking about it and within five seconds had given away the aforementioned spoiler. The dumbass was talking about series four, despite this being the series three box set. He obviously hadn't even bothered look at the DVD he was reviewing, and presumably was just assuming it was the most recent series he'd seen on E4. What A Dick. I turned the radio off before anything more was given away. To be fair, he may have realised his mistake later, but I doubt it. Grrrr.

Eat My Links

At Nod's request, I've added a 'Short Stories' link to the panel, as well as something I wrote for an assignment late last year.

HardOCP pointed me towards this review of the 'Showshifter' PVR software. As the [H] said, it's certainly worth a look as an example of how not to review a product EDIT: As Simon pointed out, it's now offline. Odd that.

NASA today hit Mach 7, breaking the speed record. Pah. A trifle. I won't be happy unless the speed of light barrier is broken while I'm still of an age to go travelling in space. Get working, Ben.

A question I shall ponder: "how does liking green mean you're horny?" There must be a reason...

If you want to read something that'll really annoy you, may I suggest this article. Someone's trying to get attention by claiming NASA is unable to 'disentangle the evidence from their religious worldview'. Apparently we're all assuming that evolution must have had a role in life on Mars. We should be seriously looking at the possibilty that God created life there too. Perhaps she should worry about proving God's existence on our own planet before looking elsewhere. It's not like it'd be difficult. I've often wondered how people can still think this way, and recently I discovered Richard Dawkins' Viruses of the Mind. It's a fascinating article that may explain why these kind of ideas still exist in modern society. I highly recommend it if you get a spare fifteen minutes, as it's made me think more than anything else I've read this year.

I went off on a religious tirade, didn't I. Sorry...I shouldn't read creationist propaganda when I'm tired!

Water Power

In every field and area of experience there are wishlists. Wouldn't it be nice if...and the like. Some are fantasies. For the work I do, it'd be great if viruses didn't exist. This isn't going to happen, sadly. Above the level of fantasies are the possiblities that lurk just around the corner. It'd be great if I could connect remotely to any computer connected to the internet (with appropriate safeguards), for example. Intel and Microsoft are working on a new kind of BIOS that would allow exactly that. Inbetween the two are the maybes. I'd like a computer game system that plugs directly into my head and provides complete sensory simulation. This may be possible, but also it could be that the human brain is just not up to this kind of manipulation. Nobody really knows about them. In this area lies the idea of Cold Fusion.

I noticed the other day that a US panel has convened to listen to the arguments of the proponents of cold fusion. This interested me, as cold fusion is one of those ideas that I really really want to be true. Half the world's problems would be solved overnight. In the early nineties there was a flurry of activity after two scientists reported that they had directly observed cold fusion on a tabletop. The basic problem with their results and the associated follow-up studies was that the energy generated appeared to come at random, nobody could find a way to produce it on demand other than by waiting for a while. The whole thing was debunked by three Caltech professors, and quickly became the black sheep of the scientific establishment. In a most unscientific manner, cold fusion is now treated with disdain; nobody wants to be sullied by association with such a controversial topic, and hence results are not peer-reviewed.

It's a fantasic idea, though. Energy from, essentially, a glass of water. A generator in everyone's back garden powered by a nearly limitless resource. The only field I can think of that compares in potential is nanotechnology. Research is, thankfully, still going on. I like to hope that if results were ever produced, and progress is apparently being made, that it would not be difficult to return to the scientific mainstream. Dr David Goodstein is a professor of physics at Caltech, and has an excellent write-up of cold fusion on his website. His attitude seems to me to be the correct one: skeptical but not cynical. I was expecting the concept to be completely destroyed by the end, but it isn't. There's definitely a case for hope over faith.

Delayed Onslaught

So the announcement was quite interesting...the evidence of water that Opportunity found was definitely a sea rather than just standing ground water. So Mars is now officially the most likely place to have harboured life outside of Earth. Cool.

UT2K4 arrived today! I had things to do this morning, so finally got around to installing it at around half three. And it didn't work. I crashed out before it even started up. I got a proper error crash code, too. After much messing around with drivers I tried reinstalling the game, which fixed the problem. Typical I then had to go out, however, and have only just got back, so haven't had a chance to play it yet. I can say that the box looks very pretty, and that the game takes up an inordinate amount of hard drive space

Major Scientific Discovery on Mars

From space.com:

NASA will announce a "major scientific finding" from its Mars Rover mission today at 2pm.

I think that's 1900GMT, assuming that ET means Eastern Time and that New York lies within that zone. Sounds interesting, doesn't it? NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe will be making 'opening remarks', which is interesting given that he wasn't present at the announcement of evidence of water a couple of weeks back. That was a major discovery by itself. Of course, they can't have found evidence of life directly as the Rovers don't have the equipment. Unlike other, far cheaper, craft. I'm not bitter. Oh no.

I predict they've discovered Elvis.

Cheap Monitors

If you're after a cheap 17" CRT, I recommend the 'dabsvalue' model from dabs.com. I've had a couple of these and have found them to be pretty good, given that they retail for £70 or so. The screen image occasionally flexes when a large portion of the image changes at once, but the quality of the picture is great. I took a chance on the Tekheads 17" Monitor this weekend and found it to be just about ok. I had to turn the contrast down before text was sharp at 1024 x 768 @ 85hz, and the dot pitch isn't as low (er...high...er...good) as the dabsvalue one anyway. If you've got the money, though, it's certainly worth paying a bit more and getting something decent. Huh. I was going to link to my monitors then...but they're not for sale any more. And NEC/Mitsubishi don't seem to have an equivalent model any more. How odd.

That windowsupdate DNS problem I mentioned has resolved itself over the weekend, btw

Incidentally, I've always wanted a DVD player that can handle 5.1 jpegs...(how much? HOW much?! Do they know how much I paid for my first DVD player?! That's sickening.)

Random Restarts

Do you remember a while ago I mentioned I was having random restarts? Well some website gave me the idea of turning off the 'Automatically restart after system failure' option in the 'Startup and Recovery' section of the 'System' control panel. I did this, and last night came downstairs to find a BSOD. The problem was in 'fwdrv.sys', which after a little investigation turns out to be related to Kerio, the firewall I was using before Norton. Firstly, it's interesting that it looks like this was causing the reboots, so I've totally uninstalled it; secondly, I'm not sure how it was still running at all given that I disabled the service and removed the startup entry...though I suppose it's not surprising that a firewall would have its hooks in many places. Anyway, just thought I'd post here in case any of you were suffering from the same problem.