Carly the Speedracer Chick

Wired News: Are You Too Stupid to Surf?

2003-09-16T16:30:00.000-07:00

Wired News: Are You Too Stupid to Surf?

After all the crap I went through the past few weeks due to worm infected emails, improperly configured email servers bouncing rather than SMTP rejecting, misconfigured virus scanners sending alerts to forged/spoofed headers, people panicking because they received one of those bogus alerts, etc, etc...... I totally agree with this article.

How f'ing hard is it to update software? Most software either has annoying pop-up reminders or automatically updates for you. These events have even been in the freaking main stream media, in case someone had disabled update reminders... *ersh* it's just exhausting & an enormous waste of time, money & effort!

Paying Spammers Not to Spam - What a CROCK!

2003-09-15T16:31:00.000-07:00

Wired News: Paying Spammers Not to Spam

This is insane. People are actually thinking this is a good idea?! I've read the links to articles posted in SpamCop's Newsgroups the last few days & none of them mention what Global Remove will do if the spammer doesn't stop spamming after being paid.

On top of that, what a freaking easy way to make money. I can go buy a "Millions CD", sign up to be an affiliate with GR then just sit back & collect a buck for everyone I just spammed - even if I'm not really selling anything. On top of that, if I'm reading this correctly, GR gets $1 for every person they get to sign up to my list. So you complain, pay GR $5, they pay me $1, then GR has a confirmed live email they give to the other affiliates & gets paid $1 for that, then more money as you keep paying GR to remove you. What a viscious money making scammy spammy circle.

The fact that people actually pay for this ridiculous scheme just goes to show how badly people want to rid themselves of spam, though.

Seriously, though, even if I thought Global Remove were on the up & up - it is entirely too easy to abuse. Don't pay spammers. They will just use the money to increase their resources & ability to spam you even more. They can create thousands of lists & not affiliate those with Global Remove. If you're paying them to remove you from *one* list, they now have a live address to add to a "Millions CD" to sell for top dollar to other spammers.

Proof that educated people agree it's a good idea:
From Denise Howell's blog:
8/13:
http://bgbg.blogspot.com/archives/2003_08_10_bgbg_archive.html#1060829394975605889/6:
http://bgbg.blogspot.com/2003_08_31_bgbg_archive.html#106289522419936545

Scary...

CBS News | John Ritter Dies At 54 | September 12, 2003 11:06:54

2003-09-12T08:26:00.000-07:00

CBS News | John Ritter Dies At 54 | September 12, 2003 11:06:54

I'm really bummed about this. He was finally making his comeback - though I loved him in Buffy as the robot guy & he was great in Slingblade, so I guess I should say, *television* comeback - and he dies. That is not cool.

I really don't have too much more to say on that, though I think it's neat that he has a daughter with the same name as mine & he's about the same age as my parents.

*sigh*

This is going to be a weird end of the year......

A job vs. a location?

2003-09-09T18:34:00.000-07:00

Which would you choose? I'm guessing jobs because wouldn't we all be in Hawaii if we could find a job we could endure?

*sigh*

I love my job, but hate Denver. I love Florida, but hate the jobs available.......

I would love to hear anyone's thoughts on this.. Mail Me

No Wonder Chivalry is Dead!!

2003-09-09T13:26:00.000-07:00

So I'm waiting for the elevator yesterday with another man and a woman. None of us know each other so we're all staring at the wall, floor or elevator lights waiting semi-comfortably for it to arrive. Finally the bell rings & the elevator door opens. The gentleman steps back, putting out his arm to indicate ladies first. The woman sticks her nose in the air, pushes past me & the guy & hops on the elevator quickly jamming her finger on the floor button, not waiting for the rest of us to even get on the blasted thing.

I nod to the man & say "Thank you." & step onto the elevator. Well sh!t, if women are going to act like this woman did & almost get the elevator doors closed on the man who was being *courteous* enough to let us enter first & not even say thank you or acknowledge he did something chivalrous in a world where chivalry is quickly becoming stuff of legends, I wouldn't freaking be chivalrous either!

I dislike you weird women that think men owe it to us to open doors & wait for us to walk through first. Even in the 40's & 50's when it was still expected of men, the women acknowledged them & said thank you. You're ruining it for the rest of us who still enjoy *some* class in our society. I used to get *so* steamed when a guy would drop a door on me when I was right behind him. Now I know why he does it! Because of some of the stuck-up witches that think they are owed something they didn't earn.

And for the rest of you who think that it's rude for a guy to hold the door open for you - boo! on you! Men are physically stronger than most of us ladies, so why not let them do the work? As long as they're making higher average salaries & not bearing children, I say let them pamper us occasionally. It doesn't mean they are smarter or better than us for doing it... seriously - there are some real nut jobs in this world. Especially those just regurgiatating something another whack job splurted out at one point. *THINK* Until I hear an educated argument as to why I should be rude to a guy for being chivalrous, I will continue to thank him & let him check out my rear as I pass through the door before him!

Slashdot | Osirusoft Blacklists The World

2003-08-28T13:53:00.000-07:00

Slashdot | Osirusoft Blacklists The World

How crazy is this? So many people use Osirusoft to keep out the junk & now it's gone haywire. I know, they're under DDoS attacks, but why blacklist everyone? I think it was supposed to be a failsafe, so false positives could easily be identified & corrected.

We use SpamAssassin in conjunction with a spam filter option in our email server. It uses SpamAssassin to tag email & catch it for review or automatic deletion depending on how high the "score" is. Well, apparently our configuration of SpamAssassin uses Osirusoft to test for known spamming sources & open relays so now it's incorrectly tagging email. Our email server people are in charge of the configuration, so I just shot them out an email with links to all the articles that have been discussing Osirusoft for the past 2 days.

Beware out there for all of you using block/black lists that aren't your own! I am all for them, but you really have to keep an eye on what's going on if they're to work effectively. But I guess that's the story on all technology.

The Google Toolbar

2003-08-27T15:38:00.000-07:00

Click here to Download the Google Toolbar.

I installed this at work & at home. It is pretty groovey. It's successfully blocked popups without giving you annoying popups that it blocked the popups. ;)

It also has this nice highlight feature, so when you do a search in Google, you can click the highlighter on the toolbar & it highlights all of your search terms on the page you're viewing. This saves time from doing the old Find on This Page option.

AdAware & Spybot didn't detect any spyware after I installed it either - so I'm guessing it's legit - well, it *is* from Google. But I'm now under the jaded impression that you can never be too careful, especially when it comes to the Internet.

Outlook duplicates

2003-08-27T15:29:00.000-07:00

Click here to Learn how to prevent and remove Outlook duplicates.

System Setup:
OS: Windows 2000 Professional
Server: Novell NetWare 5
Program: Outlook 2000

Issue:
I don't know how this happens, but sometimes Outlook creates a duplicate Personal Folder - and everytime you make a change in one, it appears in the duplicate as well. Outlook also will not allow you to close either duplicate - so I found this site that had excellent directions on how to get rid of it.

The big problem with that is it f's up your ability to synch with Netfolders & will give you some error message stating "Unable to update public free/busy data. Operation failed."

The registry key location was off from what we had in Windows 2000 Professional, but if you do a little searching, you'll find it & it removed the duplicate & allowed Netfolder synchs & got rid of the error message.

Today's thoughts... the trouble of Print Servers

2003-08-22T14:41:00.000-07:00

Well today was cool. Our hours are kinda nifty at work - they're 7:30-5:30 M-Th, then only 7:30-11:30 on Friday. Yeh, I know, it's still a 40 hr work week, *but* I get a 2 & 1/2 day weekend.

We lease two floors in a 16 story building in downtown Denver, the 12th & 13th floors. The 13th floor is known as the "Frat House" because there are only guys working & VP's, owners, Project Mgrs, etc - so they're kinda on their own to f' around as much as they want.

Yesterday we had a print server nightmare. We have a canon copier that we use as a network printer also & it's on its own server, but all of our HP's are on another. Well, the HP print server went down, then up again, then down again. It'd stay up for 3 seconds, then crash. It was the wildest thing. When we check out the main server, everything was online - the servers just didn't see the printers. The printers were all working fine, they just didn't see the servers. So after f'ing around with the Novell settings & clearing the queues then re-directing the queues & print servers - they were still down. So we decided to reboot the server. I was supposed to come in at 7 am this morning & do that, but my boss was cool & went in last night around 9 to reset them after his volleyball game - then called me so I didn't come in early. BUT, the servers still weren't working. When I made it in this morning, they were automagically working again! The only thing my boss did since the last time he attempted to print to them was purge Novell. I guess something was hanging up the printer queues. Weird. I thought I'd babble on that for a bit in case anyone else runs into the same problem - you know, all the imaginary IT people that actually read my obscure blogs.

OH, but back to the 13th floor.. the reason why I brought it up. Yesterday around quitting time, *all* of the PCs on the 13th floor rebooted themselves at the exact same time - as if they'd encountered a power surge. The frat boys *swear* the lights didn't even flicker, so they don't think it was a lightning quick power outage. It also didn't happen on the 12th floor. And after that, when they logged in, the Novell scripts wouldn't map network drives - yet if you went into the Network Places & into the Novell Connections, you had access to everything, you just couldn't map. Wierd man. It had happened once before w/out the power flicker - and rebooting the server fixes it. I just find that odd, but I'm also new to Novell Sys Admin.

*sigh* I suppose I will always be a geek in training! ;)

Background....

2003-08-20T16:37:00.000-07:00

Here's some background info on me before you write me off as a Denver hating East Coaster...

My Site - so you can see what a speedracer girl looks like..

The short version: I'm a 27 year old redheaded-computer geek-that loves drag racing, muscle cars, the ocean and Tool...

I grew up in Virginia about 25 miles West of D.C. Though the area was rural, all of our media was DC based, so I grew up a country bumpkin with exposure to the real world (though it always pretty much seemed like a movie - that big scary outside world..).

When I graduated high school, I went to Evansville University in Indiana where I enrolled as a Music Education Major, my principal instrument being violin. After finishing one year there, I didn't want to ever touch my violin again. They turned music from being fun to being a chore.. bluch.. if you love something, don't major in it! ;)

I've been drag racing since I've had my driver's license. My father's a self-employed mechanic, so I grew up in the shop. I love old muscle cars, especially Mustangs. My first drag car was a '65 Mustang w/a straight 6-cyl engine. It wasn't anything spectacular - but it was fun.

After taking a year off from college, I moved to Orlando, Florida. I moved with my bf at the time who was stationed there for the Navy. I was miserable my first year - it took awhile to adjust to the heat & humidity. I also couldn't handle the all-boy Navy parties held at my apartment weekly. So, when the bf was stationed in South Carolina, we decided to go our separate ways. Besides, he was convinced I was cheating on him - I couldn't handle the accusations. The only thing I could summise was that *he* was the one cheating & just projecting onto me.

I lived in Orlando for 6 years. I enrolled in UCF first as undeclared, then as a Comp Sci student. Since I had to work full time *and* go to school, I took several semesters off & also couldn't always handle a full course load. That being said, I moved to Denver 3 semesters short of obtaining my BS. Orlando sucked job market wise. For IT, I always had to work as a Secretary (yeh yeh, Admin Asst, Office Mgr, whatever - I was a glorified coffee getter expected to also maintain the network & web shite). They would make me take over IT functions, but only pay me a secretary's wage. On top of that, I was introduced to clients as "the gal" - I hated that.

So, when my current bf suggested we move to Denver, I went for it. A real city should be awesome! Well, I got my dream IT job - the one I want until I get my degree in Comp Sci. Then I dunno what my dream job is. Well, Denver is great - minus some of the jackass people that live here (see previous post). But I miss the ocean, the humidity, the endless spring/summer-ness of Florida. One day I will definitely more to a more tropical environment. I'm not much of a mountain person - I love the views & minimal amount of hiking.. I really love driving them - but screw this insane mountain biking, skiing & rock climbing crap. Put me on a beach, baby, & let me bum around *all* day - *that* is relaxing!

Oh, for some great mountain pics from my last hike, there's a link at the bottom of my pic page for them. They turned out surprisingly well considering it was overcast & started raining before we got back to the car.

Ok, I'm done for the bg info for now... blog more later!

2003-08-19T20:54:00.000-07:00

This isn't going to be politically correct, grammatically correct, typo-free, etc. I'm tired...

I'm sorry to any denverites out there... well, not really.. but this is the backasswardest city I have ever been in. If you don't like people moving to your "city" that's fine - but expect it to become economically bankrupt. You may be a "native" - but did you really have a choice in the matter? If you can't handle being passed on the right, don't cruise 5 mph under the speed limit in the left lane. That's just a jackass thing to do.

Another jackass denverite thing to do - wear flip-flops, tank tops & cut off shorts to a nice restaurant. Ok, I'm not that materialistic, so hear me out. Why should the other patrons be subjected to your man toes & armpit hair while eating just because *you're* more comfortable that way. Fuckin buy a frozen dinner & pop it in the microwave our cruise through a McD's drive thru man, that's just rude & nasty. And ladies - have some self-respect - the $5 tank top you bought 3 years ago that is just a little tight, no one wants to see that shit either. Damn, they have Ross's here for you tightwads - spend $10 on appropriate attire to wear out. I see your what you work out in.. $200 outfits.. that you sweat in.. that no one is looking at you in, so why be so slobbish when you hit the town?

And guys.. how come you're all so short out here? I wouldn't mind so much - I've dated short dudes.. but then the creepy staring at the ladies when they're trying to get their groove on. Granted their clothes are all funky, so it's hard not to stare sometimes.. but seriously. A guy that looks like he's going to drag you out back & devour you then tie you up in his basement later... well.. that's just not what the ladies are lookin for.

*shew* sorry for the rant.. but I've been here almost a year now & just had to vent. Most people freak out when you try to ask questions as to why people are they way they are here. Telling me I'm too uptight.. whatever... if I tried to sideswipe a car because I didn't look before changing lanes, and then the guy honks at me to let me know I am about to hit him - do I rage & flip him off & honk at him all the way down the road? No, that's just stuff jackass denverites do. Talk about some pent up aggression.. whew.. no wonder you're all alchoholics out here.

k - done now... happier blogs next time....