Since I had a bit of warning that the server was going down last week, I sent out an email to friends saying that they should use my Hotmail dropbox until my @domesticat addresses were usable again.
]]>Since I had a bit of warning that the server was going down last week, I sent out an email to friends saying that they should use my Hotmail dropbox until my @domesticat addresses were usable again.
All well and good, except that this weekend I was the victim of a computer glitch. Not on my computers, mind you, but on the part of some random spammer. As best I can tell, they were happily spewing their spam emails when their machine hiccuped. On my email address, of course. (Mr. Murphy—about that law—we need to talk. I have some issues.)The end result: hundreds upon hundreds of copies of the same spam email, flooding my hotmail account and rendering it virtually unusable. More amusing, though, were the emails exchanged back and forth between two Hotmail techs and I. When you read these emails, ask yourself this: what problems are these techs trying to solve, and what, exactly, do they have in common with the actual problem I'm having?
(My snide play-by-play commentary may be found by mousing over text with dotted underlines.)
Email #1 to the techs:
------------------------
From: domesticat @ hotmail.comResponse #1, from a tech named 'Maria':
To: abuse @ css.one.microsoft.com
Sent: Sat Jun 22 04:38:07 UTC+0900 2002
Subject: Fwd: ~^~^~^~^~^ Order Viagra and Phentermine Online NOW ~^~^~^~^~^
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed
X-Stn-Info:
Normally I don't even bother asking you guys for help with spam-related issues, but this is rapidly getting out of hand.
I have received over six hundred (yes, six HUNDRED) copies of this message within the past 24 hours. I have no idea if I'm the only person getting this many copies, or if this is a bigger problem.
All messages are exactly the same.
They're getting dumped to my spam box, but still, this is ridiculous. Is there any way that these messages can be blocked? I'm getting pretty sick of having to log in every few hours to clear my account of these messages.
Sample message follows. [not included, sorry guys!]
Amy
(domesticat [at] hotmail [dot] com)
Hello Amy,After I quit laughing and shaking my head, I sent the following reply. Email #2 to the techs:
Thank you for writing to MSN Hotmail. This is Maria and I am writing in response to your complaint about the multiple mails you have received. I am very sorry for the inconvenience it has caused you.
I understand how important it is to you to have this issue resolved at once. I have cleared all copies of the e-mail in question and your account should now be functioning properly. If you continue to encounter a problem with your account, please reply to this e-mail message with a detailed description. Let us know exactly what you do, step-by-step, and where the process fails Please include the exact wording of any error messages you encounter.
To protect yourself from unwanted mail, turn on the Junk Mail Filter to Exclusive. An "Exclusive" filter means that messages reach your Inbox only if they are from an address in your Address Book. This is the best protection against Junk Mail. By setting your Junk Mail Filter to "Exclusive", you accept only e-mail from your friends. This is e-mail equivalent of "don’t talk to strangers".
NOTE: If you receive reminders through Hotmail, and you have set your filter to "Exclusive", you will need to add yourself to your own Address Book. Otherwise, all your reminders will be sent directly to your Junk Mail folder.
Hotmail helps you to maintain your Address Book by offering to add e-mail addresses to your Address Book when you send out e-mail.
Note: If you want to accept mail from an address but don’t want that address in your Address Book, you can add an address to your "Safe List" (You may want to use this for newsletters, for example).
Remember to check your Junk Mail folder at regular intervals to ensure that the filter is catching only the messages you want to delete. For example, mailing list mail and mail forwarded from another e-mail address may be filtered to the Junk Mail folder. To ensure that these e-mail messages go to your Inbox, create Hotmail filters or add the senders of these messages to your Safe List.
>>> To add an address to your Safe List
1. Click "Options" to the right of the "Address Book" tab. The "Options" page appears.
2. Under "Mail Handling", click "Safe List". The "Safe List" page appears.
3. Into the box at the left of the page, type the address.
4. Click the "Add >>" button to add the address.
5. Click "OK" to save your settings or "Cancel" to return to the "Options" page.
You can also report these violators to their email domain. For instance, if the spammer is from Hotmail, you can send a mail to abuse [at] hotmail [dot] com.
Remember that MSN Hotmail also has comprehensive online help available--just click "Help" in the upper right corner. I hope I have provided you the assistance that you need. If you still have questions or continued problems, please feel free to email me.
Sincerely,
Maria O.
MSN Hotmail Customer Support
Your satisfaction with my Customer Service is very important to me. If you consider your issue resolved, please click on the link below to let me know how I am doing. With your comments, please include my name and ticket number (found in this mail's subject line) to help me keep track of my performance.
From: domesticat @ hotmail.comResponse #2, from a tech named 'Lotis':
To: "MSN Hotmail Support"
Sent: Sat Jun 22 18:43:22 PDT 2002
Subject: Re: CST74399643ID - RE:Fwd: ~^~^~^~^~^ Order Viagra and Phentermine Online NOW ~^~^~^~^~^
Hello. While I appreciate the email, I'm not entirely certain you understood the nature of the problem.
It's not that I am unaware of how to clear out the emails from my Junk Mail folder; it's that I've received over five HUNDRED copies of this message today alone (and over three hundred yesterday) and, quite frankly, this is a) getting old and b) is undoubtedly causing server overhead. The messages are continuing to roll in—I have close to 150 copies sitting in my junk mail box right now, and those have all come in during the time I took to see a *movie* this evening. Can't wait to see how many I've got by the time I get up tomorrow morning…
You're welcome to take a look at my Junk Mail box—I'm not going to bother cleaning it out AGAIN tonight—just so you can see how many copies of this one message I'm getting. Spam of this magnitude/frequency is bordering on something that should be dealt with at the server level, not at the user level. This is, quite frankly, ridiculous.
Amy
(domesticat [at] hotmail [dot] com)
Hello Amy,
Thank you for writing us back.
This is Lotis and I am writing in response to your spam compalint.
In line with our commitment to protect the privacy of our members, MSN Hotmail may not be able to regulate the number as well as the kind of message you receive in your account. However, we do provide the feature of block/filter options, which gives our members more control on the type of messages they receive and Junk Mail Filter which when activated will filter messages that are not directly addressed to you.
There are many ways wherein spammers get email addresses to which they send their mails. Chat rooms, bulletin boards or newsgroups, unsecured public e-mail directory listings, or any site that requests your e-mail address are just some of their sources.
There are times when they guess the email addresses of others. This is the reason why we greatly discourage our members to respond with "REMOVE" as subject to any spam message for it only confirms that your e-mail address is valid and existing.
However, if the unsolicited message originated from Hotmail and should you wish the account to be dealt with according to our Terms of Service, we suggest that you forward us a copy of the questionable message with full message headers. We will investigate the issue at hand as soon as we receive this information.
We would like to apologize for the inconvenience encountered in using our services. A number of issues have been already raised against the objectionable materials circulating in our system and we assure you that we are doing everything we can to rectify the situation. Our fight against spammers has been an unending battle on our end, but we will always continue to find ways to address this issue and keep up with our commitment in providing our members with a healthy email environment. We do ask for your understanding with regards to this matter.
Hope this will suffice.
Sincerely,
Lotis D.
MSN Hotmail Customer Support
Meanwhile, the messages just kept rolling in. I don't know how many I got, in the end, but it was well over a thousand. I'd be curious to know which versions of Windows are running 'Maria' and 'Lotis'…
In the meantime, I guess I should go get my credit card. I have a lot of Viagra and Phentermine to order. It's cheaper than what it would cost to buy the sheer volume of clue these guys seem to need. Ouch.
]]>I followed behind him a moment or two later, flashlight clenched firmly in hand, and then I started howling with laughter. "Jeff! Come see! Tenzing's scoping out the computer room, and you should see the bottle-brush tail he's got!"It took Jeff a few moments to make his way to the computer room, where I shone the flashlight on Tenzing's still-puffy tail. He was crouched down, still wary, still suspicious, but his curiosity had once again gotten the better of him.
]]>I followed behind him a moment or two later, flashlight clenched firmly in hand, and then I started howling with laughter. "Jeff! Come see! Tenzing's scoping out the computer room, and you should see the bottle-brush tail he's got!"It took Jeff a few moments to make his way to the computer room, where I shone the flashlight on Tenzing's still-puffy tail. He was crouched down, still wary, still suspicious, but his curiosity had once again gotten the better of him.
Gently, softly, I smoothed the ruffled fur on his back, and he began to relax. "It's okay, sweetie. It's just a power outage. It's usually a lot noisier in here, isn't it?" Jeff went back to the living room to get batteries for our little TV/radio, and Tenzing slowly crept closer to Jeff's computer, sniffing balefully all the while.
The power had gone out with a pow! a few minutes earlier. I had been chatting with Gareth, trying to coax a recalcitrant search script into proper behavior. Jeff was readying tonight's dinner—a pizza—for the oven. As is the nature of all accidents and unexpected things, I got caught in mid-song and mid-file.
It was dark. Not the usual twilight dark that comes in suburban neighborhoods neatly laced with streetlights: the "can't see your hand in front of your face" dark that means you're going to step on the nearest cat the moment you leave your chair, or stumble on the small step down into the living room.
(Both of which, I might add, that I did.)
Jeff's computer generates a lot of heat, and a lot of noise (from the fans used to disperse the heat). The computer room is always the warmest room in the house, and has the highest level of ambient noise. Tenzing had crept in because he was disturbed by the silence.
I went to the master bedroom and called Sean. "Y'all got power?"
"Nope. You know what that means—shopping spree at Wal-Mart!" We laughed, and hung up.
As I placed the phone back in the cradle, I cocked my head and said to Jeff, "Are those sirens?" He said yes, and went to the front door.
I kept the cats away while Jeff stood outside and listened. "That's a … fire truck!" he said, disbelievingly. He stood outside for a few moments longer, watching the lights. "Looks like they're driving around the subdivision, looking for something—and they've got three cars following behind them!" We shook our heads at the oddity and came back inside to light candles and listen to the radio.
I guessed a substation had blown or gone offline, because this power outage was sudden enough and widespread enough to remind me of the last time a similar event had happened. Sure enough, a few minutes later, a local DJ announced that something had gone a bit wrong with one of the local substations, and that power would be restored "soon."
It came back on eventually. Jeff made dinner, and I still couldn't get the script to work. I turned to him, chuckling, and said, "We'd make lousy pioneers, wouldn't we?"
]]>You know the type: the ones that scream incessantly to get a toy, refuse to share it once they've got the toy, and then complain and break things when the toy is taken away.All of my programs, toddlers they are, now have enough memory to go around, and they all seem to be playing well together as a result.
Work on the "nautical" skin progresses at my usual snail's pace. It is the most complicated skin I've devised for cat.net, and the complications show in the length of time it has taken to bring this design to maturity. The design and layout are done, and the dropdown menus work correctly in IE 5.5, but not in Mozilla.
I have spent a good bit of my online time lately researching dhtml/javascript menus, and the one I'm using now is the best fit for my needs that I've found so far. However, it won't be much of a fit if it only works in IE. So, tomorrow, back to either the testing board or the drawing board; I don't know which.
I will be happy to find one that works in both browsers. Once I get it modified to suit my needs, then I can incorporate mouseover menus in future skins without having to go through with this pain every single time. (Which, believe me, will be nice.)
Other news on skins: I am working on another, whose theme is 'beauty and grace.' I'm having to license a picture to do this one, in addition to needing the dhtml menu code, so I have no ETA on when this one will be posted.
Tomorrow may well be blueberry jam day. Look for me to return soon with blue-stained fingers and a thoroughly messy kitchen. For now, it's time to get off the computer and do something useful for a change.
]]>(The number, you ask? Currently, four. Mine, Jeff's, the server, and the older laptop I use for writing.)We are in the computer room, as we are wont to be in the evenings. Edmund stares, delicately sleepy and languorous, from his perch on my computer desk. Out of the corner of my right eye, I can see the fireworks that our neighbor's children are shooting off. They are, by far, some of the best fireworks I've seen in quite some time.
Jeff's choice of music tonight is a greatest hits CD by a hair rock band named Europe. The CD arrived in yesterday's mail, and due to my habit of not picking up the mail every day, we just got it today.
It is so strange to hear music by this band after all these years. It's not my favorite music, but it's ingrained in my past.
Her name was Kerri Bolton—then; I don't know what it is now. In high school, she was my best friend; Kerri, who was unafraid of having or voicing unpopular opinions; of the red hair with no bangs; of a creepy older brother; of a mother and stepfather who fought constantly and who had a houseful of animals. Kerri, who absolutely adored this band Europe.
While she was in high school, she had taken, unofficially, the surname of her stepfather, Bolton. I suspect it made things easier in the suspicious and somewhat patriarchal South; after all, he and her mother had been married for most of Kerri's life. It saved questions.
When her mother and her stepfather divorced after she finished high school, she moved away to go to college (but did not finish, if memory serves me right). There, I think she began using her legal surname, which was Boxx.
I think. I could be wrong. The music holds more memory than the names do.
I hear it and am reminded of time during my senior year of high school in which I'd call my mother on a Friday night and say, "It's late, and I'm sleepy; can I just stay at Kerri's tonight?" She never minded, I don't think.
Perhaps she thought we did things like gossip of boys and people. Of people, yes, but not boys. Not really; I remember us always having other things to talk about that were far more interesting. We listened to music—a lot of music, hers and mine. We rode the four-wheeler out in the old bauxite pits ("Mars," I always called it). We stayed up late, reading, and laughed at each other when one of us had to turn over and ended up making the waterbed slosh.
I haven't talked with Kerri in years. Literally—at least five years. I don't know where she is, nor do I know even what her name is now.
I wonder if she still listens to Europe. I wonder if she'd laugh at my sentimentality for associating this music with her, for thinking of her as my husband plays this CD for the first time.
Oh, probably.
]]>I've been having problems with my computer lately.
It's not unlike going to a psychotherapist; it's a serious measure and isn't to be taken lightly. One wouldn't go to a computer psychotherapist and say, "Once a week or so, things just aren't right—I'll open a program and it'll just bomb on me," then dab at your eyes with a pocket hankie.
Dr. Wipe-And-Reinstall generally hears complaints like this: "My computer freezes at least once a day for reasons unknown. It hates these particular programs. When I have Outlook open, I can't always open Mozilla. I have to reboot at least once a day—if the freeze doesn't get me first—because one of my programs has sprung a memory leak."
]]>I've been having problems with my computer lately.
It's not unlike going to a psychotherapist; it's a serious measure and isn't to be taken lightly. One wouldn't go to a computer psychotherapist and say, "Once a week or so, things just aren't right—I'll open a program and it'll just bomb on me," then dab at your eyes with a pocket hankie.
Dr. Wipe-And-Reinstall generally hears complaints like this: "My computer freezes at least once a day for reasons unknown. It hates these particular programs. When I have Outlook open, I can't always open Mozilla. I have to reboot at least once a day—if the freeze doesn't get me first—because one of my programs has sprung a memory leak."
Thus I spent a careful set of hours on Sunday copying files over to Jeff's hard drive. Preferences. Cookies. Fonts. The 49 megs of archived designs, text files, and errata that make up my domesticat folder; the 15 megs of similar eccentricities that make up my geek-chick folder.
CDs to reinstall programs? Check. Registration keys to allow me to install those programs? Check.
With trepidation, I handed over my baby to Jeff and toddled off with a book. Several hours (and problems) later, everything was gone, and windows 98 was replaced with windows 2000.
The computer was a bit slower (but then again, most of the components are three years old) but everything seems to be running better now. Photoshop, especially, after Jeff ran the 6.0.1 patch that solved the speed problems I was having.
All seems calmer. Here's hoping I can get some design work done now that the silly machine doesn't feel compelled to restart itself at random times.
Silly machines. We geeks depend on them so.
]]>I've got a 3G partition waiting for linux. I'm thinking I'm gonna give potato a whirl and see how it goes. All in all, it was a good day to do this. Lots of heavy rain outside. Jeff and I both agreed that we just wanted to stay home today. I'm just surprised at how easy it's been. The computer seems happier.
]]>I've got a 3G partition waiting for linux. I'm thinking I'm gonna give potato a whirl and see how it goes. All in all, it was a good day to do this. Lots of heavy rain outside. Jeff and I both agreed that we just wanted to stay home today. I'm just surprised at how easy it's been. The computer seems happier.
]]>