Monthly Archives: March 2008

Blocking E-Mail Spam

Posted on March 15, 2008 | Leave a comment

I’m a huge fan of SpamArrest, a mail program that uses challenge/response CAPTCHAs to only allow mail from humans, instead of from spammers. It works great but the price has gone up from $60 for two years to $90, so I’m checking for other options. It’s only an additional $30 but if the price jump is $30 (or worse, 50%) every 2 years, it’s gonna get kinda pricey in the next few renewal cycles. The price jump is kind of large after a few years especially since I know many of their costs should have gone down (disk space, servers and bandwidth); the software is already written and has had minimal user changes over the last two years.

Honestly, I’m sure it saves me more way than $45 a year worth of time. But can something save me more time, I know in the past MailBlocks saved me more time. So I’m looking for suggestions for some other Challenge/Responce mail system.

There is one thing I really dislike about SpamArrest, while I can use any mail client to read my mail, to check and approve spam I have to go to their web site and that takes a lot of time (and this is a feature I miss from the now deceased MailBlocks). The reason I have to check it is for mailings from new companies that I deal with and for people who don’t pay attention to the e-mail that gets mail back to them immediately to ask them to confirm they are human (I even have info about me and a picture of me in the e-mail so they know it’s really me).

In the meantime, I’m using my free gMail account. I want to see how well that works, they give me all sorts of space for free and it’s pretty fast and it works well on cellphones (their client, their web interface and should work with phone clients). They’ve got a fancy web interface and plain web interface so it works pretty well everywhere. Although, with my client I can’t see the spam folder there either. Google lets you create additional addresses for the same account and have decent filters. Plus, they will let you use your own domain if you’d like to; so if it really works out, I’ll attach my GaryLaPointe.com domain to it and use it for my mail (as long as that supports IMAP). And if it works as well for me, it’s free! There’s some weird mapping between GMail and the Mac Mail.app (I think by default you get duplicates of the mailboxes) but there’s some work arounds, or maybe the new Mail.app in Panther fixes it…

Also, I figure after trying it for a few months, SpamArrest might send me a promo to lure me back. If that’s the case I’ll know I’ve done due diligence to try another option and I’ll have possibly saved a few bucks in the mean time. Continue reading →

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A Fine Frenzy – Detroit at The Shelter – March 2008

Posted on March 15, 2008 | 1 comment

Alison Sudol was excellent last night. A very small venue at The Shelter, the cancert was sold out but I’d guess there were only about 300 people there, lots of room. No one was back farther than about the equivalent of about 10 rows (no seats, general admission standing only with just a few tables). I’ve seen A Fine Frenzy before and it was a smaller venue so it was great having the small crowd and as a bonus it was a non-smoking show. A Fine Frenzy Alison Sudol March 2008 Detroit

She’s has such a lovely voice and writes her own songs. She’s got this voice that’s kind of a Sarah McLachlan / Tori Amos voice and she’s just incredible. She so beautiful and has this sunning red head, and while it might not be naturally that red, she’s got that anemic porcelain look that so many red heads do, I’m assuming she’s actually a redhead. My camera in my phone takes pretty crappy pictures, but I tried to take a few.

She’s so into when she plays, and every so often she looks at the audience, I feel likes she’s forgotten us and that her manager told her she has to make eye contact every so often and that’s why she looks up. I always think of ‘gracious’ when thinking about her personality, that’s just how I feel when she’s talking to us and that’s how I feel when she talks to you personally. I did get to get to say ‘hi” and get her autograph on a promo poster after the concert. She’s just so nice, even with just a 30-second conversation… Continue reading →

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Delivery is Weird

Posted on March 15, 2008 | Leave a comment

So I’m not just talking about regular mail, I’m talking shipping and receiving from companies and just getting deliveries. The way things arrive and the order in which they arrive is just strange sometimes.

My most recent computer order is one example, I ordered a computer (with a larger hard drive so it had to be “built”), a spare battery and spare charger. The computer has already been assembled and shipped, the battery didn’t ship until a day later than the computer (I assumed it would have shipped the day before the computer) and the charger hasn’t shipped yet. Maybe, this is all a plan from Apple, they know how fast everything will get here so why have someone rush to ship the battery when they had something else to do, the computer system could be smart enough to do that. It just seems strange. Although, I find it strange it’s cheaper to do the final assembly in China and ship them here one at a time via FedEx.

I’ve been on vacation and mailed postcards on the same day (from the same mailbox) to people in the same city and they arrive weeks later. Where was the other one? Stuck in someone else’s magazine? Did it travel a different route?

I’m currently subscribing to the TicoTimes, it’s a weekly English paper that covers Costa Rica. It’s published on Friday and sometimes I get it the following Wednesday (5 days later). I’m not sure when they actually mail it, I’m sure on Thursday or Friday. But sometimes I get it days later, I think the record is 12 days (I think I got it 4 days later, on Tuesday once). Why such the time difference? It looks like they ship it from Costa Rica, I wonder if it makes more sense to ship all the US customers in one package (shipped faster) and have them re-mailed from the US. I know they ship to a few US newstands to sell them so the re-shipping wouldn’t be too hard.

And I find it really strange when I order something from Amazon (in stock) and in the same order I get a used book from one of their used-partners and I get the used book days before the new one…

Most of the time when I order from places like CDW, I get the item the next day even when I don’t pay for fast shipping (I almost always choose the cheapest).

And my absolute favorite is when I pay big buck$ for overnight shipping and I don’t get it for 3 or 4 days. Their reasoning, we didn’t get it shipped the first day, but when we did ship it, it went out overnight. I love that Amazon clearly marks when you’ll get it with one-day shipping if you order it in the next “3 hours and 5 minutes” or something like that. When my oven broke a few months ago the GE site, clearly stated that when I ordered it by a certain time it would ship that day, I could of paid less ($10-$15) from a few other sites, but I couldn’t be certain when it would actually ship; so with that little piece of knowledge, GE got my money instead and they got a premium…

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Gas at an all time high…

Posted on March 12, 2008 | 2 comments

I can’t believe these prices. I only paid $3.23 yesterday but I paid $3.25 on Friday. I think that’s the highest I’ve ever paid. And “they” say it’s going to keep going up…

I’m so glad I don’t drive far. Generally, less than a tank gets me through the week.

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Jobs I’ve Had

Posted on March 12, 2008 | 2 comments

I’ve had a lot of jobs in my life, even since I was little. Not that Mom didn’t buy me stuff, but I always had some hobby that needed ca$h so I often had jobs. Beside maybe shoveling show or leaves and stuff like that I’ve started pretty early. I was thinking about this since I saw Miss. Britt do a section like this for her 100 things list so I started thinking about it.

  • I delivered the shopping news once a week (maybe every other week), a local ad newspaper, it didn’t pay much but it got me some money. I know I was pretty young but I really don’t know.
  • The little bookstore down the street gave me stuff to do here and there. The wonderful lady who ran it gave me cash or credit for books.
  • I had some paper routes for the regular newspaper too, The Detroit Free Press, but I hated the mornings. I think I gave it up for a while and then got it back a few years later (the money was pretty good). I quit the second time because the Lions club (or some other organization) did a fundraiser by selling subscriptions and they tripled my route size. I couldn’t get it done in the morning and the manager wouldn’t shrink my route (the assumption was after the 20 week promo ran out, many would drop, but I didn’t have three hours every day before school for the larger route).
  • I baby sat for my younger cousins pretty regularly in the ninth grade for a while.
  • I worked at the local bowling alley, Hartfield Lanes, in the evenings just picking up bottles and stuff as the leagues drank their way through their frames.
  • Eventually, I started working at the snack bar. This was a much better job and George pretty much let us run the place so it was a great job.

    These were most of my jobs up to the time that I started getting computer jobs (not that there weren’t some non-computer jobs later on too). So I think I’ll wrap this up for now and make that a second (or third) part, this gets me through age 15…

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    A Fine Frenzy is in Detroit this weekend

    Posted on March 10, 2008 | Leave a comment

    One Cell in the Sea A Fine FrenzyA Fine Frenzy is playing in Detroit at the Shelter this weekend. It’s a really small venue so it should be a great show! I saw A Fine Frenzy in the fall (upstairs at St. Andrews)and it was an incredible show (they/she opened for Brandi Carlile). Ferras is opening for them, but I have no idea who that is, maybe someone American Idol-ish?

    If anyone is going please leave me a comment or send an e-mail and we can say “hi” while were there…. My mission for the evening is Happy Hour for dinner in Dearborn, a fund raiser auction for school in Redford (this is while we’re missing Ferras) and then get over to the theatre to see Alison sing and sign autgraphs…

    Speaking of the auction, once again as an auction prize you can buy bags of coffee, straight from costa rica with some chocolate covered coffee beans. Brought to you from central Amaerica by Moi! Also you can by a basket of Cat in the Hat stickers and books which includes a visit to your house from the Cat in the Hat himself!

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    Spring Forward – I hate changing the clocks

    Posted on March 9, 2008 | Leave a comment

    DST around the world (Picture from wikipedia)As usual, it’s that time of year when someone else thinks it’s better to (de)regulate my internal clock. It’s funny all the news stories this year that are commenting on the health issues, sleepy drivers and how much energy this is really wasting energy.

    For those of you in other places in the world that don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s Daylight Savings Time (DST).

    At least all my electronics seemed to adapt properly…

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    Getting a New MacBook / MacBook Pro Laptop

    Posted on March 8, 2008 | 2 comments

    So after the MacBook Air not being what I had hoped for, I had been hoping for a 13.3 inch MacBook Pro and while the Air is small, I wanted something not so stripped down. Since then, I’d been trying to decide between a 13.3 MacBook and a 15 inch MacBook Pro (size vs. power, I’m used to the tiny 12 inch PowerBook), I thought I’d let fate decide for me and get the next one that they upgraded. Unfortunately, last week they did an upgrade on them both on the same, letting fate avoid making the choice for me.

    This week I was at a conference and was at the Apple Booth and was playing with the 17 inch MacBook Pro and asked if they had a 15 inch to look at and then I realized I was using the 15 inch model. It just seemed so large and bulky to me. I think I’m going to have to go with the 13.3 MacBook, I think it’s only about a half pound less in weight, but it’s a bit smaller. I’m not even sure how I’d fit the 15 inch on the back of an airplane or train seat tray.

    Of course, the day after I order it, they’ll release a 13.3 inch MacBook Pro…

    Later: I went with the 2.4 GHz White MacBook (I couldn’t possibly justify the Black one for $110 more, that doesn’t even make sense!), with the 250 GB HD and lots o’ RAM. The biggest downside to not getting the Pro is that the glossy screen was the only option (and the non-backlit keyboard).

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