Gravity Lamp

Ooooo you know this is near the top of the Xmas list :)
Shame I'll have to redecorate



Found at http://funfurde.blogspot.com/2004/09/gravity.html, via Engadget

False Domain renewal notice

So 10 days after I renewed BIAS.COM for another 8 years I received a simple (plain) invoice similar to this one from;
Domain Registry Services
Office 6, 154 Church End
Cambridge, CB1 3LD
UK.
0870 950 0369

I found it strange that they didn't accept CC's or direct transfer, relying on just cheques as a form of payment.
Then it dawned on me, Yes, I was a target by this lowlife organisation who try to extort money by getting you to pay renewal fees to them rather than your proper ISP

being slightly more clued up, [a] I checked with whois [b] rang the ISP who holds my domain registration and [c] then looked into ways of signing this organisation up for way too much spam and grief by talking about them here. Believe me when I find it, theirs will be the ONLY real email address on this site and it will occur a lot.



here is what some others talked about;
Domain Registration scam
Who lists some neat suggestions to help;
"Here's what you can do to help shut down these and similar rogue traders:

Forward the original letter to:
Alison Adams
Nominet UK
Sandford Gate
Sandy Lane West
Oxford
OX4 5LB

Included a letter-headed statement containing the following:

1. What you thought the document meant and if you thought it was real
2. If you thought the sender was an official body
3. Whether Nominet can confirm your details to the Trading Standards or the Office of Fair Trading
4. A closing statement — I believe the above statement to be true.

Oh ... and it may be an idea to seal and pop the empty supplied addressed (but not stamped) envelope in the post. Guess who pays ..."

The register also caught up with this "artist"
The Register on Domain Registry Services
Nominet:Nominet UK warns of new Internet invoicing scam

Call for help #2

Following on my request for help re; backups. I am curious if anybody knows how to track configuration files used by each and every application. You can guess why I am asking - I am having to go through remembering passwords, usernames to forums that I know I belong to.

Grrr

Backups... who needs 'em?

It never rains when you take an umbrella. While it might feel like it is true we all know that is a crock. So we all back up the important documents & Pictures don't we? Hard Disks don't fail do they?

Well, I have spent the last 5 days recovering a 160GB disk. I hadn't changed anything, no new components or software. just stopped turning round quietly.

On it, were all my photos (from the wedding you can see I just got back from) most of which was unbacked up. In fact my last backup was July AND it worked! JULY! Wow thats ages ago. Well at least I have a backup!
It is normally something I do quarterly. And right about now I am considering that is wrong.

So I have got most of it back, enough that I could bored O&M with photos of their wedding if I tried. But it doesn't answer the question of HOW DO YOU BACK UP LARGE AMOUNTS of data.
What is more annoying is just after the wedding O and I came up with a plan for backing up data across our machines, taking advantage of the unlimited data of the internet connections we have and just doing disk to disk back ups where the disks were separated by a very large distance. Boy I wish their honeymoon was shorter.

So please do tell me. Please email me any suggestions you have for backing up a large amount of data. (For information sakes, 50Gb most of which doesn't change - excluding applications)

In fact as I put on my raincoat and grab my umbrella before heading out in to the sunny afternoon I really do think I should start a backup before I go

Kill Bill

Vol 1 - ASCII version

Where would we be without people spending all their free time doing some really strange things in the name of ... ummm ... entertainment? nature? free will??

Anyhow ... enjoy the abridged ascii version of Tarantino's Kill Bill Vol 1