This is a simple, short test blog post to see how MarsEdit works with my WordPress blog.

Since it has no real purpose, I’m going to include a photo of my boys that was taken last fall that I really like. It’s a camera phone shot, so the quality is low, but I like their expressions quite a bit.

This eBay auction is deliciously devious - what a perfect prank!

You are bidding on a rare chance to traumatize a treasured friend or relative with baffling, mind-numbing, mystery correspondence from abroad.

Here is the arrangement:

I will be spending the Christmas holiday in Poland in a tiny village that has one church with no bell because angry Germans stole it. Aside from vodka, there is not a lot for me to do.

During the course of my holiday I will send three postcards to one person of your choosing.

These postcards will be rant-ravingly insane, yet they will be peppered with unmistakable personal details about the addressee. Details you will provide me.

The postcards will not be coherently signed, leaving your mark confused, guessing wildly, crying out in anguish.

“How do I know this person? And how does he know I had a ferret named Goliath?”

Click the link to check out the rest of the description, and see a photo of the postcards. Priceless!

[Update] Also check out this Craigslist post, titled To the Drunk Hottie who fell off my motorcycle.

I hate the thought of even contemplating another hosting provider move, but this is ridiculous. DreamHost is my current web host, and I use Gmail for all of my email handling needs. I have an email address (my name at my domain), which I have configured to forward to my gmail account, which is configured to send mail as if it is coming from my actual email address.

Fine, right?

Wrong.

For about a week, my email has been trickling in slowly, up to 12 hours behind when it was actually sent. DreamHost does have a status update referencing this issue (currently with 227 comments on it), but it’s very vague and doesn’t actually describe the true cause for the problem.

I personally submitted a support request about this problem before I was aware of the status update post, and received the following slightly more informative response:

 Hi Jason,

I am terribly sorry that you are running into problems here. This is
actually part of a bigger issue - which was hinted at last week with this
status blog post (and has since been updated):

http://www.dreamhoststatus.com/2007/11/17/gmail-forwarding-slowness/

Basically, Gmail is currently greylisting all mail being forwarded to
them by our mail servers. Because of the technology behind greylisting,
this means mails are sometimes delayed for hours before they can get
thru. We are trying to work with Google right now to clear this up - and
hopefully we’ll be able to do so shortly - but in the interim mail
forwarded to Gmail accounts will be delayed. Please accept my most humble
apologies for this mess.

In the interim, the best thing you can do is turn on a standard mailbox
and keeping forwarding intact. That way any mail sent after the mailbox
was turned on should arrive right away and the messages will eventually
show up in Gmail too. Please keep in mind that you won’t find any
messages that were in the process of being forwarded to you as they are
already in the queue attempting to be sent to your Gmail inbox - but you
will see anything sent afterwards show up in that newly formed inbox on
our servers here.

Should you manage to have any other questions, please feel free to let me
know and I’ll make sure that you get the answers which you seek.

Thanks!
Jason

So here we learn that somehow DreamHost has been greylisted by Google. This means that Google has found it necessary to apply a certain level of blocking to the emails that are coming to Google’s mail servers from Dreamhost servers. There are all sorts of reasons this could be the case, but a common one is simply that the volume of email is too high.

This is a real possibility, since there appears to be only fairly weak spam filtering options available, and no spam filtering whatsoever is applied to accounts that are forwarded to other domains.

I did implement the suggestion of using DreamHost’s web mail service for the time being until proper forwarding service was restored. What a mistake. I can’t believe how much spam Gmail is filtering out for me that is just flooding the crappy Squirrel Mail interface that Dreamhost provides. Using it is painful, slow, and feels like a time warp back to 1997.

A recent comment in the Dreamhost Status blog post for this issue copy and pasted the text of their support issue, which contains more information on the subject:

Hello,

Sorry about the mail delays you are experiencing. We are unfortunately
dealing with temporary greylisting from both gmail and verizon. Gmail
being the major cause of the problems with delayed email. These delays
are affecting gmail and verizon forwards, as well as sending messages to
non-customers with gmail or verizon addresses. We are also seeing delays
of all mail sending from our hosting machines. A lot of you have noticed
php mail with regards to the hosting machine delays. Unfortunately mail
from our host machines is also causing non-gmail/verizon messages to be
delayed. We are currently creating a separate relay server to handle the
mail that is getting backed up, this however will only cause non-gmail
accounts to go through without any delays. This relay will help with php
mail and other hosting messages that are going out, and hopefully clear
up delays for non-gmail destined addresses.

This is a serious issue and we are doing our best to contact google for
resolution. We do have some google employees who are customers who are
trying to help us resolve this issue. We have experienced this problem in
the past with aol which caused us to disallow all aol.com forward
addresses, hopefully we can avoid this drastic measure with gmail
forwards. This is a volume block unfortunately, so any forward email
address is contributing to the gmail greylisting. If you are using a
gmail forward we would suggest that you remove it and set your address to
go to a normal mailbox until this is resolved. Sorry about the problems
this has caused you. If we could directly fix this issue it would never
have gone on this long or be ongoing. We do also hope that you can use
your accounts to contact google in order to let them know that they are
affecting their clients with this greylisting. Any contact to google,
their gmail team specifically, will greatly help and will be greatly
appreciated.

Note: The verizon block is a temporary block and should be lifted soon,
it is not the same level of greylisting we are receiving from Gmail.
Please take note that if you are forwarding mail to Gmail and you
complain about it as spam, Gmail will flag our servers as the source,
actions like these lead to our servers getting blocked. It is also
suggested that if you want google to handle your mail you can use google
apps, http://www.google.com/a/ , then use the MX editor to have your mail
handled by Gmail directly without using our servers at all.

Thanks!
DreamHost

So now they are basically stating that there is no resolution in sight, it is unclear if it ever will be resolved, in a previous instance with another domain (aol.com) they simply had to block forwarding to that domain (in other words, they gave up), and at the end of the response they’re suggesting simply setting up a Google Apps account and having Google handle your email entirely, keeping DreamHost out of it.

Does this sound like a company that knows what they are doing with their customer’s data?

But here’s my real problem with all of this. These support cases point out that the problem is far more severe than they are letting on in the public DreamHost Status blog. That’s completely disingenuous, and misleading. The issue is set to Medium priority, when in fact they are practically admitting that there may never be a resolution. That sounds more serious that Medium to me.

Switching web hosts is a huge pain in the rear, and I already recently had to do so to switch to DreamHost. I guess you get what you pay for, and at this point MediaTemple is starting to look mighty good. I especially like how well thought-out MediaTemple’s management tools are.

Sorry Dreamhost. Your “too cool for school” image is fun when you’re delivering your service adequately, but when things fall over it’s too easy to think that you simply don’t take your customer’s data, and money, seriously.

This Line Rider video is off the charts insane. It’s an illustrated video, meaning someone took a bare-bones but impressive line rider course and put illustrations all over it to make it even cooler.

I have to admit that when I first heard about Flock, I thought that the hype was totally out of proportion with what it deserved to be. A Mozilla-based browser with a bunch of baked-in extensions seemed like a dumbed-down version of what someone could easily cobble together with Firefox and some carefully chosen add-ins. Of course, the downside of doing it yourself is that you need to do the legwork of figuring out what to install, then maintain the install yourself - sort of a pain. The upside, though, is that you get exactly the functionality you’re looking for, and nothing extra.

I gave Flock a try back then (well over a year ago), and while I was pleasantly surprised that it was better than I expected, it certainly wasn’t compelling so I promptly forgot all about it.

Recently I’ve heard a lot of people online (particularly ones I trust) talking about how good the Flock 1.0 beta is. While I’ve been trying to avoid the “me too” attitude of having to try every new tool that gets some good comments, I have to admit my attitude about maintaining a browser with all of my preferred extensions is getting a bit cumbersome. If Flock can get it 75% right, it’s good enough for me.

Surprisingly, Flock seems to be getting it right. All of the baked-in functionality works extremely well, and is virtually seamless. While I haven’t yet tried installing some very important add-ins like Greasemonkey, I hear that Flock is compatible with many (but not all) Firefox extensions.

If you’re looking for a browser that integrates with your online life, services like Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, or del.icio.us, have a hard look at Flock. Like me, you might be surprised at what you see.

Oh, and did I mention it integrates with your blog? This post was written entirely in the built-in blog editor in Flock.

Tags: flock, browser, web, beta

Back in July, Robert Scoble wouldn’t stop talking about the wonder that is Facebook (search for the word Facebook on this page, for example). Then, less than a week ago, he posts a very honest and interesting look at the truth about web traffic - the truth being that there simply isn’t as much traffic out there as we’d all like to believe.

But wait a second, I seem to remember that back when Scoble was extolling the virtues of Facebook, he claimed that part of the reason blog traffic was down was the fact that people are spending their time on social networks like Facebook.

Now, every other post he writes on his blog or Twitter account seems to be for the purpose of bellyaching that he can’t add more than 5,000 “friends” to his Facebook account. This last one states that he agrees with the statement “Facebook sucks” because of this problem. Yeah, yeah, we get it.

Inasmuch as Robert Scoble is an influential web personality who is nothing if not thought provoking, I think the time has come for a large company to stand up for themselves, and not give in to the bitching and moaning of the edge cases. It seems like the Robert Scobles of the world can’t handle it when they can’t simply complain and get their way.

The truth is that Facebook is designed with a 5,000 friend limit for a reason. Nobody truly has more than 5,000 real-life friends, so why bother having to architect a system to handle more? Facebook has a vested interest in ensuring that people use their system in the way that they intended, and get a good experience while doing so. Scoble is abusing the system, then complaining bitterly that it’s not working out for him. In the long run it’s not going to hurt Facebook in the slightest, but it sure is making Scoble look like a spoiled brat.

I’ve been reading quite a bit about the latest beta version of Ecto, and decided that I had to try it out for myself. Typically I’m not big on external editors for blogs, however I have to say this one is growing on me, and I’ve only been using it for about four minutes.

I wish that it were possible to have my AOL overlords allow API access of some manner so that I could use one unified interface (something like Ecto) to write posts for all of the blogs that I could potentially write for.

If you’re a Mac user and you want to see what I’m talking about, check out this page.

Hat tip to David Chartier.

Well, I guess I’m not great with respect to commitments, at least to this blog. I’m posting out of guilt here, and I’m sure you can tell. But the truth is, I simply haven’t had any blogging time lately whatsoever. It’s frustrating; please bear with me.

Anyhow, to give this post some redeeming value, check out this photo essay of 7 amazing holes. Since I work for a company related to the mining industry, I found this list particularly interesting. And I get a kick out of the fact that a “glory hole” is really something quite impressive!

Well, I’m expanding my repertoire on my blogging gig, and will now be writing for the very awesome TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog) and very new but equally awesome DIY Life blogs. While I’ve already written a post for each one, they won’t likely be live on the sites until tomorrow sometime.

Yes, you may have noticed that Francesca is already writing for DIY Life. Luckily she doesn’t mind me treading on her turf, and it’s definitely her turf; she’s a writing machine, and I have written one whole post there this week. As a not very handy guy, I tend to find writing about technology easier, but I figure if I’m going to have to learn to do stuff around the house I might as well write about it. What’s that old adage about those that can, do… and those that can’t write teach? Something like that, anyway.

So in addition to re-launching her personal blog, Francesca recently got a job with Weblogs Inc. (owned by AOL) writing for a new property there called DIY Life. She’s already doing a fantastic job, and you can check out her posts (and only her posts) by visiting this link. My favourite so far that she has written is about what to do if you get regular dishsoap in your dishwasher, mainly because I was the one that caused that problem in our house! Congratulations on the new gig, Frankie!

So this is the last meta post for awhile. I’ve now completed moving this blog onto a new server - my own server, finally! (Thanks for the many years of free hosting Steve!) I also took the opportunity to upgrade to WordPress 2.2, and freshen up the look of the site.

Of course, that all implies that I’m actually going to write more. That’s the plan, anyway.

We’ve also recently re-launched Beer League Hockey as a blog - we being me and my friend Glen (time to get your own blog so I can link to you!), who ends up doing most of all of the writing there.

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the re-launch of Francesca’s blog. I had nothing to do with it other than running the one-click installer on the web server, but check it out because Fran’s a great writer. (more on that soon…)

If things go sideways here, it’s because I’m switching this blog’s server. Please be patient, it should all be back to normal within a few hours.

[Update] As it turns out, there was a pretty fundamental part of the site that has been broken for awhile now. (I wondered why I wasn’t getting any comments!) Anyhow, I’ve reverted to a very old theme with some out of date info in it, and some missing functionality. It’s only a temporary situation though.