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September 30, 2003
2 Bad Newses
My mom is in the hospital... again. She was dealing with pain in her abdomen for a while now and it got really bad over the weekend. She went to the clinic yesterday and they admitted her to the hospital with a severe hernia. They may fly her to Winnipeg to operate. I'm going up to the hospital in a few minutes to visit.
Also, it SNOWED last night! And it stayed on the ground all night- it's still on the ground this morning. Blechy. Although the deep pink hydrangea looked really beautiful weighted down with snow this morning.
Posted by Guinevere at 10:33 AM | Comments (10)
September 26, 2003
Scum Sucking Spammers
So it begins...the battle between blog and spammer. I got my first spam on a blog comment this evening, which I promptly deleted. I have comments set to email me, so I found out about it right away. I immediately disabled comments. I would rather have no commenting allowed on here at all then have 1 spam. I headed over to the MoveableType forums and quickly discovered that many MT powered blogs are being hit by the same spammer. People guess he's got a script that seeks out MT blogs and comments on older posts. I figured since this was just one guy 
I didn't need to turn off comments right away. So, I blocked the spammer's IP range (out of China) in MT preferences and turned the comment feature back on.
I'm looking into setting ban words and other tactics that I've used on guestbook sites for clients that have successfully thwarted spammers. If this becomes a problem though, comments are gone.
Posted by Guinevere at 09:02 PM | Comments (7)
Triple Birthdays!
Well it's time for some early birthday greetings. We're moving this weekend, and I don't know if I'll be able to get online at all. So happy birthday tooooooo..... my sister-in-law Lori and my sister Sally who share a birthday on Saturday and happy birthday to my nephew David who celebrates on Sunday! ~Happy birthday to you... happy birthday tooo you (and you, and you) ~ 
Posted by Guinevere at 01:34 PM | Comments (1)
September 25, 2003
Best 5 Bucks I've Ever Spent
I closed my Bank of Montreal account today. The people who worked there are nincompoops. I had cleared out my account the other day, and switched everything over to ING where they have NO service fees. I save myself minimum $120 a year. 
The idiots at BOM thought I still had money in there, but between them and the corporate office, they couldn't decide how much. I knew I had already moved everything out of the account and into my new account though. They charged me $5 to close the account. 
Best 5 bucks I've ever spent.
Posted by Guinevere at 11:01 AM | Comments (3)
September 24, 2003
Canadian Soldiers Wanna Get Wasted
Lamer.
Posted by Guinevere at 09:46 AM | Comments (7)
September 23, 2003
Wireless Network
We started buying our components for the home wireless network today. We went with 802.11b to save ourselves some $ and because a couple of the machines aren't 802.11g compatible, which would have slowed down the entire 802.11g network anyway. So we ordered an Airport card for my Powerbook, a Belkin 802.11b Wireless USB Network Adapter for my mom's B&W G3 and Linksys wireless router to connect them all. Allen's PC will just use the wired ethernet port on the router for now. He's building a new PC next month that will be wireless ready. There's still my dad's G3 upgraded 6100 that we have to deal with, but it still needs a new power supply before we can even get it running.
Posted by Guinevere at 10:42 AM | Comments (5)
September 22, 2003
Wireless Internet
Well we got wireless internet hooked up at my folk's house tonight. We tested it, and C|Net reported we got 770kbps. Not bad! Not as good as our cable modem, but definately better than the DSL in town. We're buying wireless networking components this week.
Posted by Guinevere at 09:20 PM | Comments (0)
Verisign Turns into a Squatter
The world's largest .com registrar has decided that every single domain name that doesn't exist belongs to them.
Ever typed in a URL wrong? Everyone has. Usually you get a "site doesn't exist" message. Well now, if you go to a domain that doesn't exist, you're taken to a web site, set up by Verisign that looks suspiciously like many web sites that cybersquatters set up. Try it now: www.stupiddumbdomainnamethatdoesntexist.com. Its got categories, a search box, and a terms of service- for a page you never intended to get to in the first place! Among other things, the TOS agreement says that simply by looking at that page (that you accidentally got to), you give the right to Verisign to collect personal info about you and sell it to other companies (read spammers). Oh great.
Here's a good discussion about why what Verisign is doing is just wrong.
Posted by Guinevere at 09:33 AM | Comments (3)
September 21, 2003
Provincial Election
I'm trying to learn as much as I can about the positions of the parties in Ontario so that I am prepared for the election on October 2nd. Here's a link that shows all the registered parties in Ontario with links to their web sites. Read with objectivity. The web sites are just self-promotion after all, but it's a good jump-start to get yourself educated before you vote.
Posted by Guinevere at 07:42 PM | Comments (4)
Paintball Postponed
Good news Brad- we're postponing the paintball play day until the weekend of October 18th/19th. We decided to make next weekend moving weekend instead. Soooooo... anyone who can help us move, that would be fabu. 
Posted by Guinevere at 07:05 PM | Comments (3)
September 19, 2003
Garage Sale / Open House
We're having a big garage sale / open house tomorrow morning starting at 7 a.m.
Posted by Guinevere at 11:01 AM | Comments (0)
September 18, 2003
We're so little
It would have been a bit bizzare to meet your death by a giant hamster, but it seems like that may have been the fate for some beasties 8 million years ago. A giant rodent species, "Guinea-zilla" has now been identified. The 1543 lb. rat likely travelled in packs and dodged mega-sized crocodiles and birds. All the creatures that live now are so tiny compared to the giant sloths and megalodons of past! 
Posted by Guinevere at 09:39 PM | Comments (1)
Margot's Birthday Photos
Margot's two birthday parties were a blast last night. I put up a photo album on her site for her out of town friends and family in Germany to see. 
Posted by Guinevere at 06:03 PM | Comments (3)
September 17, 2003
Quit Complaining About Your Job
My cousin Joel sent me these funny photos:
Posted by Guinevere at 09:22 AM | Comments (2)
Happy Birthday Margot!
Happy birthday to my sister in law Margot, who turns 40 today. Happy birthday!
Posted by Guinevere at 09:04 AM | Comments (4)
September 16, 2003
New Apple Stuffs
Apple introduced some new products at Apple Expo in Paris today. There are updated Powerbooks and a new Bluetooth wireless keyboard & mouse - cool!
Brian also showed me this funny article on switching from Mac to Windows.
10:13 a.m. spam count update. This is the best one yet! 84 spam, but none in my inbox!
Posted by Guinevere at 09:24 AM | Comments (3)
September 15, 2003
Stick 'o RAM
My new 512MB stick of RAM came in for my G4 Powerbook today. Yay! I had to pull out a 128 stick that was in there already to replace it, so now I have 640MB total. Not too shabby!
Posted by Guinevere at 02:42 PM | Comments (0)
Spam Count & Weekend Update
This morning's spam count: 181 (I don't check my work email over the weekend, so it accumulates). But number in my inbox: 2! My filtering rules. 
Can't really post anything exciting about my weekend. I just worked the whole time. I was supposed to try and go golfing with Allen and my mom, but my feet were too tired to walk around the course. I hope I get a chance to go soon. I got brand new golf clubs for my birthday in April and I've only used them on the driving range this year. I can't golf next weekend 'cause my schedule is nuts. I work on Friday from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m., then Saturday morning starting at 7 a.m. we are having our garage sale / open house. Then I work from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday, then I work at 7 a.m. again on Sunday. Bleh! 
Posted by Guinevere at 08:56 AM | Comments (2)
September 12, 2003
Spam Count
Today's spam count: 77. Number that made it to my inbox: 1.
Posted by Guinevere at 10:19 AM | Comments (2)
September 11, 2003
They're so cute!
Allen found these cute little games you can play online (requires flash). 
Posted by Guinevere at 09:28 PM | Comments (0)
Funny Ebay Auction
There's a long tradition of putting crazy things up for auction on ebay. I've done it myself... 
Today's funny auction will be appreciated by all the Mac users out there.
Posted by Guinevere at 10:40 AM | Comments (4)
House Stuff
Yay! Our house is listed on norealtyfee this morning. Here's a direct link.
In other news, spam count this morning: 75. Number that reached my inbox: 4.
Posted by Guinevere at 09:08 AM | Comments (0)
September 10, 2003
VaporOffice
Daring Fireball has a good article on why OpenOffice for OSX is vaporware. Its release date has been pushed back another 3 years. The reason? CASH. It's hard to rally people to donate their highly developed programming skills to a free project when they can get paid top dollar for such work, and use their spare time to live their lives. This is the inherent flaw with any free software not controlled by a major corporation.
Posted by Guinevere at 08:22 PM | Comments (0)
Spam Count
This morning spam count for my work email stands at: 73. Number of spam that actually made it into my inbox: 3. I use both server side and client-side spam filtering, as well as Apple's Mail.app junk mail learning features, and rules.
3:34 p.m. spam update: it seems as though spammers do most of their work in the evening. I've noticed this before. I've only gotten 1 other spam today (one that would crash my email program if I tried to open it.. bleh). Tomorrow though, I know my email will have received another 60+ spams. 
Posted by Guinevere at 09:56 AM | Comments (3)
The New Pill
A new birth control pill has been approved for consumer use. The big benefit of this one: it can reduce the number of periods a woman has from once a month to only 4 times a year- awesome!
Unfortunately, for some women it doesn't seem to reduce the frequency of cycles whatsoever. 
Dang. The story sounded promising for the first 4 paragraphs. 
Posted by Guinevere at 09:34 AM | Comments (0)
B.C. Burning
Chris emailed some dramatic photos of the Kelowna forest fires this morning. Here's one of them. Frightening.
Posted by Guinevere at 09:23 AM | Comments (2)
September 09, 2003
Allen's New Site
I don't know how often I've posted links to my boyfriend's rarely-updated web site, but here it is again. Sure the guy rarely posts news stories, but he plays with different back-end scripts a lot. This time, he's installed e107 (sounds like a radio station) and this script is slick! 
Much cooler than the Moveable Type system that I use, but I don't feel like switching over (at least for now). Maybe I'll install it on Amy's site instead of Moveable Type, which she's been asking me to do.
Posted by Guinevere at 08:51 PM | Comments (13)
Paintball Plans
OK everybody, we're planning our annual fall paintball day for the end of September. I don't work on the weekend of the 27th or 28th, so it will have to be either one of those days. Which is better for everyone? The Saturday or the Sunday?
Posted by Guinevere at 02:36 PM | Comments (4)
September 07, 2003
Synchro Camp
I coached this weekend at the synchronized swimming camp that we have each year to kick-off the season. Our 2 most experienced teams come in, select their music for the year, and we start to develop their team routines. This year my team is swimming to music from Matrix Reloaded and Lord of the Rings - bit of a change from the Marilyn Mason they swam to last year. 
The tunes are awesome, and what we have done so far on the team is really slick. I've got 9 really good swimmers on my team this year. I'm taking them to the weight room for the first time this year so they can learn to use the machines. As usual, the pool officials we rent the time from continue to be thorns in our sides with new stupid rules & regs. 
Posted by Guinevere at 04:42 PM | Comments (4)
September 06, 2003
My Mac is Back!
Yay! I got my Mac back today all fixed! 
Just in time too. I have to edit some music tonight for the synchronized swimming team that I coach tomorrow. We're doing a synchro clinic this weekend. I'm on my lunch break right now.
Posted by Guinevere at 12:27 PM | Comments (0)
September 04, 2003
This just in... Apple is cool!
That's right you PC lammies, according to some obscure survey Apple ranks in the top 5 under "cool". Nobody can say that about beige.
Posted by Guinevere at 09:38 PM | Comments (0)
September 02, 2003
My Mac is Broken!
Bah, this morning when I booted up my to-this-date-kick-ass Powerbook G4 and the screen was completely black, and started printing out work emails that I had previously printed out - even though I hadn't logged in. Weird! I rebooted and got to the desktop, went to work, and after a few minutes, the screen went black. I rebooted, black. Rebooted, black, repeat, repeat, repeat. Tried zapping the P-RAM and a bunch of other key combos I found on Apple's web site- still black! I hooked it up to an external monitor, screen was black. I managed to get it to show me the screen once more. I poked around the system for a few minutes- then the screen on both the powerbook AND the external monitor went black. I called my Mac genius friend, Brian and he got me to try a few things, but the screen stayed black! I called Apple, they got me to try a few things, but lo, the screen remained black. They told me that either my video card, or the cables to the video card are kaput. I had to send it 400 kilometers away for service. 
I backed everything up before I sent it off. The computer is behaving fine, just the video, so I booted it in target mode on my boyfriend's G4 tower and saved my files. I'll be sharing my boyfriend's PC at home until my Powerbook comes back, and using I don't know what at work. All the pop-ups in Windows are really annoying. I wish the OS would stfu and let me do my shiznaz.
Posted by Guinevere at 07:30 PM | Comments (3)
