Did you notice that unwanted email nowadays tries to look like regular email? I get messages from people with serious-looking names like Sydney Q. Youngblood trying to sell me herbal viagra. Usually the subject line gives them away.

I used to throw these messages out, but now I parse them for their interesting names and subject lines. Which are then recycled in Spam Stories.

posted at: 05:40 | path: /en/computers | permanent link

On another wonderful day for Spam Stories, I was able to add Jesus Heath and Bacon Telma to the list of spam-senders. Other people have taken notice of the recent bounty of names. posted at: 01:25 | path: /en/computers | permanent link

I suppose the Mozilla people, when they moved to their new offices, also got a faster connection. I just downloaded their 6.5 Mb browser in -gasp- thirteen seconds.

posted at: 01:56 | path: /en/computers | permanent link

The first computer I owned was an Acorn Electron. It was a wonderful machine, taught me to how to code at the appropriate age. It also gave me nightmares, of which I was reminded today.

This page is about Electron maintenance, and it says:

Dust the PSU board off, then INSPECT the area highlighted in this image for cracked solder joints. Its a common fault on Electrons. Repeated removal/insertion of power lead weakens the joint.

Indeed. What happens is that the computer will switch off at random intervals and reboot, throwing all your carefully coded programs in the bit bucket. When I was young, I feared opening the machine, but discovered that chances of keeping it alive were better if I leaned on my desk just so. Great, because now whenever the machine went down I could blame it on myself.

Months of agony were finally resolved by a soldering iron in my shaking hands. Because of my poor soldering skills, I ended up fixing the machine at least once a week.

posted at: 05:45 | path: /en/computers | permanent link

Met trots meld ik op deze plek de succesvolle herintegratie van onze thuischipper. Deze handige oplader voor de niet-meer-ondersteunde chippas van de Postbank stond werkeloos in de kast, totdat de knopjes van onze wekker het begaven. Met (in totaal) een metertje extra kabel aan het toetsenbord, een nieuw display en nog maar de halve oude print is het kastje nu weer in bedrijf.

Het grootste probleem: 's ochtends onthouden dat toets 7 de snooze-stand inschakelt.

posted at: 13:10 | path: /nl/dingen | permanent link