May 2008 Archives

I suscribe to lots of news feeds and one of them is the Movable Type Community News Aggregator. Today when I was reading through them I came across 5 entries to do with Babble On, another site where I talk about my MT experiences. For those of you wondering what MT is, it's a publishing platform and the program behind this site and most of the other sites I have.

Tonight I've been at a friend's house since 5.30 (and it's now 9pm) doing some computer maintenance. The biggest job is a full backup, and then to set up a scheduled task to perform incremental backups each night. This first backup is taking forever but the beauty is the daily backups should only take 15 minutes or less each night. Only changes are saved, but in case of an emergency and the need to restore the computer, nothing will be lost.

I've been putting this particular job off and my conscience was getting the better of me, so tonight I bit the bullet and got the job done. I'll do a gym class tomorrow night to make up for the body balance class I missed tonight. I'm still feeling the effects of the step class I went to on Monday night, especially in the legs. No pain no gain, so they say.

I spent most of Friday night fixing a friend's computer. The computer would load but only get as far as the background, and no programs would work. No programs were even visible in the folders, which was strange. An error loaded saying "Userinit.exe application error". Thursday night I searched for a solution and it seemed to be a spyware problem. I downloaded a couple of free cleaners, and ran them Friday night. One program found 3,500 instances of spyware, so it's no wonder there were problems. The main problem seemed to be Vundo (also known as VirtuMonde and VirtuMundo), a malicious software application that combines both adware and trojan characteristics. It was a real bitch to get rid of. After 3 1/2 hours I had it cleaned out and Windows loaded properly, and I discovered my friend had no protection at all. She thought anti-virus was installed, but unfortunately there was none. The latest free AVG includes anti-spyware along with anti-virus so I set that up for her.

Last Saturday we had no sport and it was nice not to be rushing off around the countryside, especially with the price of petrol at the moment. Alex's team had a bye and the team Carly was to play against forfeited. Saturday night we went to Wagga and had tea at Emily and Kai's place. She cooked a pork roast that was really nice. It's always nice when somebody else does the cooking. Carly's friend Lisa came with us and Scarlett kept the girls on their toes all night. Emily has 3 months to go before the next one comes along and that will go quickly, I'm sure.

Work has been hectic as usual and I've been trying to get to the gym 3 nights a week, though I've only made it twice the last couple of weeks. I can barely walk the next day after the gym classes but everyone assures me that it gets better so I'll keep going. I have another couple of computer jobs that are hanging that I just can't seem to find the time to get to. It's a matter of making the time, though.

Last week I was pulling my hair out because signing into both my Movable Type websites seemed to take forever. I thought the problem was MT and was thinking about using another blogging platform like Wordpress. That would have been a huge job so I persevered. I disabled a couple of plug-ins that I thought might be slowing things down, and I turned off the AVG Safe Search and Security Toolbars in Firefox. It went from taking 3 minutes to load a page down to 2 1/2, not much of an improvement but something.

Today I got an email from the Dreamhost team telling me they had to disable the guestbook script on another site of mine, Junee Magic, that was the cause of the server overload problem. Junee Magic is a site I set up in 2005 when I was considering website design as a career. It never really took off and I ended up with a "real" job that paid real money but left the site there. I think it's time to take it down now. If someone actually were to contact me to design a website for them I really wouldn't have the time to do it.

The email said "It appears as if spammers were simply hammering the script, causing instability on your server. Taking a look at the guestbook itself, it seems to have bloated to 146Mb of link spam."

Spammers again! I'd love to wring every one of their rotten necks.

Tonight when I logged in it took less then a minute to load the page so I'm grateful to the guys at Dreamhost for finding the problem. Pity the culprit was my own website.

Saturday night, and I'm sitting at home (as usual) tapping away on the keys. It's a miserable day and football this morning was freezing. I couldn't even feel my hands and more than once I saw the boys on the field with their hands under their armpits. There were lots of dropped balls and Junee lost today against Harden 4-6. It's their first loss for the season but was a close one, just the same. The canteen is the best place to be when it's wet and windy and lucky for me, It was the Under 13s turn to help out and I didn't mind at all. One lucky lady had the job of standing next to the pie-warmer. We sold lots of hot coffee and chocolate.

I was reading more news stories from China and am in shock over the number killed and homeless. Almost five million people have been left homeless by Monday's earthquake and it's feared as many as 50,000 may be dead. And to make matters worse, at the epicentre of the Sichuan quake, the water level of a lake is rising rapidly and the dam may burst at any time. It's amazing to think that 5 days after the quake they're still finding people alive under all the rubble. The news from cyclone-hit Burma is just as mind-numbing. The official death toll from Cyclone Nargis has nearly doubled to almost 78,000 and another 56,000 people remain missing two weeks after the storm. According to CNN, the Red Cross fears the cyclone toll may be as high as 128,000; the U.N. estimates more than 100,000 died. The U.N. estimates 1.5 million to 2.5 million survivors are in desperate need of food, water, shelter and medical care. Aid groups have reached only 270,000 so far thanks to military rulers refusing to allow foreign experts to direct relief efforts despite rising deaths. Today, US lawmakers urged President Bush to consider "humanitarian intervention" in Burma.

It brings it home how lucky we are to have warm homes and plenty to eat. On Friday I drove to Wagga to have lunch with Emily and Lauren and it struck me how we how the way we live is worlds apart. The faces of those sobbing Chinese mothers were on my mind and I felt blessed to have so few worries.

The news from China this week has been tragic indeed, but what makes it even sadder is the thought of all the children killed. Thousands of children were in class when the tremor hit Monday afternoon and many of their schools collapsed on top of them. News scenes show grieving mothers whose loss is compounded in many cases by a Chinese policy that limits most couples to one child, a measure meant to control explosive population growth.

As a result of the one-child policy, the massive earthquake that rocked China this week -- already responsible for at least 15,000 deaths -- is producing another tragic aftershock: Not only must thousands of parents suddenly cope with the loss of a child -- they must often cope with the loss of their only child.

The Federal Government is pushing forward with a plan to force ISPs to filter out all material "inappropriate" for children from Australian homes.This plan will waste tens of millions of taxpayer dollars and slow down Internet access.

Despite being almost universally condemned by the public, ISPs, State Governments, Media and censorship experts, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy is determined to force this filter into your home. Don't let him!

There are several quick things you can do to keep Australian Internet access fast and open. Go here to see how you can help.

Today Alex and I went over to Cootamundra for football and it turned out to be a beautiful day. It was quite hot and the boys once again put on a grand show. They beat Coota 28-8 but at the start of the game it looked like it was going to go all Coota's way. They scored first and we went one for one, but then left them in the dust. The Under 12's didn't fare so well, with a 38-0 loss. The photo is from last week's game against Tumut, and I discovered a site where there's photos of the boys playing football going back to 2004. Chris Young is the photographer and as you can see he sure does take a good snap. The photos are wonderful, with most of the boys, like Alex, looking very fierce. We spent a long time on the site having a great old laugh looking at the faces some of these kids pull. All part of the game, I guess.

I went shopping at Woolies in Coota but I don't think I'll be doing that too often. I ended up spending over $200 and walked out in shock! Tomorrow, Emily and Lauren, along with their husbands and children, are coming over for tea to celebrate Mother's Day, so I threw a few extras in the trolley, including a $30 leg of lamb. We'll eat, drink and be merry and by tomorrow night my shock will have worn off and I'll have enjoyed a lovely day. That's the plan anyway....

I've been to the gym twice this week after Council gave anyone who was interested, a six-month free membership. Wednesday night I went to a boxercise class and last night I went to the body pump class. Today my legs are so sore I can hardly walk. Squatting is a killer. I'm determined to get rid of the flab though and hope to be taut and terrific when I turn 50 in September. We'll see....

I rang Dad today and he was allowed home on Thursday. He sounds strong and was complaining about not being able to find any towels after his sister cleaned up the van for him. The hospital have set up an oxygen cylinder in his van so he's not having to get on the ventilator 5 times a day anymore, and not waking up in the middle of the night having to use it. Of course, the first thing he did after leaving the hospital was to buy a packet of cigarettes and he said that he never stopped craving them for all the weeks he was in hospital. I know what he's going through. I've been trying to give them up myself but I'm not doing a very good job of it. Last week I bought a pack of Nicabate Lozenges, and had on Thursday morning and was nearly sick. I had to spit it out. They taste foul and disgusting. Now I'm thinking about hypnotherapy after reading about one person's success with it.

Dad's still driving his car, a bit of a concern to his brother, who's worried about him having a blackout while he's out and about. There's been no more blackouts since the night Dad went in to hospital so I'm hoping that they've finally sorted out his medication and they'll be a thing of the past. All in all, I thought he sounded better than before he went in.

Yesterday Alex had football here in Junee and they played against Tumut. All the teams were missing their rep players but the boys still managed a win and Alex even scored a try. The wind down at the footy ground was bitterly cold, but out of the wind it was beautiful.

Carly plays today in her League Tag team here in Junee too. Last week the girls won so have a win and a loss so far this season. It's a new event, and not all the clubs have teams in, but our girls are going okay. Carly loves it.

Carly cleaned Alex's bedroom for me on Friday night. She wanted me to buy her a jacket and so worked all night for it. Friday after work I thought I would be washing all night, and when I came home she had it all done and half on the line. I was impressed, so yesterday after football we went shopping and they both got new winter clothes. Alex has grown so much this last year that nothing much fits him. Thank God I have a job that pays well.