Now I'm (more) Official

Well, I think that should take care of my pending business: the permanent Cranium Leakage linkage went up on over to your right a few minutes ago. That means asisaid has given up its life as just another independent blog in the sea of journals and become a major network blog! Click the pretty graphic that the mad scientists over at Cranium Leakage designed to see what the official CL web site has to say. Of course you can also check out my blogroll, which has long linked to three of the four other active CL blogs (which are well worth reading, in my estimation).

Tee Hee Hee: I Made Some Spammers Mad

Well, my new SpamAssassin auto-rejection seems to be doing a good job. I got this automated letter letting me know I was removed from the EDEALSSUPER list (as if I ever cared to be on it to begin with). Note especially how impassioned it is about how this must have to do with the quality of my e-mail service. Content based bouncing of spam must be becoming common place enough that now spammers are trying to convince the user that the anti-spam savvy ISP is providing the user with bad service when the exact opposite is actually true.

From: LISTSERV@LISTSERV.VERSUS.COM
Subject: Your removal from the EDEALSSUPER list
Date: April 6, 2006 11:00:07 PM CDT
To: Address Removed -Tim.
Reply-To: EDEALSSUPER-request@LISTSERV.VERSUS.COM

Fri, 7 Apr 2006 00:00:07

You have been automatically removed from the EDEALSSUPER list
(eDealsSuper) as a result of repeated delivery error reports from your
mail system. This decision was based on the automatic error monitoring
policy in effect for the list, and has not been reviewed or otherwise
confirmed by a human being. If you receive this message, it means that
something is wrong: while you are obviously able to receive mail, your
mail system has been regularly reporting that your account did not exist,
or that you were otherwise permanently unable to receive mail. Here is
some information which may assist you or your local help desk in
determining the cause of the problem:

- The failing address is TBUTLER@UNINETSOLUTIONS.COM.

- The first error was reported on 4 Apr 2006.

- Since then, a total of 2 delivery errors have been received.

- The last reported error was: Probe failed.

PLEASE DO NOT IGNORE THIS MESSAGE. While you can of course re-subscribe
to the list, it is important for you to report this problem to your mail
administrator so that it can be solved. This problem is not specific to
the EDEALSSUPER list, and also affects your private mail. This means that
YOU HAVE PROBABLY LOST SOME PRIVATE MAIL AS WELL. Anyone trying to write
to you during the same time frame will probably have received the same
errors for the same reason. The EDEALSSUPER list is but one of the many
people who may have tried to write to you while your mail system was
malfunctioning.

DO NOT LET TECHNICAL PEOPLE CONVINCE YOU THAT THIS IS NORMAL. It is never
normal for a mail system to claim that a valid, working account does not
exist, just as it would not be normal for the post office to return some
of your mail with “addressee unknown” when the address was written
correctly. It is true that some mail systems are less reliable than
others, and your technical people may be doing the best they can with the
tools they have. But, ultimately, the level of service that you are
receiving is the result of a business decision, and not something due to
a universal technical limitation that one can only accept. Reliable mail
systems do exist, and it is ultimately up to you to decide whether this
level of service is acceptable or not.

I'm Leaking Now!

I received word last night that my kind blogging neighbors Christopher, Craig, Michael voted me into their Cranium Leakage blog-thingie (a.k.a. “network”). I'll be adding my new Cranium Leakage seal to the side of my blog in the next day or two.

Thanks, guys! I'm quite honored!

Y'all can listen to the podcast featuring the business meeting that voted me in over at CL. It's a funny listen. It sounds like I'm going to end up being a call-in guest on the “show” someday — I wonder what they'll do to me? Yikes!

In case you're fretting: don't worry. Asisaid will still keep the same quality (or lack thereof) that you've come to expect. Although, in honor of this event, I think I am going to drop the medieval spellings I announced the other day.

A Project Doth Approacheth

This Tuesday Ey am supposed to gyve a presentaytion on Karl Barth's doctryne of Elecksion. Right now Ey am almoste donne preparing it and Ey'm eksited to see how it will goon. Ye see, Ey'm using Aepple's Keynote presentaytion sophwear insteade of PowerPointe. Ey'm verie impressed with the programme's cinamaetical effeckts. I think it lookes far better thanne my typical PowerPointe documente.

It'll bee interesting to see if it works out as welle when I actually neede it to.

Now hath Aprill eeked unto the Yeare

Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open eye-
(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seeke.

Ey've desyghed thate Standard Engelishe is nought reallie al that much funne. It woode be better to ewse excyting, soote Chaucerian spellings to keepe all of ye from bordomme and and sew on. The spelling of kommon words was much more interesting before those nastie dyctionarie writers went and standardised it al, Ey saye.

It is Aprill now and I longen for something different thanne a pilgrimmage to the Oxford Dictionaries! Anon, all new postes will observe the great renaissance of late middle Engelishe once againe. Or maybe I shouldst go back further and ewse Olde Engelishe from before the Normanes came and rooined our greate Germanyck language. Too badde I do not ken howe to wright Olde Engelishe!

In othere news, Ey have decided to goon backe to Windowes for my operating systemme. Ey think it I shall find it harkens to mie needes much better than Aepple Macintoshe systemme (despighte Aepple now hath reached thirtee yeares of ayge). Ey've seked the beste systemme for mannie yeares now, but ye will shurely understande that Ey've ne'er founde anythyng better thanne Windowes.

We Got It Good

With the sole exception of when I'm returning from the Ozarks, I always find that taking a trip reminds me of just how good “we got it” (to use an old RCGA slogan) in St. Louis. Over the weekend, I went to Indiana for my grandfather's birthday. It was a fine enough trip, but I have to admit it felt really great to see the “The People of Illinois Welcome You” sign as I left Indiana and even better when I saw the “Welcome to Missouri” signs (complete with the official “Where the Rivers Run” stylized logo).

I may be biased, but I just love Missouri. The hills, the trees, the personality of the cities — I just love it. Indiana seems so flat and (no offense to anyone from there that might read this) bland. This wasn't the best time to visit, since the trees were all bare, but even when there is some green scenery, I still find something oddly uncomfortable there.

In other words, it's good to be home.

Melancholy

I don't know what it is. By most accounts this has been a good two weeks. Busy, yes, but good none the less. Yet a strange sense of melancholy has set over me the last day or two. I was rather gloomy at the end of last year, partly for reasons I've talked about elsewhere, partly for other reasons as well, but I thought I was pretty much moving beyond all of those reasons (at least to some extent). Yet something is bothering me tonight; I feel it in the pit of my stomach. I just don't quite know why.

The trickling of the stream outside only makes it worse, I'm afraid. It is so soft and peaceful, yet unceasing like time. Maybe that is part of it. I see a lot of endings ahead. Some within a couple of months, some within a year or two. There are some endings I know I must also bring about to accomplish what God wants me to do, yet I don't really want to relegate those parts of my life to the past (this is especially difficult since there is nothing intrinsically wrong with that which I must move beyond, it just isn't the right place for me to be right now). The last decade has seemed to teem with so many endings I tremble at more, and yet they must come, I suppose.

Challenge Revisited: Find a Quote, Get a Prize.

One of these days, I am going to revive the asisaid challenge, but in the mean time, I want to again remind everyone of my extra BIG BONUS ROUND that was announced on December 14, 2004:

5.) BIG BONUS ROUND: I don’t know the answer to this one, but I want to. Who was the author of the quote “Seek truth knowing there can be no conflict between God and truth.” My friend who gave it to me recalls originally reading it in a 1960’s magazine aimed at soon to be college freshmen, such as he was at the time (200 pts. [no typo there]). You may use Google and other search engines on this question and this question only.

200 points equals winning a round of asisaid challenge, so in other words, I'll give you one year of free web hosting (100 meg account valued at $60) and either a $15 iTunes Gift Card or a free domain name for two years, if you can provide me with the who and where of this quote.

Note: unlike normal asisaid challenge questions, you may use Google and any other tools at your disposal to find this. I really want to find this quote, so if you can provide me with its source using any means you have (presuming they are legal), please use them! Moreover, you need not be a regular asisaid reader to participate in this round — if you find this page while Googling, please feel free to join the search.

Thanks.

I Sell Domains for More!

Note: This is one of the very rare occasions that I'm attempting to sell something via my blog. I apologize in advance for targeting y'all with this — feel free to ignore it if you'd like.

If you can't beat 'em on price, don't pretend to, right?

I've had a Dotster reseller account for some years now. What that means is that I can resell domains via Dotster and receive a cut of the sale. I never bothered to promote it because my wholesale price was higher than a lot of other registrars' retail prices. Well, I still pay more than a limited number of registrars, but the price has gotten low enough that I can resell domain services for $9.95/year (versus $14.95 if you buy direct from Dotster). For my hosting clients, I usually provide full service registration (e.g. I handle all of the stuff with the registrar for them), so I've stuck with $15/year in the past. But, I've always contemplated doing something else with my domain reseller account.

Now, personally I prefer Dotster to some of the ultra-cheap places (like 1&1) simply because its management interface works better for me (which is important to me, because I own or manage nearly 50 domains). If for the same reason or some other reason, you'd like to register a name with Dotster, give me a holler and I'll give you beta access to the ServerForest domain registration service. You get the same administration tools (in fact, everything is still handled by Dotster, it just has my branding on it), but you pay only $9.95/year for new registrations of most TLD's and $7.95 for the first year of a domain transfer for most TLD's.

QOTW: CMS

I thought maybe I'd try to revive my old Question of the Week meme. Feel free to participate here or on your own blog. I'll update this post with my own answer later on. I've included my answer.

What is your favorite content management system (CMS, e.g. Moveable Type, PHP-Nuke, WordPress, Drupal, etc.)? Why? How long have you used it?

Update: That's tough. At the cost of sounding biased, I'd probably say SAFARI, which runs this blog. I've used it in various ways for about six years, and familiarity is certainly one of the big reasons I like it. But even more importantly, since I've written the code, it acts mostly how I want it to. It isn't perfect by any means, but I've had the ability to carefully avoid certain things that annoy me in other CMSes I've used.