Spam? What spam?

Today I was writing up what I hope will be a semi-regular email to the users of the company I work for detailing some new developments we had completed in the IT department. I wanted to include a little interesting statistic at the end so I logged into our Postini account to see how much mail we were processing monthly and how much spam we were blocking. No big surprise, we were running at about 80% of our inbound mail being blocked as spam. This is actually below some of the statistics showing as much as 95% of all email being blocked. The impressive statistic was that one mailbox accounted for 25% of all of our email while still having 93% of its mail blocked.

All of this made me think about the fact that I pretty much never see a spam message reach my inbox on Gmail or my work account as a result of these services. Google does it for me for free. For as easy as it is to block and as much spam as is being sent, how is it even profitable these days to send spam? There must be a significant number of people still, to this day, not using a high quality spam fighting service. By the way, if you happen to be in the market for one, head over to Purity Networks and take them up on their free user offer. This is a great alternative to services like Postini for your business.

Along these lines, I still cringe when I see people change their email because they changed ISPs. Since the advent of Gmail and the like, why does anyone continue to use substandard email or change their email more than once making a move to an ISP independent service? Google apps has even made it beyond simple to set up your own custom domain riding on their systems. Maybe it is just a lack of knowledge that keeps people tied to their ISP email. What do you think?

Enjoying a spring day

Enjoying a spring day, originally uploaded by kkuphal.

With spring in the air, here's a little photographic interlude to brighten your day.

Wirelessly enable your Samsung HDTV or Bluray player for cheap

So a little while ago, woot.com had their deal of the day as this great Bluray player that also handles Netflix, Blockbuster, Pandora, and Youtube. Even though I haven't upgraded to an HDTV yet, it seemed better to spend the money on this rather than a regular DVD player since mine was acting up. Once it arrived, I realized I had to connect it to the network in order to test out the Netflix service and compare it to my Roku and Wii Netflix experiences. I noticed the port on the back labelled Wireless Adapter.

I just happen to have a Wireless USB adapter upstairs connected to my infrequently used Dell Studio 19 mounted on the wall in front of my elliptical trainer. I grabbed it from the back, plugged it in, and saw it immediately prompt for the wireless network to connnect to. After configuring it and testing the service, I ordered a replacement stick (different brand) and waited for it to arrive. Well, it did, and as soon as I plugged it into the player, it did nothing. Plugging it in to the Studio revealed that it work (with drivers) but still nothing on the player.

After doing a little research, I found that Samsung only supports/recommends/offers their own brand of wireless USB adapter for their Bluray players and televisions.

So how did my USB stick work?

Turns out, the USB adapter that I have, which is an Encore ENUWI-N must have the identical chipset to the much more expensive Samsung branded adapter that is for sale at Amazon, etc. Now, I also believe there is an ENUWI-N3 adapter for sale that may not have the same chipset based on what I've been able to find online. If you're looking to get a wireless USB adapter for your Samsung device, get yourself an ENUWI-N and save a little money.

For you techies, it is likely that this device is based on the RT2870 chipset so you may be able to find other devices with the same chipset that work just as well.

Backup Exec vs. the NDMP agent

Once again I find myself slapping my forehead over the behavior of Backup Exec. In this episode, we find our intrepid administrator transitioning his NetApp Filer backups from traditional backups of CIFS shares to NDMP backup to a tape library attached directly to the filer. All appears well as the tape library is registered and shows up properly in the Backup Exec devices screen.

Flash forward to the weekend. All backups of the CIFS shares using non-NDMP methods fail. No NDMP backups have been configured. What could be the problem?

The problem appears to be that the Backup Exec agent and the NDMP agent share a port. Probably something within the bowels of the Backup Exec agent that it really is the bastard spawn of NDMP. However, what this means is that once you turn on NDMP on your NetApp filer, you can no longer do normal backups of CIFS shares from that filer!

It's just incredible to me that time and time again, I come across absolutely insane things that Backup Exec does. Why in the world would turning on NDMP on a filer *have* to require that Backup Exec now refuses to talk to the filer except via NDMP. Obviously this is some bug (one can hope) but upgrading to 12.5 from 11d isn't on my roadmap right now as that opens an entirely new can of worms.

Well, NDMP is now off until my new library license arrives along with my new stock of LTO4 tapes. Apparently it's all or nothing for NDMP and the filer.

Cubs, Cats, and the Friendly Confines

It almost goes without saying that your first visit to Wrigley Field in a skybox will be a memorable one. The sense of prestige as you are granted access to the upper hallway. The heated accommodations on a cold night. The seemingly endless supply of food. The kind attentiveness of the staff as they take care of you, very much unlike most other ballpark experiences.


But no one really expects that you'll see a cat being herded across the field by a member of security.
It was almost a little disappointing because the cat, in a very un-cat-like way, promptly marched across the outfield and was escorted from the playing field. I was really hoping for a chase more akin to a drunken fan streaking and dodging security. Luckily the Cubs provided enough excitement to last the evening.

I couldn't have asked for a better night. The rain gave way to just a cold April evening that start with being able to go on the field and take some pictures and ended with a Cubs win. All in all, not a bad way to spend a Tuesday night.