Bosconet snagged on a reef in cyberspace, and other
related issues
ROME: 28th January 2006 -- A word of explanation is
due to faithful browsers (peopleware, not software) and suffering email
recipients. Three issues: why Bosconet occasionally goes on the blink, why some of you don't get
austraLasia even though you've asked for it, and why 'Sr Maryanne MMB'
recently wrote to me telling me she had 'whitelisted' me in spam
remover and asking me to whitelist her - using the same one, obviously.
I'll start with Sr Maryanne. I don't know her, but I
do know quite a number of the Mercedarian Missionaries of Berriz who
work in the Central and North Pacific islands and I'm not all that sure
they have a Sr Maryanne. By the same token I receive, almost
daily, email requests from Salesians to join their mobile phone network
and update my address. I don't have a mobile phone! So what
is going on here? Easy enough - it is all part of the
spam which BG said he would have eliminated by the beginning of
2006. Let's get straight to the point. Bill Gates did not
mean that he could stop people from spamming. He just meant he
could produce good spam filters. My spam filter is an open source
item and not from BG. I can 'see' items going into it, so I can
actually check their headings. If I wish to I can 'white list' an
item, meaning it no longer goes in. Now, it happens that the
sdb.org address, responsible for a veritable tsunami of email in any
one day, has been automatically 'blacklisted' by many
spamfilters. There is no easy solution to that. We could
use @dduck.com and it would still happen.
That answers the second question - I know that many
pull austraLasia out of their spam box to read it, because I see the
'Re: Spam: australasia' in the heading when they write to me. And
of course if you don't pull it out because you are unaware it is even
going in there, then you are not reading this, more's the pity! I
do suggest you check your spam box today and see what is in there and
maybe suggest to others that they do the same. 'White list' items
you do not want to go there in the future, you know, letters from your
provincial, ANS news and the like! That could help.
But Bosconet? For two days this week our
Regional website went off-line, or seemingly so. It appears to be
online again this morning, but I can't upload. Which also means I
cannot update its contents at the moment, and that seems to include the
XML file for Feed readers, even though I seem to be able to FTP them
(don't worry if you can't follow the technicalities, but you know the
results, or lack of them!) Why is Bosconet occasionally snagged on a
reef somewhere in cyberspace? If I knew why it would no longer be
snagged. It is almost certainly related to problems with the Rome
server. Fix it, you say! Easier said than done. It's
time there was a patron Saint of cybersapce, or one for patience at the
very least.
Later today, server permitting, something on the
Chinese New Year which, UK's 'Independent' newspaper today says has
involved the greatest mass movement of human beings ever known on the
planet this year, as Chinese workers travel home to their families to
celebrate. 2 billion journeys that puts the Haj in the shade for
mass movement in a single event.
VOCABULARY
on the blink: doesn't work; in this case
goes offline.
_______________________
AustraLasia is an email
service
for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific. It also functions
as an
agency for ANS based in Rome. For RSS feeds, subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/rssala.xml
