Category Archives: Algemeen

Dynalogic, bezorgen is moeilijk

Aangezien mijn telefoon abonement binnen afloopt, en ik een nieuwe nodig had, heb ik afgelopen woensdag via internet netjes een nieuw abonement afgesloten met telefoon. Niet heel bijzonder zou je denken, en hetzelfde geld voor de bezorging.

Vandaag zou dynalogic, het bedrijf dat de bezorging verzorgd voor de webwinkel, de telefoon af komen leveren. Netjes vanochtend een SMS gehad dat hij gebracht zou worden en netjes de hele dag minstens alleen, en een groot deel van de dag met zijn tweeen thuis geweest. Een uur nadat de tijd voorbij was die dynalogic gezegt had was er nog steeds niks binnen en ben ik maar eens gaan bellen naar de winkel. Zeggen ze simpel, dynalogic heeft het geprobeerd te bezorgen, maar er werd niet opgedaan nadat er gebeld was! Apart, aangezien ik de gehele dag thuis ben geweest. Hun konden er echter verder weinig aan doen, en dus werd ik doorgestuurd naar dynalogic. Hun zeggen simpelweg, de chaufeur zegt dat hij aangebeld heeft, en dus is het zo. Enige wat we kunnen doen is een nieuwe afspraak maken. Zucht.

Achteraf ging ik nog eens nadenken, aangezien dynalogic een tijd had gezegt dat ze gebeld hadden, en bedacht ik me dat er rond die tijd voor de deur langzaam een bestelauto was langsgereden, en deze 3 huizen verderop even heeft stilgestaan, zonder dat iemand uitstapten. Ik hoop serieus voor ze dat dat niet zo was, en bewijzen kan ik het niet, maar het doet ze niet goed. Ik hoop wel voor ze dat maandag het geheel netjes wordt afgeleverd, anders hebben ze toch wel een serieus probleem.

Direct Admin API

The last few weeks I have been working with the Direct Admin API for a new android application. Badly enough the direct admin API is just one large pain to work with, there are several issues with it, and they all cause a general pain really. Read more »

Apple and the iPad

I have never been a fan of Apple products, and due to that I never really used a apple product (Ok, there might be a exception there, as I used for some time a ipod for music, but I still dont see that really as using it :P ). Untill 2 weeks ago, from some client I got for the work I did a iPad (Instead of normal money :P ) as thanks. Now I used it for 2 weeks or so I need to see I actually like it. Since last year I have been a Android fan, however Android has its problems, mostly due to the different companies using and mostly modifing, Android. On nearly every mobile phone or tablet the Android experience is different, the UI is different, and you have no idea if a App that is written for a specific Android version actually works on that device. With this iPad, I havent see yet any of the problems caused by the many Android devices that apps have. The apps just works (Ok, they still crash sometimes, but android apps do the same).
I need to say, iam surely impressed by the iPad with it current state when I compare it to Android. I still would not buy it myself, but it is not as bad at all as I had thought. My main concerns still are the required use of iTunes, what is not working at Linux at all, and thats my main OS, the kinda closeness of Apple, and the requirement to use a Apple thing to write apps. But I dunno, I might change opinions and move more to Apple if Android does not improvide.

Usefull?!? ads?

Remember that I wrote a long time ago about non usefull ads? Yesterday, I finally saw some “usefull” ads. At least, they were related to what I wrote (greylisting, virtualisation), instead of random things. Weeee.

Greylist stats

Remember that I wrote back in december about greylisting?
Now its nearly a month later, and my main mailserver still uses greylisting. Below here are some stats from this server:

web:~# greylist stats
Statistics since Thu Dec 24 12:59:53 2009 (30 days and 3 hours ago)
——————————————————————-
708 items, matching 12049 requests, are currently whitelisted
0 items, matching 0 requests, are currently blacklisted
332 items, matching 332 requests, are currently greylisted

Of 23386 items that were initially greylisted:
- 708 ( 3.0%) became whitelisted
- 22678 ( 97.0%) expired from the greylist

As you can see the stats are since December 24 last year. Since that moment only 708 pairs of mailserver with emailaddress have been whitelisted (And probarly a lot of that is from a phpBB.com related server :P ). Of these whitelisted addresses the server accepted a bit more as 12000 emails.

Nothing special yet. Looking below, since that starting date around 23000 pairs were greylisted. Of these 23000 only those 708 mentioned earlier are whitelisted. That means 97% probarly is spam of what total is received at that server! Maybe there is some real mail in there, but if there is (What I dont think really), that server is probarly not connected properly. I didnt notice iam missing any mail, so I suppose iam not missing anything.

But these numbers are, what I think, pretty good. It means the spamfiltering done at the server level doesnt need to run on that many mails, what means less CPU usage for that. Iam, at this moment, not sure if the RBL checks are done before or after the greylisting, so maybe these numbers can be even higher when iam not using RBLs at the mailserver. And the same applies for some other checks that are done by exim.

Currently, there is one smaller problem with using this method. As backup MX iam currently using the MX from my host. However, when my mailserver now denies the mail for 10 minutes, it goes to the backup MX (Pretty logical ofcourse), however, the backup MX doesnt run a greylisting, so it just accepts the mail, and directly tries to deliver it. However, the greylisting now denies it again, so it needs to wait again 10 minutes. Due to this, the stats are also probarly a bit off.
A solution for this will be to run the backup MX myself, what hopefully will be happening soon, when I get my second box fully installed :P

And now some other real stats. Iam currently receiving at max 10 spam emails a day. Thats something I can live with. But still 10 to much. Luckily enough they are directly filtered and moved to the spam map when they arrive.

phpBB.com offline

As all of you know, phpBB.com was offline for some time in begin of februari. I did know that a lot of traffic here at my blog came from phpBB.com, but not that it was that much.
When I looked at my site stats a few minutes ago I noticed a large change in visitors at the time phpBB.com. I really havent expected it was that much, see the attached screenshot. Read more »

Een tijd geleden

Het is ondertussen al een behoorlijke tijd geleden dat ik hier weer echt iets geschreven heb. Ik moet het toch echt weer wat vaker gaan doen :P . Read more »

Euroskills, nog maar een paar dagen

Nog een paar dagen, en dan begint het eindelijk, euroskills.

De afgelopen weken ben ik, naast uiteraard mijn normale schoolwerk, hard bezig met oefenen voor euroskills.
Dit houd voornamelijk in het opzoeken van onderdelen voor het programeren (Diversie functies en controles).

Nu maar hopen dat het volgende week een beetje goed gaat, maar daar gaan we uiteraard wel vanuit :D

Changes to my site

Some of you rememer the great blocks, at the frontpage of this site. I just removed this part of the site, and instead is now redirect directly to the blog.
Why? Because the site wasnt really updated anymore (No time :) ), and it wasnt really working as I wanted.

Iam going to try to add some of the things that I had at the old site to seperate pages here at the blog, but need to see how and when :P

WordPress upgraded

As I was still using wordpress 2.3.3 I have decided to upgrade wordpress now to the newest release, 2.6.1. Because I was to lazy to upgrade also my theme, I just overwrite everything, and reverted for now back to the default theme.
Maybe I will update it later back to the old theme, when I have some time or so :P