assp is good, but ...

I use the Anti Spam SMTP Proxy: http://assp.sourceforge.net/
and I was encountering spam coming in that mailed to postmaster and whomever else was also in "To:".

It turned out that in "Recipients", I had Skip Spam Checks for Postmaster Catchall (sendAllPostmasterNP) -- and abuse checked, which basically precluded the check for "but not if other people are also in 'To:'".

After unchecking this, (and sendAllAbuseNP), the spam dropped.

Use Canned Responses to get an HTML signature in GMAIL

This might or might not appease you, gentle reader, but Mother is the necessity of invention.

Goal: Get an HTML signature in GMail. This has the added benefit of being cross browser, cross platform, and follows you where you go.
Result: eh. It's a slight pain, but cross platform.

1) Turn off your signature in GMail. (Settings, General, Signature, (*) No Signature, Save Changes)
2) Turn on Canned Responses in Labs. (Settings, Labs, Canned Responses (about half way down), (*) Enable, Save Changes)
3) Compose a message, Press Enter a time or two, then paste or create your HTML signature within the body of the message. (You might copy/paste this from Outlook or a previous email).
4) Click Canned Responses now under Subject
5) Click New Canned Response ...
6) Give it a descriptive name, click OK.
7) Now you can click "Canned Responses"/Insert (your signature here) any time you want this signature.

Hope you like it!
--
Gerald

Windows 2000 appwiz.cpl didn't open

This is an old old problem, but appwiz.cpl (Add/Remove Programs Wizard) didn't run on Windows 2000 Professional.
This post resolved it:

I had all these problems listed above-- I did this and it worked first try

Start a command session by going to Start, Run and typing
cmd
Enter each of the following commands (click OK to each confirmation that appears):
regsvr32 mshtml.dll
regsvr32 shdocvw.dll -i
regsvr32 shell32.dll -i
Close the command session by typing
exit

Then start add/remove from control panel -mine worked right away

Linux ping is it up?

if test 1 -eq `ping -q -c 1 ip.add.ress | grep "loss" | cut -d " " -f 4`; then echo "online"; else echo "offline"; fi

Updating smb SAMBA on Linux Ubuntu can't print

At a client's, I had a fresh install of Ubuntu and it could print to a network printer. I updated Ubuntu which included a new smbd install. Then I couldn't print. CUPS (http://localhost:631) told me that I have NT_STATUS_UNSUCCESSFUL.

What?

OK, ping "computername" comes up an ip address on the Internet. Yuck.

It turns out that the name resolve order changed from LAN (lmhosts? netbios?) to Internet DNS (smb.conf entry was comment out, actually). Solutions: edit /etc/hosts to include the ip/name combination of the hosting computer. Or perhaps change the computername to computername.local

Outlook won't connect if no default gateway on NIC

Outlook won't connect to the Exchange server if you don't have a default gateway on your network card. Why would you have this problem? I didn't have a default gateway because I was temporarily using the PC as dual homed (two network cards). I wanted the default gateway to be set on one card and not the other. Then I repurposed the machine without checking and using the NIC that didn't have the gateway. Outlook balked, and I panicked a slight bit. How is it possible that I have every network (Internet, files, database, etc.) and no Exchange connectivity? Especially since my other box is chugging away perfectly on Exchange. Exchange error messages actually said this, and sure enough, it was correct.

The Calorie Lie

Disclaimer: The following post is a thought exercise. It is not intended to provide medical or nutritional advice. In general, you should probably not believe anything you read in this post unless you have verified it with your own doctor or to your own satisfaction.

The premise:
Calories as a measurement in food means very little to the point of almost nothing.

The caveat:
This doesn't mean that you can eat as many calories as you want. This means that calories aren't the number you're looking for to control weight.

What's a calorie?
Basically, it's the amount of heat required to raise one kilogram of water one degree Celsius (or its equivalent value of food when converted to energy in the body.)

Why is that considered important to diet?
Here's the problem. A person is considered to "consume" calories. A person doesn't consume calories. A person consumes fat, fiber, protein, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, etc. Calories are merely a byproduct (or measurement) of the consumption. Calories burned can tell you how much time/effort it takes to convert the amount of fat, fiber, protein, carbohydrate, vitamins, minerals, etc into heat (supposedly, therefore not into fat). In essence, you aren't burning calories. You are converting food into heat/energy. How much heat it would take to do that ... that is calories.

What's the point?
In short, there are probably two numbers that make any difference to diet (weight loss): Carbohydrates (minus fiber content) and Fat. Keeping both numbers low (carbohydrates minus fiber in the 40-50g range per meal, for instance) would substantially reduce calorie count anyway (which, if one is counting calories, this would be bonus.) Following along, it's easy to see that raw fruits and vegetables (not grains like corn and wheat) are an easy accompaniment that can fill the "hunger" void without adding to the fat and carbohydrates numbers.