Hey Mom!  I'm a Columnist Now!

Yes that's right -- soon you can catch even more of my drivel and even read it in dead tree format without having to put paper in the printer.  I'm now the "On the Horizon" columnist for the forth coming PHP Journal magazine.  On the Horizon talks about the new things coming in PHP 4.3 / 5.0 so if anyone has input on that, let me know.  And I do have to put in a plug for the PHP Journal folks who are also the same ones that put out Linux Magazine.  What a nice group of people.  I've worked with a lot of folks putting on conferences before and while I've rarely met such nice people I have NEVER been paid on the spot before.  I was a speaker, showed up and they had a check ready and waiting and just needed me to fill out the 1099 form.  That's classy. 

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Asking Mail Servers About Spam?

I see that Dave's looking for this:

A feature for a mail server? 

What if every mail server supported a new feature.

An XML-RPC interface with one entry point. It takes one parameter, a user name and returns a struct containing a boolean. The boolean is true if there is such a user on that machine. It's a struct so more info can be returned later.

My email program could send a message to the server each piece of mail came from. Hey you got someone with this name, and do they send out spam? If the answer is no, filter it to the bit bucket.

Maybe I'm missing something or it's too early in the morning, but couldn't we ask the servers if they know about this person sending me the spam. I have a feeling that most of the spam I get comes from made-up people. [ Go ]

This actually exists already in the SMTP / POP3 spec although it isn't XML-RPC'd of course.  One approach to do this is to simulate an SMTP session to the server and then use the RCPT TO smtp command to see if the mail server will accept email for this user.  Please note that this idea isn't mine, I got it from Mastering PHP 4.1 which is a pretty kicking book (and where I pretty much stole this sentence from).  [ Code ]

I don't think that implementing this is all that hard and an XML-RPC interface could be wrapped around it easily enough.  It is a damn intriguing idea and one that would be easy enough to implement in a webmail client.  One problem with it though is that a lot of email address names aren't true accounts but contain metadata for bounce processing i.e. 23232 @ company.com is generally handled by a bounce routine so any replies to it trigger unsubscribe or something else.

Note: This isn't really a problem since if there isn't an account then it's probably spam but it would blow up a lot of list serve like processes.  Also there isn't anything to stop spammers from setting up their own mail servers.  What it would address is header forging which is a huge problem.

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Hmm... Are Banks Ripping Us Off ?

This is interesting.  I just had to stop payment on a check and found I could do it from the website.  I put in the check number and got this message:

Confirm Stop Payment

Stop payment on a single item:

Account: Premier Int CK IDELETEDMYACCOUNT#

Check #: 666

Please note that your stop payment can not be guaranteed until the next business day. A Stop Payment fee of $20.00 will be assessed to your account for each stop payment requested. You will be sent a written confirmation of your stop payment. Your Stop Payment request is effective for six months.

This is interesting to me.  Here the bank has eliminated the cost of human intervention and while stopped checks used to be $15.00 now they are $20.00.  What's going on here?  Of course we all know that banks have been applying fees unfairly for years now -- as an example look at the current battle over debit card transaction fees which I wrote about back in June and the Boston Globe wrote about this past Saturday.

Oh and speaking of being ripped off, if you live in the Boston area your cable bill is going like like 8 % shortly as will your high speed Internet access.  Sigh.  And so it goes.

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Jeremy is So Not Weird or How to Explain Your Weblog to Mom Over the Holidays

I just saw this bit over on Jeremy's blog:

In other news, I'm weird. According to my sister, who recently said this in e-mail: "Why do you have something about your trip to the dentist on your web site?? You are weird!"

At least little has changed since I was ten years old. :-)

I guess that means she discovered my weblog. The big question is whether to bother trying to explain it over the holiday. If I do, I'll probably also end up having to explaining it to my Mom as well. And it'll mean having to answer the "who would ever want to read about that?!" questions. [ Go ]

I just don't get this.  People who think bloggers are freaking nut cases then finish dinner and go watch MTV Real World!  Or Cops.  Or the Osbournes.  Or the Bachelor.  Or some other Reality TV show.  Hello !!!  People -- blogs are just a text version of MTV Real World or any old Reality TV show with these differences:

• They're text not video.
• You don't have to wait a week to see what happens. 
• Or you might have to wait forever if they don't update regularly.
• You get to know people at a level of intimacy that varies widely but you generally get to know how they think and what's important to them which is a lot more important.
• There are more than 100,000 different channels to "watch" perhaps as many as 500,000 depending on the metrics you believe
• Blogs include cross references to other blogs so that people don't make as many random ass assertions without something to back it up
• You can find a "channel" that you can relate to.  I mean how many people can really relate to those cooler than cool, all too hip and trendy MTV 20 year olds?  I relate much better to a somewhat geeky fellow like Jeremy or a cool programmer like Kasia.

So here you go Jeremy -- when your sister rags on you just relate it to Real World (or the Osbournes) and say "I have my own reality series that XXX people read daily" (you have the stats after all and they are way more accurate than Nielsen).  Apparently all these people find me interesting.  So Sis, how many people find you interesting?

'Nuff Said.

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Yea, Though I Walk Through the Valley of the Shadow of Bill

Well I haven't offended anyone in a while and while this isn't intended to offend, I'll probably get some hate mail.  I just woke of this morning with "Yea though I walk though the valley of death" in my head and this pretty much wrote itself.

Linus is my shepard; I shall not want.

He free-eth me from Microsoft; he leadeth me towards an open land.

He restoreth my self respect; he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for the sake of open-ness.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of bill, I will fear no evil: for thou art with; thy source and thy cvs they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the house of bill: thou annointest my head with Samba; my source floweth over.

Surely openness and source shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Source forever.

And if you want the original then it's here.

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