ICQ and strange messages

For some reason, it seems i've either been targeted by a group of Germans as a victim, or the ICQ network is being filled with spammers (or whatever it's callen when someone sends you unwanted stuff via a messaging network) Firstly, it's only been a few people who would like to chat, but I'm rarely in the mood to chat to strangers at the moment. To make it even stranger, it seems that most of them are German, or thats at least what some of them write in their opening statements. If I try to look their ICQ number up, they've got empty profiles...a bit dodgy if you ask me. It took a shart turn towards "total wacko" with this latest message:

(19:36:21) 199767001: Hallo mein name ist jenna ich bin 7 jahre alt und ich bin
tot. wenn du diese mail nicht in 10 minuten an 15 personen schickst dann stehe ich heute aben an
deinem bett mit einem messer und dann will ich dich töten ... etwas gutes wird dir um 24.00 uhr
passieren, wenn du allen 15 leuten das schickst, einer ruft dich an und sagt dir, dass er dich
liebt! Du darfst nicht die mail zurück schicken

For those of you with poor german skills, it's something about me being killed, if i don't forward this "mail" to 15 people within ten minutes. First of all, how on earth is some german girl named "Jenna", being only seven, going to manage to travel more than 300km (depending on her position in germany) within ten minutes? Not even if she flies will she be able to make it. Then there's the task it self. Forward this "mail"?!? what mail? it's en instant message you stupid girl :) The final part of the message is the wierdest. It says that if I manage to send the "mail" to 15 people within ten minutes, somethin good will hapen to me with in 24 hours. This "good" thing, is supposed to someone calling me and telling me that he loves me. He!?! I surely hope not :) I'm not quite sure how I would handle something like that. Laugh in his face (or at the phone in this case)? run away screeming/quickly hang up the phone? I have no idea, but I'm guessing the latter... Hmm...another post that fits in the catefory of "random mumblings" :)

Google Search Results

I was looking through my webstats from Google Analytics, and found what search words/terms was used to find my site. Apparently someone searched for "Dennis Newel", obviously trying to find me (I'm one of very few with that name combination) but I got to think; "How easy am I to find on Google?". It turns out, that my blog wasn't as easy to find as I thought. I thought the blog would be ranking highest, given that my last name is also my domain name, and that my name apears a few times on the site. The truth is, that my profile at Blogger.com actually ranks as number one?! My blog is the third result, with a bug report to a site as number two. This seems a bit strange ot me, since I would think a bug report at a site called dev.rousette.org.uk would rank much lower than my site. It becomes quite interesting, if I use Google.dk instead of Google.com. There my new employer site ranks as number one and two, my blogger profile as number three. My blog is all the way down at number five. My guess is, that my name isn't used that much on my site, and that it should probably be in a header or a meta tag or something for it to rank higher. I'll see if it makes any changes...

E-book reader part II

It seems that my wanted e-book reader is coming along...but still a bit too slowly :) The newest version annouced is the e-book reader from a company called iRex Technologies. It seems to get a nice and big screen, and even though some of the comments is trashing it for not having a color screen, I think grayscale is fine for this kind of product. If it can handle all sorts of text files, and if it has a good battery life, I'll probably get one :)

Stuck...

What do you do, if you can't login to your IMAP e-mail account, and when you send a support ticket the reciept is sent to the inaccessible e-mail account? The answer is: hope the problem doesn't require any more information, and is solved at some point :) I know textdrive have my Gmail address as well as my normal address, so hopefully they'll use that one to ask any further questions. Update: it turned out that I just had to wait for an fsck to finish...patience my friend, patience... :)

RSS feed moved to Feedburner

I've moved the RSS feed, since I want to see how many users access it. This I cannot do using Google Analytics, and feedburner can. What this means is, that the earlier RSS feed called atom.xml has been renamed, and is now only available via http://feeds.feedburner.com/newel. Hopefully I'll be able to see how many (if any) users I have via the RSS feed :)

Google analytics

It can be a funny thing to look at website statistics. Take the Google Analytics for instance, it's pretty, easy to use and above all: Free! :) But one thing is to have it, another thing is to use it. I must admit that the statistics for this blog is rather depressing...there are only around 3-5 people here a day. I'm not sure what I expected, but somehow it doesn't seem right to write various things for so many people. Maybe that's what's been keeping me from typing away the last week or so. That and work :) Anyway, my point is...was...was going to be, that it's interesting to see what leads people here. Apparently "fma synchronize with sunbird" is the most used search phrase (well...it has two hits compared to just one for the rest) whereas "filefax gtd" has resulted in three pageviews. What's interesting here, is that all this has to do with GTD, and it probably means, that if I start writing more about GTD, I might get more readers. The only problem is, that I have nothing to write about. I have yet to get started with the method, let alone finish the book! (i'm about 10 pages short). I keep finding other things more interesting, like listening to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire :) But if my sole goal is to attract more readers, would GTD be my best bet? probably not. Even though it's a hot topic at the moment, I'm not sure there are enough readers, that a few of them might find my blog interesting. That has lead me to think about, what would "sell" a blog at the moment. My first guess, is that if your famous, it's easier to "sell" your blog. You just need to say that you have started a blog, and your fans will come running. Ofcause that requires you to be famous in the first place. Another sure way to sell a blog is by serving up porn. Pron seems to be one of the only things that keep on selling on the web, no matter how the economy is. But having a porn blog, probably doesn't help my marrige :) so that's not an option. (Btw: being a famous porn star, who started blogging would probably be a certain success) A third option would be to start blogging about religion (e.g. the "Intelligent Design" vs. Darwinism), Linux vs Windows (another kind of religion) or health and fittness (yet another kind of religion). The last option, is to have such an interesting life, that just putting up a small blob about what you did today would attract visitors. Since the first two options have already been ruled out, and the last option probably doesn't apply to me, my guess is, that is I want tons of readers, I should start discussing a sensitive subject, and probably come a cross as someone who feels very strongly about one particular side of the camp. Only problem in that, is that I probably don't care anough about the three subjects I mentioned, to be able to actually write something interesting. Oh well, I might try a few options at some point. For now, I think I've put down enough random mumblings for today ;)

An upgrade is on the way!

I've finaly found a solution to my server problems; New(er) hardware! Having been surfing the auction sites and newsgroups for a while, I managed to secure myself a slightly used motherboard with a faster processor. Perhabs I'm just being cheap, but I don't see the need to splash out 1200DKr+ for an upgrade, just because the server can't hanlde Skype. So far, it's only cost me 320DKr + shipping, and even though it's dated hardware, I find it much more resonable in price that what else I've looked at. The motherboard is a DFI AK75-EC, which seems to have gotten good reviews, and it sports a 900 MHz Duron with an unknown CPU-cooler (unknown to me anyway). It's not all that much faster than the 500MHz K6-2, but it should be just enough faster, to be able to run Skype without problems. Besides, the motherboard can handle CPUs up to an Athlon XP 2100+ (which should be a 1.73GHz processor) so if I decide it's not fast enough at some point, there is a bit more room for improvement compared to the current motherboard. It can only handle processors up to 550MHz :) Hopefully I'll get the board in a few days...

Returning from a rough weekend

What a weekend. I started out with the company christmas pinner/party on Friday, continued with a friends 30th birthday on Saturday and rounded off with my father-in-laws 62nd birthday Sunday. I didn't see much sunlight untill yesterday, ate only 4 meals from Friday evening till Sunday evening, and got quite a bit to drink. Besides spending time with good friends and family, I learned that a train station can be extremely boring at about 4:00 on a Saturday morning. I also learned that DSB uses some sort of Linux for their information system :)