Free iPod, III

I finally got my free iPod yesterday. It did take a whole lot of time from start to finish, but I did eventually get it with no money out of my pocket. I didn’t take pictures, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.

My first impressions of it are kinda mixed. It’s much thinner but actually has a slightly bigger footprint than my old 20gb. It didn’t come with a dock or wired remote, and the power/USB/Firewire cables it came with aren’t quite long enough for my setup. With the dock/power connector on the bottom instead of the top, I’ll have to find some way to charge it while it’s sitting in my cup holder in my car. I also need to get a new car adapter, anyway. Given all that, though, I absolutely love the clickwheel instead of the buttons around the wheel on my old one. I like the thinner form factor. I like that it pauses itself when I pull the headphones out (but, unfortunately, not when I turn my car off – that would be awesome). I like that I can have the clicker sounds from the scroll wheel only come through the headphones. All in all, I’m pretty happy about it.

If you want to sign up and try to get one, use one of the following links:

• Gene: http://www.freeiPods.com/default.aspx?referer=9783111
• Jon: [removed!]

web-based spamassassin training

I’ve been using spamassassin for quite a while now. It’s a great spam filter, and supports Bayesian training on messages. Actually doing the training is a little annoying, though, as I have to log in to the server, separate out all the messages into a separate file, and then run the command line program sa-learn on that file. That finally got to be too annoying for me. I looked around quickly for some web-based training app, but couldn’t find anything. They may exist, and I may just not have looked hard enough.

Anyway, not having found one quickly, I wrote my own. It’s really simple to install and use. From the README:

You can download it here.

Note: This will only work if the user the web server runs as has read access to your mail file. To delete, it needs write access as well. This only works on mbox files. There are no plans to expand it to anything else.

Finally!

There was a problem with one of my original referrals which never get straightened out, but I finally managed to get another one and to get them to take my account off hold. Hopefully I’ll actually have it soon…

An interesting note: The “Click here to redeem!” button didn’t work in Firefox. I had to use IE to do it.

John Crichton is Alive

Everyone be sure to remember to watch or tivo =http://www.scifi.com/farscapeFarscape: The Peacekeeper Wars[/url] tonight and tomorrow. If you haven’t seen the rest of the series, you should record the miniseries and rent or buy all the DVDs and watch them first.

That is all.

I made it!

This morning, I went on my =http://www.santabarbarabiketour.comMS bikeride[/url]. I didn’t raise as much as I would have liked for it, but I guess anything is better than nothing. The ride itself was a lot of fun. I was a little worried about it beforehand, as I haven’t been riding as much as I should, and hadn’t ever been on a ride that long (30 miles) before. As it turns out, I shouldn’t have been worried at all. I had no problem with it, though some of the hills were pretty tough, and my rear wheel was close to flat for the first half of it. I checked them last night, and I really thought it looked fine. I thnk the most satisfying part of it was that some hills that would have given me real trouble a month ago were no problem at all. That felt really good.

=http://www.geekandproud.net/archives/2004/10/16/523/This picture[/url] made the whole thing worth it.

Insanity

Last night, I finished making my Thanksgiving plans. As usual, I’m going to Louisville. Apparently, not having learned my lesson from =http://www.geekandproud.net/archives/2002/12/05/23/updatestwo years ago[/url], here’s my itinerary for this year:

Yeah, that’s correct. I’m flying from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles to Detroit to New York. Then, I’m driving with my parents to Pittsburgh, and then with my brother to Louisville. At least I’ll get to sleep Wednesday night so I’ll be somewhat rested for Thanksgiving. Then my flight back is right out of Louisville, to Detroit, then LA, then Santa Barbara.

What was I thinking?

gMail import

I’ve been looking for a way to get all my old e-mail into gMail for a while now. I tried out =http://www.marklyon.org/gmailGML[/url] and gExodus, but neither of them worked quite right for me. I couldn’t get GML to run (though I didn’t try all that hard), and gExodus would keep aborting after sending the first 17 messages. I also tried using =http://www.aaltonen.us/archive/2004/04/26/tip-batch-forward-emailpine[/url] to forward it, but that didn’t work right either.

So, I finally gave up, and did it myself. It was surprisingly easy, and I should have just done it this way in the first place. First, I created a procmailrc file that looked like this:

Then, I just ran: cat old_archive | formail -Y -s procmail procmailrc. That’s it. formail splits the mbox file, and runs each one through procmail, which adds [old] to the subject, and forwards it along to gMail. Nice and simple. It even runs all my old stuff through my current spam filter, which catches a lot of stuff that was still lying around.

Updates: It didn’t work quite right the first time. It was merging some messages together, and doing weird stuff. The -Y option to formail fixes that, at least with my mbox file. Also, it goes MUCH faster if I disable the spamassassin stuff, so that’s what I’m doing the second time around. I’ll let Google catch the spam for me.

Free Ipod, II

Well, I still don’t have one. I’ve only gotten one person to actually sign up for an offer through my link. Lots of people signed up at the website, but only one offer completed.

The deal is legit, though, and =http://www.donbecker.orgDon[/url] has proof!

If you’d like to try it out (and help me out with it), my link is: [removed]

Update: I don’t need any more signups. Please use one of the following links.

• Gene: http://www.freeiPods.com/default.aspx?referer=9783111
• Jon: [removed!]

Biking for MS

Saturday, October 16th, I am going to be biking in the Santa Barbara MS Bike Tour. It is a fundraising event for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. The =http://www.santabarbarabiketour.comwebsite[/url] has all the details.

I’m going to be doing the 30 mile ride. Maps and information about that can be found here.

If you’d like to donate, please visit my donation page.

Free Ipod

Well, I guess since everyone else is doing it, I figured I might as well, too…

Supposedly, if you go sign up for this thing and sign up for one of their offers (which can cost you nothing), and get five friends to do the same, you get a free iPod. It’s worth a shot, I suppose.

Now I just need five people to use this link: [removed] and sign up for an offer.

I signed up for AOL for Broadband, and will cancel before the 45 days are up.

Anyone done this and got the iPod?

(Recommendation: Use an e-mail address that you only use for spam-related stuff.)

Update: From reading around online, it seems that it will only take a few days for it to show up that I completed the AOL offer. I’ll post another update when that happens.

Update 2: It’s now shown up that I’ve signed up for my offer, and just need five pther people to do it. Two random people I don’t know clicked through the link here, but I have no idea if they actually plan on signing up.

Update 3: I don’t need any more signups. Please use one of the following links.

• Gene: http://www.freeiPods.com/default.aspx?referer=9783111
• Jon: [removed!]