WriteBack SPAM

I turned off WriteBacks to this blog over a year ago due to the amount of SPAM coming through. Among the 200 or so WriteBacks that I received, I'd say 2% were legitimate comments, the others were hawking something or just doing whatever they could to get someone to click their link.

So, I had a few things to write tonight and took a moment to turn on the WriteBack feature for the first time since May, 2005. I was stunned to get the first SPAM attempt within 10 minutes. So, WriteBacks are off again. Sorry, I just don't have the time to wade through that much garbage looking for a legitimate comment. I also have a couple other Weblog systems installed on the server for clients, but I haven't looked into them for myself. Maybe they are a little better at filtering the stream.

Winding Down

Tomorrow is the last day of a project for a client. This was a 3 month project combining a variety of technologies (Perl, XML, Oracle, JavaScript, mod_perl and HTML::Macro). I have an 1,100 mile road trip ahead of me to get back home to my wife and fur-child (aka cat). It's always interesting to start a new project, lots of anticipation about everything from the people to the environment in general.

This was a very friendly environment, no complaints about anything within the group worth mentioning. Everyone was more than willing to help out with my questions about everything from technical issues (passwords to systems) to local issues (what do you do around here for entertainment?), and they all seemed to have some form of a life outside the company.

On the downside, there was a two week lead-in to the project start, meaning they knew I'd be there two weeks before I arrived, and it still took the IT department over a week to put a computer on my desk after I arrived. I basically had two days of reading and training to get started, so I had a full week of pondering my navel before I could do anything productive. Another contractor was hired the same day I was and turned in a resignation after the first week since a project he was trying to get hired for came through and he felt he wasn't going to be doing anything productive on the current project.

Along the same lines, after three months at my desk, there has never been a phone installed. There were only a couple occasions I needed a phone within the company, so I just walked to the next cubicle, which is disruptive to my co-workers.

Good Tech Support

The last couple tech support issues I've called in on have been a little entertaining. Someone just mentioned that they don't ever hear good tech support calls. These weren't perfect, but they got resolved quickly with a couple missteps along the way.

Today I added a new domain for a client to the server and emailed the colocation support crew to pass along the info. They were kind enough to tell me all the URL's I could use to access the new domain on their servers, not mine. Implying they added the new domain to their hosted service instead of my colocated server. A quick email and a follow-up phone call and we had it resolved in a couple minutes.

Earlier this week, I upgraded a software package on the server for plotting graphs since we have a new service going into BETA test in a week or two. I realized I was using a two year old version of the package (4.x) instead of the upgrade (5.1) I had purchased earlier this year. However, I couldn't locate the 5.1 package on the server. The vendor's website wasn't clear to me how to get an updated version of the software, so I called support.

As it turns out, the company had released version 5.2 the day before I called, which I was eligible to receive. So, support clued me into the intricacies of their download page (demo and regular software were the same, the license made them behave differently) and I was on my way. However, the download link was broken. A couple more tries and we were back on track.

So, while it wasn't perfect support, it was pretty quick and knowledgeable. I just chalk it up to the number of things that we're all involved in from moment to moment. I'm always embarrassed when I make silly mistakes (such as losing software) and can certainly allow others to do the same.