Daves Blog

Time To Crash Wall Street?

admin — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 21:39:30 +0000

So we’re coming down to the wire on the whole ‘raise the dept ceiling’ debacle and as of this writing there doesn’t seem to be any deal in play. The pundits say that if we default on our debt it will cause unimaginable chaos. Interest rates will go through the roof, the stock market will collapse, and yes, even cats and dogs will live together.

I saw we go for it. Let’s drive this sucker right off the cliff and see where it lands. But I digress.

What we have here is a case of a weak president and a Republican party that has pledged itself into a corner. It pains me to say it but President Obama is one of the weakest presidents since Carter. You knew it wasn’t going to be easy when the GOP vowed to do everything in their power to make him a one-term president. But you’d think that after 2 years of impasse they would all see how desperate the situation is and take action.

The cynic in me says everything will be OK. A couple of calls from some Wall Street big wigs and a deal will appear out of thin air.

The realist in me sees this being a major drag on not just the US economy, but the world economy as well.

The optimist in me hopes President Obama with declare the debt ceiling unconstitutional and direct the Treasury and/or Fed to just keep on printing money and paying bills.

The basis for this hope comes from Section 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. It states: “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.” There it is, in black and white. This debt ceiling the Congress created a while back is completely irrelevant. If only we had a president with balls enough to tell the GOP where to shove it.

I do not, as they say, have any skin in this game. My mortgage has an untouchable fixed rate and I have no retirement fund. So take this next part with a couple grains of salt. If there is no deal by the deadline I think everyone with money in a retirement fund should cash-out and drain Wall Street of its ability to rule the country by way of Congress. At the very least, move everything out of stocks. I don’t know where to move it, but I would recommend any place away from Wall Street.

And another thing: When it comes time for the next election, by all means, choose the lesser of the 2 evils: vote for the Democrats. OK, they’re no picnic, but they still have a core philosophy of working for (what’s left of) the middle class. The Republicons, on the other hand, are a wholly-owned subsidiary of Big Business. Re-elect President Obama and give him a majority in both houses of Congress. Let’s fix this mess and not be fooled again by the GOP.

~Dave

Space: The Final Frontier

admin — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 20:06:26 +0000

About 18 months ago I re-started a hobby I had let go of in high school: model rocketry. Back when I was 14 or so, I built and launched a few rockets but couldn’t get any of my friends interested. There was no internet then, and I didn’t have a car, so I wasn’t able to find others with a similar interest. Fast forward to early 2010 and one of the Discovery channels runs a show on the Tripoli organization, a group of hard-core rocketeers. The term used is L.A.D.A.R: Large and DANGEROUS Rockets. Some of these rockets are 10 to 20 feet tall and go sub-orbital. When the kids saw the show they wanted to know more. So when spring came around I found the Northern Illinois Rocketry Association in the Wheaton, IL area. NIRA has a launch or 2 every month from spring through fall, weather permitting. We attended a launch and we were hooked. On the way home we stopped at Oak Ridge Hobbies and bought some kits and launch supplies so that we were ready the following month.

At our 1^st launch day we had mixed results. Our 1^st rocket was a ready-to-fly Estes - it had 3 great flights and 2 great recoveries. The 3^rd launch was picture-perfect, but when the ‘chute opened the wind caught it and carried it the better part of a mile down-range and into the swamp. I searched and searched but it was lost. The 2^nd rocket was an Estes Alpha kit. My daughter wanted me to paint it pink but that wasn’t going to happen. So I compromised on fluorescent pink with black nose cone and fins. It looked like a crayon and so we named it the Cray-Rock. The 1^st launch was a miserable failure. We were the victim of a bad rocket motor that torn through the body tube. A little tape and some glue and we were ready to try again. The 2^nd launch of the Cray-Rock was perfect and it landed with 10 feet of the launch pad! But launch #3 had another bad motor and this time the damage was not repairable. The 3^rd rocket was an Estes Big Bertha kit and after seeing the the other two rockets, I was less than impressed. It flew only once and without incident. We’ve been building and flying rockets ever since. The kids really love the 3, 2, 1 press-the-button part. I tend to get stuck with the finding-where-it-landed part.

Several years ago we inherited a very basic refractor telescope. It’s the type you might find a K-Mart during the holiday season. But it’s powerful enough that we could make out Jupiter and some of its moons last year. The kids thought that was just the best so I’ve been looking for a good ‘scope ever since. My goal is to do some lunar photography, the kids just like looking at stuff that’s really far away. A couple of weeks ago Craig’s List turned up the exact model I’ve been drooling over: the Meade ETX90-AT. It was a complete package: the ‘scope with upgraded optics, the deluxe outdoor tripod, and a set of 7 Plossl lenses. It took a 2-hour drive to get there but one look and I could tell this baby had barely been used. It was late when we got home that evening but that didn’t stop us form looking at the moon for a while. The view was spectacular! A couple of days later I found that a local astronomy group was having their annual “Star Party” so we loaded up the Mommy Van and went off on a star-gazing adventure! I learned so much about how the Meade (and ‘scopes in general) works that it was completely worth all the mosquito bites. I was even able to view Saturn and make out the rings. And once again I got double-extra hugs for being the Coolest Dad. So I got that going for me. Sadly, it’s been so oppressively hot and humid that it’s just not much fun to be outside at night. But this too shall pass and we’ll be out there learning about orbital paths, declination, right ascension, and all sorts of other astronomical stuff. And my kids will grow up with an understanding of, and a love for science.

~Dave

Scott Walker’s Mubarak Moment

admin — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 02:08:37 +0000

Newly-elected Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, in office for barely a month, is trying to force through a budget that is clearly balanced on the backs of the public employees of the state. He claims he must do this in order to close a budget gap. He also insists that these state workers must give up their rights to collective bargaining.

For the last 6 days there has been a growing number of people at the capitol building in madison, Wisconsin to protest this plan. As of this afternoon the number was estimated to be 30,000. These are teachers, firefighters, police officers, and other, non-state workers who are there to make themselves heard. Also joining the protest are students from the University of Wisconsin. If Walker’s budget is passed it will mean drastic cuts to their schools funding.

The measure was set to be voted upon toady but in a rare show of backbone, the 14 Democratic state senators left the capitol, in fact they left the state. This prevented the budget from coming up for a vote as Wisconsin law requires a 3/5’s quorum of the legislators must be present. The governor then issued orders to the state police to round-up the missing senators but it seems they were more than just a little reluctant to do so. Further, it has been stated that the senators went south to Illinois to avoid their own states police force.

Governor Walker has stated he will call out the Wisconsin National Guard to perform the jobs left vacant by the protesting state employees. He has also vowed to have the Guard clear the capitol of protestors. At this point I have to say to Governor Walker: Have you seen what’s been going on in Egypt over the last few weeks? Do you see any parallels between the two situations?

But this is much larger than Wisconsin. This is Ground Zero for what’s left of the labor movement in the US. At least 5 other states are looking to try this same sort of union-busting tactic. This is, of course, just the latest attempt of the GOP to undermine the base of the Democratic Party. Organized labor has always been at the core of the Democratic base so the Republicans will do anything they can to erode it.

But I suspect that if the Wisconsin governor holds true on this course he will find himself in the middle of a recall vote by the very state that elected him. It won’t be quite like the way Mubarak left but it won’t be a whole lot better.

~Dave

Commando Week: An Immodest Proposal

admin — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 16:32:00 +0000

Airline security in the US continues to be largely a matter of window dressing – the ultimate Theater of the Absurd. The latest wrinkle in this already twisted tale is the growing use of the Full Body Scanner. This is a type of x-ray machine that can see through whatever you’re wearing to produce an image of your body that the late Bob Gucnione would have been proud to publish. I’m no prude when it comes to the human body. I’ve attended Burning Man twice and on both occasions I spent plenty of time wearing nothing but shoes, a hat, and a smile. But that was my choice. No government agency made me do it. And, of course, not everyone shares that same joy of nakedness. In fact, some people are very insecure about their body and wouldn’t be caught dead unclothed in public. And they certainly wouldn’t want a random TSA worker viewing their body scan image on a screen, no matter what. We’ve been told time and again these images are secure and that only the TSA agents will ever see them. And yet such images keep popping up on the internet. And all the time there is no demonstrable increase in airline security. Now you DO have the right to opt-out of the full body scan but you will then be subjected to a much more thorough pat-down type of search.

What we need is a movement. So in the great traditions of “Draw Mohammed Day” and “Boobquake” I would like to immodestly propose Commando Week.

From November 22 through November 29 I encourage all US travelers to skip your undies when you dress prior to your flight. Further, women should wear a skirt and men should wear a kilt. At the security line, tell the nice TSA person that you do not wish to go through the full body scanner and would happily stand for the enhanced pat-down. Feel free to tell the agent assigned to you about your lack of undies – or let them discover this on their own. Either way you should be prepared to moan and sigh erotically while being searched.

If 2 or 3 people on every flight do this I suspect the TSA will very quickly change the way they do business. And even if they don’t you can at least say you tried.

Best of luck and let me know how it goes.

~Dave

Book Burning Is Bad, M’kay?

admin — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 17:35:02 +0000

So a group of intolerant knuckleheads who call themselves “Christian” have decided it will be a good idea to burn copies of the Qur’an to mark the anniversary of 9/11. To borrow a phrase from SNL: Isn’t that special. It must be nice to always be so right about everything. If only the rest of us could be so (self)righteous – all our problems would magically disappear! Just think about it: If we all embraced this extreme, fundamental Christian way of thinking there would be no more unemployment; no more global warming; no more Gulf oil spills; no decline in education. Why, everything would be perfect! How cool would that be?! And all you have to do is believe that an invisible, omnipotent sky-daddy raped a young, married woman and the child became equally all-powerful but could not prevent his own death at the hands of non-believers. Makes perfect sense!

Oh, and I really love the argument General Petraeus is trying: This will endanger our troops. Bull Shit! I’m pretty sure our troops can take care of themselves. And if burning a couple of their holy books should cause the entire Islamic populace to rise-up as one against us, well then maybe they were right all along.

I’m marginally concerned about the potential for increased violence against non-Islamists around the world. But then maybe it isn’t such a good idea to build a church in the middle of a predominantly Islamic neighborhood in a country that doesn’t care so much about religious freedoms. It’s funny but none of my Islamic friends have ever tried to convert me to their religion. And that’s a lot more than I can say for the various flavors of Christian insanity that prowl the sidewalks of my town on Saturday afternoons.

So I’d like to propose a counter-demonstration to the Doves in Florida: At the same time they start tossing Qur’ans into the fire, let’s toss bibles into a bonfire of our own, right across the street. In fact, I’ll go 2-for-1 on the deal.

~Dave

A Note About Comments

admin — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 14:48:56 +0000

First and foremost I want to thank each and every one of you who have found your way to my BLOG. I also want to thank those of you who have chosen to write meaningful comments. I want you to know that I read every comment you leave. I do not, however, post any of them. It’s nothing personal. Really, it’s not. I don’t post comments mostly it’s because I’m too lazy to do a proper job of it. But the other big issue is that most of the comments I get are SPAM. I get everything from ED & name-brand watch ads to land deals & ways to trick search engines. There’s just no way I will post SPAM comments. But I will turn those e-mail addresses into SPAM-bait.

Over the weekend I added a page to my site where I will post every e-mail address left with a SPAM comment. Over time, various address-harvesting bots on the internet will find them and pass them along to the lists used by spammers. Those addresses will then be overwhelmed with SPAM.

Of course that says maybe. What is more likely to happen is that I will have to begin blocking IP addresses. When someone leaves a comment I get all sorts of information, including the IP address it was sent from. So I could go to the trouble of blocking repeat spammers but that’s probably much more trouble than it’s worth. So for now I’ll just add your little address to my ever-growing SPAM-bait page.

Have a nice day.

~Dave

Rocket Launch Day – Aug 15, 2010

admin — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 15:26:36 +0000

I took the kids to see some model rockets launch a month ago and they thoroughly enjoyed themselves. So I bought a few kits and we built rockets and learned how they work. Yesterday was the August launch day for the rocket club we visited so we loaded-up the Mommy Van and drove to a forest preserve in Glen Ellyn for a sunny afternoon of ballistics.

Mike’s rocket was the ready-to-fly Estes Riptide. All it needed was a motor and it good to go.
Suzie’s model needed assembly. It was an Estes Alpha kit which consists of a cardboard tube, a plastic nose cone, and 3 fins made of balsa. We painted it fluorescent pink with black accents. Everyone who saw it thought it looked very cool.
Mine was an Estes Big Bertha that I painted white with black accents.

We launched Mike’s first and it performed flawlessly! The wind was coming in from the west so the launch rods were angled to account for the added drift. Even with that, Riptide landed about 50 yards upwind. Amazingly, it landed right on the path from the parking lot!

Suzie’s CrayRock (Crayola Rocket) didn’t fare so well. It was the victim of a faulty motor. It went up about 20 feet then flew straight into the ground. When the parachute deployment charge fired it drove the nose cone 2 inches into the ground! Damage was minor and was repaired with some glue and masking tape.

My rocket was up next and it flew well, although not very high. Big Bertha needs a Big Engine. Next time for sure!

Mike’s 2nd launch was similar to his first. I had switched from parachute to streamers and the landing was actually closer to the launch zone.

Suzie’s 2nd launch was picture-perfect and recovery was remarkably easy – just the way it’s supposed to work!

Mike’s 3rd launch was another beauty but instead of flying into the wind it went straight up. The winds carried it about three-quarters of a mile down range, well into the swamp. I went looking for it but I don’t think we’ll ever see it again.

Suzie’s 3rd launch fell victim to another bad motor. This time CrayRock barely got off the pad when it dove into the crowd. When the ‘chute charge went off it made a rip in the body that is not repairable. One of the fins also broke off in the melee. CrayRock Mk 2 will fly next month!

Despite our losses a good time was had by all. And the Quest Model Rockets will be hearing from me.

~Dave

Posting An Item On CraigsList

admin — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 15:35:37 +0000

I decided to get rid of an old sidebar/cabinet the other day. It belonged to a long-deceased relative and has already made the rounds within the family. But I did not want this piece tossed into the back of a garbage truck. It was a beautiful item, polished ebony finish with reliefs of Japanese themes. The interior had some damage to its laminate but this was a solid piece of furniture.

So I place an ad on Craig’s List in both the Free and Furniture sections. The responses came fast & furious! Within 5 minutes I had 3 messages asking if it was still available. One person e-mailed 4 times asking if it was available, what time could she pick it up, what is your phone number. Another gave me a sob-story about her brother’s suicide attempt and wanted to know if she could give me a deposit to hold it until Tuesday evening, blah, blah, blah…

While dealing with all these messages I saw a car pull up and watched as two people loaded the cabinet into the trunk. Success!

I went back to CL and edited my posts to state the item had been picked up. I still got two more e-mails: One asking if it was still available(!) and the other from Sob-Story. I then realized the proper thing to do is delete the posts so I did and I’ve received no additional e-mails since.

Here, for your enjoyment, are the e-mails I received and the responses I sent. These are NOT edited – they are as received & sent!

Desiree 7:02pm Hey I would like to now if I can go pick up Japanese Theme Side Bar?
Me 7:35pm It is on the curb – you are the 1st reply – bring a truck and some help – I will not help load it.

Elvis 7:07pm Hello, is of still there ?
Me 7:35pm It is on the curb – you are the 2nd reply – bring a truck and some help – I will not help load it.

Shelia 7:09pm I would love it. I can be reached by email at: *******@att.net or by phone at ***-***-****
Me 7:36pm It is on the curb – you are the 3rd reply – bring a truck and some help – I will not help load it.

Desiree 7:55pm O ok. Just tell me what time we can go pick it up?
Me 7:57pm It is on the curb now – it will be there until someone takes it or until trash pickup Tue morning

Desiree 8:01pm Can I go pick it up right now?
Me 8:03pm yes

Desiree 8:08pm Ok. Can I have a number of where I can call you to let you know of when I get there plz.
Me 8:09pm It is on the curb – I do not plan to be home. Come and get it if you want it – 1st come – 1st served.

Pokella 8:14pm “ΘI0T„�E€8€�€Δ
Me: 8:15pm ???

Shelia 8:22pm Thanks for your quick reply. I gues I didn’t read the ad as well as I should have. I have had a lot going on. I just back in the house from visiting my brother who tried to commit suicide Monday and today I was busy at the hospital because they are talking about moving him to a state hospital for futher evaluation and help. I wish you had still had the bar in the house beacuse maybe I could pay you a holding fee till Tuesday when I could get the truck and help to get it. But with my brother and all I don’t have time till Tues.
I also lost my job in April 2010 and am being forced to moved by the end of Aug 2010. Oh well.. thank for answering so quickly with your email. You wouldn’t believe how many people don’t even bother answering one way or another.
I guess I just lose out once again but at least I got to see your beautiful Japanese bar and to see something that beautiful lifts one’s spirits at least for a second or two.
Thank you.
Sheila ***-***-****
Me 8:24pm It is gone – picked up 5 mins ago.

Shelia 8:30pm Thanks for the reply. As I said…Once again…lost out. Whether it be CL or life.. I’m tired of trying. Why bother. The result is always the same.
I don’t expect you to respond to this reply. I merely wanted to vent or reply or whatever.
Thank you and kind regards.
Sheila

Pokella 8:45pm ”ΘI0T„�E€8€�€Δ
Me No Reply

(received after the post was edited to add “TAKEN!”)
Eva 8:52 can u tell me where its at 773*******
Me 9:03 No idea – it has been taken.

So the lessons I’ve learned:
People will take things that are free
People are idiots

More about idiots to follow.

~Dave

Let Me Tell Ya ’bout My Weekend

admin — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 12:21:08 +0000

The 4th of July holiday is always more fun when it falls on a weekend. This year the 4th was a Sunday so that meant 3-day weekend for yours truly. But since things rarely go as planned, this one turned into a disaster.

Despite my previous rants, we decided to go with Postini for mail filtering. I made the appropriate MX record change Friday afternoon and planned to check-in at various points over the weekend. My 1st attempt was Friday evening around 6:30. Within 2 minutes of being connected my link failed. This was VERY annoying, but not the end of the world. I had a patch from HP so I drove back to the office, applied the patch, and promptly lost both network cards in the server. A 3-hour call to support ensued at the end of which I still had no network connectivity. The tech said she would have a replacement motherboard sent but that would not happen until Tuesday because of the holiday.

So I decided to buy a pair of PCI-express network cards and install them Saturday morning. I was the 1st one in the CompUSA store at 9am and found exactly what I needed. As I pulled into the office parking lot at 9:45 I was greeted by a ComEd truck. The driver told me the power was out and that he needed me to open the back gate. When we got out to the pole we found a dead bird at the base. We assumed that to be the cause of the outage so Dexter (his real name) replaced the fuse and closed the circuit. Still no power so the problem must be further on up the line. And I’m sure Dex would have found it, too, if not for a line down in the street a couple of towns over that required his immediate attention. So I gave him my cell number and asked him to let me know when he would need me back. I locked-up and took my server home to work on it to the extent that I could.

I called the ComEd service line later on but I couldn’t get any sort of acknowledgement so I decided to return the server, with the two new NIC’s. The lights were still out but a flashlight helped me make the connections. I once again locked-up and drove home. I received a call around 4pm from another ComEd repairman but he didn’t have any update for me. The automated system said repairs should be completed by 5pm but I wasn’t about to hold my breath. When I called again at 5pm the system said repairs should be complete by 10pm. Whatever.

Sunday morning, bright and early, I called ComEd again and this time they had no reported outages for the address in question. So I drove in yet again and was pleasantly surprised to see the light on over the front door! I entered the building and happily turned-off the alarm. I was so thrilled I could finally put my server issue to bed and maybe salvage some part of my holiday weekend. When my SBS server came up I checked its network settings and made sure everything was connected. I was able to access it from my desktop and the whole thing looked OK until I tried to get on the internet. My SBS box handles all the internet traffic so I immediately thought one of the new NIC’s was messed-up. I have another server with a similar configuration and it couldn’t access the ‘net either. That meant a call to AT&T.

If there is a Hell, it is filled with people trying to reach Tech Support at AT&T. We spent a good two hours on the phone, trying to determine the exact point of failure. The initial call was not successful. It wasn’t until I returned to the office an hour later that we were able to isolate the problem: the WIC module in the router had failed. Support created a request to have a replacement sent and I made of point of asking if it would be shipped on Monday.

AT&T’s Tier 1 & Tier 2 was out-sourced to Malaysia (or someplace like it) a long time ago and they don’t know from US holidays. I was assured that it would, in fact, ship on Monday for a Tuesday delivery. I passed that info along to the boss and went about the business of enjoying what was left of my weekend.

Late in the afternoon of the 4th we looked online for fireworks displays in our neck of the woods. We decided to make the trip out to Beecher, IL for their 10pm show. As we drove into town we could see the streets lined with people and their lawn chairs, blankets, etc. Beecher hosts a 4th of July Festival that reminded me a lot of the Carnival that Dolton used to hold every year (before the gangs and the Shaws took over). We found the corner of a side street next to an open parkway and plopped-down in the middle of a dozen-or-so other families. The fireworks show was perfect! We were far enough away that the explosions weren’t deafening, while still close enough for a good, unobstructed view. I think we’ll go back to Beecher next year on the 4th. Only we’ll get there earlier in the evening so we can enjoy their Festival.

The ride home was wonderful: driving along the expressway at 65mph with the top down on a warm, summer night is almost as good as having the boat out on the lake. We stopped at a McDonald’s and ate under the stars. And a good time was had by all.

As previously mentioned, the 4th was on a Sunday this year. For most towns this works out pretty well. For the village of South Holland, this is nothing short of a crisis. There is still a strong Dutch/Hollander influence at work in South Holland so there was no celebration on the 4th. Instead, they held everything on Monday, the 5th. And that included their fireworks display. So we got to enjoy 2 shows over the weekend – nothing wrong with that! In fact, the South Holland show was quite spectacular! We found a small rise in the terrain near the firing line and parked our oversized blanket and non-matching lawn chairs. The show lasted almost 30 minutes and the finale was amazing! Great job South Holland!

Tuesday morning did not go so well. My first task was to verify if AT&T had shipped the part. They hadn’t. I then had to break the news to the boss, who was not happy. My next job was to start working the phone to find anyone with a compatible WIC or router I could get my hands on. I struck pay-dirt with a friend-of-a-friend at a telecom company in Schaumburg. I was able to borrow an older router, complete with T1 WIC, and get it in place by 1:30pm. We were still experiencing some flaky, inconsistent internet issues but we were once again able to send and receive e-mail. Finally, I could take a deep breath, look around, and assess the damage.

Wednesday came and went in a blur. The replacement WIC arrived at 10am but I did not install it until late in the afternoon. It worked as expected so I was able to focus on the internet problems. But by this time it was too late in the day to deal with and since I had a new motherboard on the way from HP I didn’t want to create any new problems.

Thursday also slipped by in a flurry of phone calls to various contacts and vendors, looking for a backup for our troubled T1. The motherboard arrived for the server but that had to wait until after hours. Sometime around 5:30pm I shut down the server and performed the motherboard swap. Windows booted after a couple of false-starts but it refused to become a part of the network. I had left the RealTek NIC’s installed so I could transition smoothly back to the built-in NIC’s. That didn’t work so well. I ended-up having to disable the built-in NIC’s. After that, the server booted with full network access. Our e-mail is moving in and out like nobody’s business and the internet has never worked better. I just wish I knew why.

~Dave

Postini Sucks! And I’m Not Even A Customer!

admin — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 18:15:46 +0000

I’m the IT Admin for a small manufacturing company. We have an Exchange server for our e-mail. In the year I’ve been here we have used Trend Micro’s anti-spam and AV app. It’s not a bad product but I’m always looking for better/faster/cheaper. So I’ve been researching anti-spam systems. They seem to come in three flavors: On Site App; On Site Appliance; Hosted Solution.
Trend Micro is in the 1^st category – it’s an app that is installed on the Exchange server.
The 2^nd category covers products made by Barracuda and others. It’s a box that sits in your equipment rack – all your inbound and outbound mail pass through it.
The 3^rd option is a service that filters your mail before it gets to your server. You tell your mail record to point to the service and they do the scrubbing before passing your mail to your server.

I’m leaning toward Door #3 as having the best reliability and lowest overhead. One of the highest-rated contenders is Postini. Postini was one of the pioneers of this technology and became a leader early on. A while back they were purchased by Google, and that should have been a good thing. Sadly, that seems not to be the case. I want to use and like Postini, I really do. So I went to postini.com and filled-out the online form to have a sales rep contact me. And then I waited. A couple of days later, when I still hadn’t heard from them, I went to the web site again and filled-out the form and waited. I repeated this process every day last week. I then went searching for a phone number. I found this one: 866-767-8461 and blew in a call. I got voicemail. There’s a big surprise. I have now used Postini’s online request form 6 times and have left 5 voice mails for them. And still no one has contacted me. Is this really the state of business service in this country? More searching, ironically, using Google. I found a non-toll-free number: 650-253-0000 and after wading through their phone tree I finally pressed 0 and eventually got a live person. I told him I needed to reach Postini Sales. He put me on hold for a moment but when he came back on he announced that he did not have a phone number for Postini. Really? The world’s largest search engine doesn’t have a phone number for Postini?! Un-freaking-believable! I believe we have a winner in the 2010 Irony Awards! Quick: someone call Alanis Morissette!

~Dave