I had some problems with the hard disk on my website. Looking back is was probably a loose cable, but it is scary when it seems that hard disk is about to go. Reminds you that you are mortal, and that backups are a good thing.
Anyway the Globewide Network Academy is now running on a new 200 GB hard disk, and better yet, I’ve discovered some settings in postfix that greatly reduce spam as well as postgrey which does greylisting (it requires that a message be delivered twice to be received). This hugely cut down the spam and the server load because now not every message has to go through dspam, and the few spam that snuck through the bayesian spam filter are now getting caught early.
It feels good to stop hitting your head with a hammer.
Anyway I will probably need to get a new machine. While I tried using my home machine as a replacement server, I removed some dust and did something to it that caused it not to power up. I’m now planning to spend the weekend building a new machine from parts from Fry’s, and I’ll use this to get my kids interested in the insides of computers.
All this means that I’ve taken an involuntary break from coding my finance stuff. It will give me some time to read. Also tomorrow the astrophysics lunches start up again.
Twofish's Blog 