Or, more appropriately, nobody post any comments for a little while. I just upgraded the “backend” of this Web log to version 3.0 of Movable Type and comments aren’t showing up any more. While they do actually get posted (I can see them from the administrative console) they don’t make their way to the actual Web page.

Apparently, it’s a problem with the “blacklist” module I’d previously installed – it interferes with the new version of MT. I’ll correct this as soon as I get home tonight. (I would do it right now but, for technical reasons which would require a separate, and very long, journal entry, I don’t have the ability to take control of my server from work.)

Update: Okay, that’s all taken care of. Carry on.

In my last entry I talked about finding a good, free, online chess site and also my inability to locate a (for me) decent chess program.

Since then, I’ve discovered an even better chess site, Red Hot Pawn, and, via that site, a chess program, Rival Chess, that suits all of my needs.

There are a couple of things are better about RHP. One, Michelle is always notified via email every time it’s her turn to move. For some reason, which I never could figure out, she only got intermittent email notification from It’s Your Turn – although I was always notified. With RHP, she gets email all the time.

Also, I like the way that the screen refresh on RHP is much more responsive. Granted, it does use JavaScript so, unlike IYM, it’s not compatible with every browser set up (those that have JavaScript turned off for security reasons), but for most people it responds a lot better.

I did have one minor problem – Mozilla, for some reason, was unable to make any moves. I even went so far as to file a Mozilla bug about it. I found out shortly after, however, that it was actually my fault for having set a JavaScript security option that was preventing RHP from being able to do something it needed to do in order to allow chess piece movement. Now that that’s been cleaned up, I haven’t experienced any further problems.

Michelle and I are finally playing chess. Now that she’s got the basic rules down, she’s enjoying it. We found a really good online site, It’s Your Turn, and can send our moves back and forth while we’re at work.

However, I’m still looking for a good Windows chess program so that I/we can play against the computer. All of the current programs are so huge, filled with vast databases, graphics, and so on, that they are unwieldy. When I was in High School, and had a Macintosh II+, I used to play the original version of Sargon. I loved it. Totally basic two dimensional graphics without any of the, to me – although I recognize that other people do make use of this, feature bloat of all the current programs.

So – I’ll keep looking…

On a related tangent, we finally “redesigned” our terrace so that we can mount our dart board outside and play when it’s sunny. (When we’re not there, since it might rain, we just bring it inside again.) We’ve only had a chance for one quick “test” game – and, even so, had sore arms afterwards. This Summer should be fun.

I started my trip to work this morning by taking the GO train from Burlington to Oakville. Once in Oakville, I got off so I could transfer to a train that would take me to Port Credit. (Had I stayed on, I would have found myself on a train that turned into an express to Toronto.) After about 5 minutes I heard an announcement that the 7:25 train had been cancelled. So – I ended up waiting until 8:15 for a train that would actually stop at Port Credit for me.

This is not the first time that this sort of thing has happened. This past January, it was because of bad weather conditions. (This morning, it had been because a freight train had de-railed and caused problems.) I can easily understand that basic delays and cancellations are out of the hands of the engineers and those who control the traffic flow of the trains they manage.

However. By there being no train for an hour that will make local stops, it causes havoc to passengers (such as myself) who rely on using GO transit to get to work. In terms of customer service, recognising the trouble, how hard could it be for the next express train (following a cancellation) to make local stops that it wouldn’t ordinarily make – just so as to accomodate people that need to get to local train stations in order to get to work on time? Yes, this would cause those used to the express train to be delayed a little bit. But, this delay would be nowhere near as “disastrous” as for all of the passengers who miss out getting to work on time completely.

It’s just common sense.

Several weeks ago, Michelle and I paid a visit to Toronto’s Distillery District and treated ourselves to Mill Street Brewery’s new Cobblestone Stout – which is one of the smoothest stouts I’ve ever had. We wandered from one restaurant to another, having some Mill Street beers in various locations. (None of these restaurants had been open last Summer, the first time we went to the brewery to check things out.)

The last restaurant we ended up at was the Boiler Room. A little bit too “trendy” for our taste (we sat at the bar) but there was one thing about it that was really memorable. Their washrooms. You end up at a couple of hallways, with each hallway having several different doors. Inside each door is a small “cubicle” with its own toilet and sink. These are unisex, and each is completely sealed off from the other washrooms.

Personally, I think that this is how all public washrooms should be designed. Even though “public”, there’s no reason why such facilities should not be a private experience. I’ve always hated the “semi-public” experience I’ve had to live with since I was born, with simple stalls that have gaps under the walls, and walls that do not go up all the way to the ceiling. If you happen to look, you can see the person next to you. Also, sounds and smells easily travel. It’s a very uncomfortable feeling, and one that I try to avoid whenever possible. (I almost never use the stalls in public washrooms.)

So, using the private washrooms at the Boiler Room was a joy. I understand that this kind of thing is somewhat European. If so, it’s something else that we should be adopting and using more frequently over here in North America. Frankly, I’m amazed that our culture’s put up with its current lack of privacy for as long as it has.

Over this past long weekend, Michelle and I spent a day in the main Chinatown. We went to a place for Dim Sum that we hadn’t been to before, which turned out to be a mistake. The last time we went to Toronto we visited the Chinatown in the West end on Gerrard, and spent $20 for three people. (The food was actually decent too.) In the Dundas Chinatown, at our regular haunt there, we’re used to spending $20-$25 for the two of us. This new restaurant ended up costing us $35 for the two of us – which is insane. The food wasn’t any better than our regular Dundas stop. Needless to say, we won’t be going back there again.

On the way home we stopped at one of the local bakeries and picked up some BBQ pork buns. I’ve been buying at that one bakery (Kim Moon) for them for as long as I can remember, but they (or the ones specifically from this bakery anyway) were new to Michelle. For only $1 she couldn’t believe how good they were. Having had them before, I’m in complete agreement. I suppose I’m just so used to them now that it wasn’t that big a deal for me.

There’s another bakery in West Chinatown that has some very good food too – although its buns aren’t as nice.

Michelle went back to Toronto a couple days later (she took some additional days off work) and picked up a bunch of them. I’ve been bringing them to work this past week, and not only eating them for lunch but for breakfast too (normally I only have a coffee in the morning).

It’s too bad there isn’t a Chinese bakery in Burlington…

Somehere in the area where I work lurks a building that makes cookies. I don’t know where it’s located, but I certainly do know that it exists. A few times a week, as I walk to or from work, I’ll be greeted by the scent of freshly baked cookies. Things get really interesting if I’m already hungry.

Perhaps this should be used as a new form of torture…

Unbelievably, I still get spam comments posted to my journal every once in a while. Some time ago I installed an extension to Movable Type that blacklisted certain sites and keywords. I got a spam comment after that. After having gone through the pain of trying to blacklist sites, senders, and Subject: lines in regular email, I now know that that’s a losing battle.

What I’ve done now is remove the ability to post a comment immediately. In order to post, you’ve got to click on the “Post / Preview” button, and then click on Post. This two step process makes it more unlikely that any kind of automated script (yes, there are scripts out there that now hunt down blog sites and spam them) to produce this kind of garbage on my site.

It may be a bit of an inconvience for “good” posters, but I have almost zero traffic here anyway – plus, it is somewhat beneficial to see what you’re about to post anyway since, often, you catch typos and other mistakes if you see a preview.

I recently implemented a server side anti-virus solution using ClamAV. This is a freeware utility, mostly with Linux and Unix variants, but there is also a pre-packaged Windows build. It has no problem running on server.

So now, in addition to using avast! Home on my Windows workstation, I’ve also got postfix scanning every incoming (and outgoing) email message and silently deleting anything that’s infected.

I finally got fed up with seeing infected email messages in my inbox. Even though avast! properly detected them and marked them as infected – it was still a pain seeing them in the first place. (I also wanted to have a more “backend” solution to everything in general.) After doing a bit of hunting around, I was happy to stumble across ClamAV.

In combination with ASSP, this now means that I’m working towards finally having an email solution that will only deliver to me (and anybody else who’s email gets to them via Virgil, my server) legitimate, virus free messages.

Here’s a little Linux command line I came up with that keeps one directory having the same number of files in it as another directory – by deleting all of the oldest files until the file count is the same:

ls /etc/assp/spam -t | tail +$((`ls /etc/assp/notspam | wc -l | sed -e ‘s/^ *//’`+1)) | xargs -i /bin/bash -c “rm /etc/assp/spam/{}”

This will probably look like complete gibberish to most people. I had to come up with it because of an issue I was having with the way that ASSP’s spam checking worked. (If you look carefully enough, you’ll see some keywords in there that relate.)

There isn’t really much point to this entry – other than that I’m a little proud to have assembled the above.

Newsflash: This is my 100th post! (I knew that I’d be making one when I noticed that my last post was number 99 – I just didn’t know what it would be.)