cozart.org

(Lots of technical stuff follows, so if you don’t want to read it, I understand.)

There have been some changes going on recently to the server(s) that cozart.org and its subdomains, etc. are hosted on, and one of the main things that we have been working on is improving the way e-mail is handled/filtered. One of the most annoying things that all people can relate to is the problem of Spam, and it becomes even more annoying at the administrative level. Spammers have a tendency to try a bunch of random e-mail addresses in hopes of getting lucky, so because of that, the email server is often burdened with scanning the e-mail for the possibility of containing spam or the occasional virus, even when the e-mail address does not exist.

Enter qmail-spp and the vpopmail_check_recipient plugin. At first I was concerned that we would not be able to use it, as we have a number of mailing-lists handled by ezmlm, and this plugin rejects e-mails for valid e-mail mailing lists. Lo and behold, there was an update to vpopmail_check_recipient that would recognize mailing-list addresses, published here. Just what I needed! Or so I thought…

Come to find out, the updated script will still validate invalid users if you have a .qmail-default file in your domain home directory, but with the way our server is setup, you have to have this catchall file in order for any e-mail to be delivered. One step forward, two steps back…

Anyways, I decided to modify the script to work for our server. It validates all users within vpopmail and valid mailing-lists, while still rejecting invalid addresses. There is an IGNORE_DEFAULT variable that when set to TRUE will ignore the .qmail-default file and actually reject invalid users. You can set this value to FALSE and it will behave as the original author intended.

You can find the modified script here.

Questions/comments/modifications welcome!

It appears from some other blogs that it is a week for birthdays, and the Cozart family is no exception! I’d like to just take a moment and wish my mom a Happy Birthday!

On another note, Bill Simmons has an excellent article on the Streaking Suns, which is well worth reading if you have the time. (Note: I am not responsible for Mr. Simmons’ somtimes crude sense of humor nor his choice of language. And I don’t really remember if he uses either in the linked article, but I figured I better add the disclaimer.)

And I know that there are going to be some comments about the Suns being overrated, or Steve Nash not deserving back-to-back MVP awards, or something along those lines, so go ahead. Sticks and stones my friends, sticks and stones…

It appears that the aforementioned sidewalk painters here at ASU went back to class over the break and learnt how to spell “maintenance”.

I don’t know whether or not I should be relieved that ASU now offers a spelling class for the sidewalk painters, or saddened by the fact that a small piece of campus character and pride has now been washed away with a single layer of paint.

To be quite honest, I am surprised at the speed with which the new paintings were completed. Being a state job, you would think that they would have to put out an RFP, do an analysis of all the bids received, and then throw out all the bids and go with a HUB.

After being pointed out to me late last week by a friend, and in the spirit of the institute of higher education that I attended and now work on the campus of, I give you this sidewalk marking, freshly painted in all its glory:

9287