Scout's Paw Tracks

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

E-Mail Update

The time always comes when the e-mail server days come to an end, and so was the case with the old HP mail server. The model HP LH3 has performed flawlessly for more then seven years with out as much as a hiccup, however, all good things come to pass. It came to our team as a used and neglected server in need of a home, jilted by it previous owners for a new and shiny server. But its days were not to end on a heap of scrap in the garbage dump of ill-forgotten server technology for one cold morning in Milwaukee it delivered to its new home. Carefully it was moved from the garage to the basement and it’s second wind of life there began. It started with a simple web-page and grew into one of the all time superstars of privately owned servers. At it’s peak it was rated no less than number one on more than 80 different search engines. It’s fans, network cards, and CPUs all hummed with delight as it crossed milestone after milestone of visitors crossing it’s path. When everyone thought it had done all it could do it would then transmit the music, e-mail and chats sessions of more than a million various connection types plugged into each port and avenue of connectivity available. However today all is quite, the fans are no-long humming, the LED’s from it’s front panel finally dimmed like the last gasp of light from an aging star. Today it said it’s fond farewell’s as the silicon and circuits finally cool off after years of beating the steady drum of progress. Today was it’s day to say thank you and fare ye well for my time has come to pass. So with that the old LH3 can finally take that long and well deserved rest. With more than 3.7 million hours of continuous service the streak finally comes to an end....

Sunday, March 05, 2006

SPAM Ego Maniacs and Blacklist Providers

It is time agian for Jim’s useless and annoying websites of the year 2005. I always wait to publish this list until after all the new year hype has subsided. I am not sure why I just do. At Silverblades.net and my other various domain names, I take pride in not allowing pop-ups, not selling e-mail addresses. I also am very diligent about blocking e-mail and web spamming.

This years awards go to those sites who are self indulgent and self proclaimed defenders of the internet without a care about how those practices impact others on the web. Now for a little disclosure, most of these sites I have had a beef with at some point our another have Blacklisted out mail server.

Of 147 sites that create e-mail Blacklist for SPAM e-mail silverblades.net is listed on 11 of them (2 unique sites one of which is a web spammer and has us listed on thier other 10 websites.) the other 136 have us whitelisted since shortly after we set the mail server up years ago. Now that has some impact on people that send me e-mail since I am unable to respond to them. Yes we run our own mail server and only two people use the thing so unless Blade and Scout have figured out how to use e-mail; if they have I am taking that act on the road; I setup the separate mail server so I could,

A.) control when the mail server is and is not available
B.) so I could control the security around it.

If you have sent me a message you will have noticed the challenge response system, it is much more effective than Blacklist though I do use them as well.

So for the list

2. http://www.five-ten-sg.com/ and http://www.five-ten-sg.com/blackhole.php Needs to add a removal address so I can inform them they are blocking a legit mail server. They also should apply the SPAM rules to themselves since they web SPAM thier pages. =P Of the 12 sites that have blacklisted silverblades.net these guys make up 10 of them. Actually our site is not blocked they have blocked all of my Business Providers IP addresses or atleast the range I am in.  They probably have a beef with Charter.  These guys would have been number 1 had it not been for this guy.
1. http://www.blars.org/errors/block.html If you are using this guy as the source of your Blacklist I am glad I can not send you e-mail.  You have to read the page and check out the home page to understand the true web lunacy expressed.

We all have had enough of SPAM and anything that can be done responsibly should be done to shut it down. So there is the list albeit short this year. MX Toolbox is a great site to check your mail servers against and in my humble opinion provide a great service. If you follow the link you will see the result’s for our server.

Sunday, February 26, 2006

Updated Pedigree Database News

Where have all the updates gone? Well I have been busy validating some new data I received recently. I still have 300 records to validate before posting the new database version. The new version will contain over 6500 German Shorthaired Pointers. The validation is a two step process posted copies will contain a variety of records checked for duplicates and name misspellings. Phase two of the validation is checking for parents registration information and any other data to be discovered. I owe a big THANK YOU to Arlene Walker from Jaegerhof German Shorthaired Pointers for making a significant contribution to the database.

Saturday, February 18, 2006

Web Issues on the Silverblades.net Domain

Network Solutions the register of Internet Names failed to send an update notice on silverblades.net and the domain was deactivated by them.  The issue was resolved last night however it will take 24 - 48 hours for the name to reappear. 

Services tied to this domain name

E-Mail
Radio Station
Photo Gallery
Forums

I apologize for the inconveniance and Network Solutions has stated they will resolve the issue quickly.

Sunday, January 15, 2006

German Shorthaired Pointer Pedigee Database

The German Shorthair Pointer database inclusions have slowed recently with the holidays, now with that past us we will be updating again. Currently over 2,000 German Shorthair Pointer dogs are listed in the database, hopefully that will grow significantly over the next year.  There is a link to the search engine in the top navigation bar. If you wish to connect to a German Shorthair Pointer pedigree you can do so be searching for the German Shorthair Pointer, then use that link within your own pages to connect directly to that German Shorthair Pointer pedigree. If you have your German Shorthair Pointer pedigree in Breedmate or other database file and you would be willing for us to include the file there are several submission forms on the search page or you can e-mail the form to .

Saturday, January 14, 2006

Scout's Paw Tracks German Shorthair Pointer Site

This is currently under development, we are still working on moving the site to more more content friendly environment.  While we are still faced with a few challanges the last 24 hours have seen resolution of many of the issues we have been experiancing.  I hope that over the next few weeks and months we will have this to a stable deployment state.  Currently it is in testing and we could use your help.  Creating an account on the website and using the features to write comments about the site will be helpful. 

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Diamond Pet Food Recall

Diamond urges pet owners to return products to the pet stores where they were purchased for a full refund. All returned food will be shipped back to facility for evaluation. Contact the Diamond Pet Foods Customer Information Center toll free at 1-866-214-6945 to receive complete information on pet health concerns, along with a listing of the products and specific eastern states included in the recall. The Information Center is open seven days a week from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 a.m. EST.

Illness brought on by tainted food prompted the recall of products manufactured in the company’s Gaston , S.C. facility. For more information on the recall and to see a full list of the states affected by the recall please visit www.diamondpetrecall.net Diamond urges pet owners to take precautions and bring their pet to a vet if they show any of the signs of illness:

Loss of appetite
Yellow whites of the eyes, yellow gums, yellow in the belly or areas where hair is very thin
Severe, persistent vomiting combined with bloody diarrhea
Discolored urine
Fever