::A Geek in Korea::

A few days ago I had a post eaten by the SPAM filter in Wordpress. It seems the IP address I have still gets put on SPAM blacklists from time to time, despite not having any recent failed scans in the last year to prove it was my machine that was sending out the SPAM.

I called the local ISP and told them I want to switch my IP address. They said I should be getting a new one each time I log on, but I assured them this was not the case. I’ve found a few workarounds and Linux commands, but they weren’t fixing the problem.

We told them that we weren’t running Windows when we called their tech support, but the person they sent over to look at the problem didn’t know how to use Linux at all. In fact, he didn’t even know how to access the Internet without Internet Explorer. No joke. He asked me, “How do you get onto the Internet without Explorer?” (Huge sigh.)

I knew it was basically going to fall to me to fix the problem immediately after that. He wasted a few more minutes of our time before admitting defeat and asking us to install Windows before we call next time we have a problem so he could “fix” it easily. (Sigh.)

It hasn’t been all time wasting disappointments. I’ve actually been getting a lot of work done recently with different applications I’ve found scattered around the Internet. I’ve posted some snippets about these before, but I’d like to bring them back up since they’ve really impressed me:

Juploader. Like Flickr, but find the official Flickr Uploadr lacking? Have tons of vacation photos you need to sort through with multiple permission levels, lots of tags, and lots of organizing to do? I’d highly recommend checking this application out, as it streamlines the process in a very visual, friendly way. It saved me hours of time organizing my Cambodia vacation picture sets. It’s Java based, so anyone can use it.

I was always organizing, transcoding, and manipulating videos to play on my Cowon D2 for my commute to work. I was always running out of materials to watch after a week. You can eat up a lot of television when shows are stripped of commercial distractions, which meant a lot of converting and processing time.

Podcasts are my new daily walking commute media. Podcasts are a pain to organize and get downloaded. If I had to do the transfers for each individual file myself, what’s the point? Podcast Ready + mypodder has automated the process entirely. I pick out the podcasts I want to subscribe, add it to my list, plug in my player, and have it download everything for me. It’s platform and player neutral, so anyone can use it on any player. Awesome. I had enough material on my D2 loaded for my trip that I never listened to the same program twice on a flight and always had something new to listen to as we flew

As for finding new software? GetDeb has been a wonderful resource for new programs to try out. Beware, some of the stuff available is beta, so it’s usually better to find the program in Synaptic and install unless there is a new feature you are dying to install.