I've been very fond of PC2Paper its been a site that has grown in its own little way since late 2002, and with recent changes has shed it old 80's looking logo in favor of a more modern web 2.0 style logo.

It does something that sounds rather simple and which several web sites have started to copy over the years and that is send letters and cards from the Internet. A clever idea that appears to have worked well for.

• People unable or who do not have the time to go to the post office
• Companies who can't afford their own mailing department and prefer to outsource their letter sending.
• Backpackers and students away from home sending letters back to the UK for relatives and friends who do not have Internet access.
• Older people who are unable to get to a post office because most of them are now closed in their area.
• Traveling business people who need to send letters on the fly and need it to appear coming from the UK.
• Web sites that need to send out paper versions of receipts 
• Allow the sending of one off large mail shots without needing to recruit staff to do it for you.
• The list goes on...

Tags: sendletters, realletter, snailmail, mail, PC2Paper

Ever had a problem receiving mail on your email server?

I run my own email server at home and recently noticed that I was unable to receive mail from services such as hotmail. The mail would be in the inbound SMTP queue spooling and then it would just suddenly stop and drop the connection. Mail from services such as Gmail were fine and I couldn't understand what the issue was.

Then I made the discovery that after updating my server I had forgotten to update the servers MTU. What's an MTU (Maximum transmission unit)? Well all you need to know is that its a setting on your network card and it will probably need to be set to 1458. Take a look here to get a tool that will set it all for you.

If Hollywood has taught us anything about house buying in creepy films you should check:

• The house was not built on ancient Indian burial ground
• No one died in the bath
• If its a mansion and its been sold at a fraction of its real value, its probably haunted
• The house was not built on the ground of an ancient orphanage. According to Hollywood bad things usually happen here and there will be ghosts
• The house was not built on the grounds of an old hospital, ghosts of dead patients.
• Find out if the previous occupants are still alive
• Find out if the previous occupants had a tendency to go crazy with chain saws
• Check the basement for a doomsday door or well with a crazy creature inside it.
• Check if anyone of the previous occupants were burnt alive for witchcraft. She/He will probably haunt you.
• If your dog, cat, mouse or what ever creature you have acts strange in the house or barks/squeaks at thin air don't buy it, its probably haunted.
• If your kids suddenly start having imaginary friends they never had before that ask them to climb on the roof of the house, its probably haunted.
• If your kid finds a strange scary looking doll at the new house and starts acting strange take it away leave it in the house and run. Its probably haunted.

We all despise being cold called by someone from a country on the other side of the world, we in most cases cannot properly understand, who can only follow a cold call script and do nothing else.

I admit from time time to time when I have been bored I used to get great enjoyment out of asking them questions that were not on the script.

"You are offering me a great phone deal?"
"Yes sir I just need to take your"
"Do I get free home insurance with that?"
"No sir.."
"How about air miles"
"No sir it is a new Nokia phone its a good deal there is nothing to pay for 3 months its all free"
"And how many of these phones can I get?"
"Just one sir I can take your..."
"And I get free home insurance with the phone?"
"....No sir its the best deal a Nokia.."
"But what good is a phone to me without home insurance?"
[click]

Now they have discovered just how annoyed we have become with call center staff we are unable to understand and who can do nothing more than follow scripts put in front of them they have started using automated cold call center systems. Yes you guessed it.

"Hi this is XYZ company offering you a great deal on home insurance if you'd like to learn more please press 5!"

Now who on Earth is going to buy home insurance from an automated call system? What a flaming cheek! The thing is it must work or they wouldn't try it, right?

Now I have always been a big fan of Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse although I can't help but find some of the sketches in their new comedy show together Ruddy Hell! It's Harry and Paul a bit lame and in many times un funny. Some of the sketches seem a bit extreme in my opinion and I found myself not laughing at all and struggling to find the funny side of it especially the sketches to do with Nelson Mandela. Now a show I did find funny was The Fast Show, don't get me wrong I did find some of the sketches funny in Ruddy Hell! It's Harry and Paul but not on the same level as the The Fast Show. Maybe its early days yet with this comedy show they usually take a while for people to get to know and love the character right?

Friends and family members have been dropping little hints about my technology inflicted gaining of weight recently using subtle remarks such as "you're getting fat". Anyway I suppose since I am losing my athletic macho physic (try not to laugh too hard here please). I decided to join my local gym, now trying to be rather froogle (no this is not just the name of a Google shopping experience) in the past I had cancelled my last gym membership, which had been costing me something in the region of £80 a month, a sum I thought was much better spent on home entertainment systems and the "I'm bored and need a new gadget fund".

Anyway the principle of healthy body, healthy mind and far less feeling under the weather I decided to give going to the gym another stab. I was assigned my own  person trainer who asked me all the the things I wanted to achieve (Cue an episode of Nip-Tuck "Tell me what you don't like about yourself").  I informed her I wanted to get rid of my doughnut belly, yes I don't drink that much beer but the past few IT projects I have been on has really hit it (the stomach) hard with the software developers quickest pick me up "doughnuts and coffee"..... "Mmmmm doughnuts" (slap get out of that!). My trainer set about setting me the work out from hell which involved.

• Weight lifting (3 lots of 12)
• Some climbing frame thing (3 lots of 12)
• Tummy crunches (as many until you burst into tears)
• Treadmill (3 lots of 10 minutes)
• Rowing Machine (5 minutes doesn't sound like much but it is)
• Some pulling machine thing for your abs
• Some pushing machine for your forward muscles
• Some weight pulling down machine
• Some leg pushing thingy
• A strange squatting exercise with weights

Now two days after my first workout my whole body is aching, its hard to walk, stand, sit, turn or lift anything without feeling muscle ache. My body is aching in places I didn't even realize I had muscles, oh well no pain no gain I suppose? And I'm paying money to for this? Surely I could achieve the same effect by going two rounds in a boxing rink, but then again at least the exercising  machines don't hit back! And one of the benefits of this gym I have joined is they actually have TV's embedded into each exercise machine. Now instead of vegetating at home on the sofa watching TV I can be on a treadmill watching TV! Now if only there was a way I could read my email at the same time (what a geek!)

Following up on my previous post using ASK instead of Google had me nearly tearing my hair out. It was incredibly difficult it just doesn't feel right and so many times I found myself getting frustrated and going straight back to Google as though my whole mind had been conditioned to using it anything else seemed completely alien to me. Ask had some nice features where you could narrow down your search on the right side of the screen using a faceted style navigation. Now don't get me wrong ASK was good at getting to the results it had but I found that were I was searching for a term on ASK there would be only one page of results barely 8 while on Google there would be more than 2 pages. You suddenly started to pickup on the scale of Google in comparison to ASK. It isn't just that Google is famous for returning the results you want but that it actually has a hell of a lot of information behind it. Personally though I found ASK was better at finding the results it actually had for you than Google. Maybe this is because ASK has a smaller search index and therefore less noise to get through that Google?

A few months a go we had our wheelie bin stolen. It happened on a Sunday when we were still at home the only thing I can remember happening on that day is a girl asking us if we would like to sponsor a dog, although I am rather fond of dogs I had to decline because I couldn't understand what the girl was saying and what she was saying just didn't seem right. I really didn't give it much though, I was tired and Sunday was my lying in day. It was not until later when I went to take the rubbish outside that I noticed the bin had gone, confused I looked for it walking about the whole neighborhood looking at peoples bins and getting some rather odd looks that evening.

Now I'm not sure if the girl was involved with the theft of the bin but it all seemed far to coincidental, however I never saw her again in order to ask her if she had noticed it there when she had knocked on the door. Anyway I phoned the police who took everything rather seriously they even gave me a crime number I could give to the council to get a new bin they would also phone back to take a full statement. I couldn't understand why the chap I spoke to on the phone just couldn't take down the details. Anyway I got a crime report letter and a leaflet on how to cope being a victim of crime (sounds funny for a bin theft I know). My wife phoned the council and they said we would have to spend 53 pounds for a new bin because it was not stolen on bin collection day (I should really have told the thieves to steel my bin on bin day! (heavy sarcasm)). We had no choice but to agree to the charge which I found would not be covered by my household insurance as there was an excess. We waited 2 weeks for a new bin, and eventually phoned the council when one did not arrive. The council said the bin had been delivered, we informed then that since the theft we had placed a small motion detection camera looking out of the front of the house (will blog more about this later) and did not see any one approach the house on the date and time they said they had delivered it. Eventually the council agreed to send another free bin which arrived and my wife and I promptly set about covering every inch of the bin with our house number and post code. I then installed a large chain and padlock which I used to fasten the bin to the wall. The inconvenience of not having a bin was far to much for me and prevention was the best possible option. Nothing happened for some time until Friday when my wife returned home to find someone had tried to drag the bin out from the little dip it was in by the side of the house had then tried pulling the chain around, discovered a big lock on the end and decided to leave it. The thing that frustrated me the most was I had not had the camera on that day, of all the days it was the one day I had forgotten to turn it on, however the big chain had served its purpose.

Now many thoughts had rushed through my mind:

• Why were these thieves so fascinated by my bin? I could understand the first opportunity theft but a second from the same place?
• Why hadn't they taken another bin maybe one from any of the other houses in the neighborhood that were far easier to get to than ours and some of them didn't have any identification on them.
• Was this some conspiracy by the people who sold bins to the council to make more money?

Having had a look on the net I realized this could be something to do with identity fraud via wheelie bin where they steel your bin go through it to find any identity documents so they can steel your identity or find an opportune moment to rob your house which we later discovered happened to someone else in the neighborhood. They stole his bin used the rubbish to work out where they worked and when they were likely to be home then came to the house with a white lorry one day knocked the door in and proceeded to clear out the house as though they were removal men, what a cheek!

Now the only thing I can do now is wait and see what happens next.