I wonder why my webcam's broken

Hmmm... What happens when I do this..?

Hello small vanMeters!

Do you remember when you looked like this?

Google Gmail still invitation-only

It's one year since Gmail was announced, with a bizarrely-worded April 1st press release. They've increased the limit to 2GB, but it's still in "beta," so you still need an invitation to get an account.

If you'd like one, send me email.

Categories: Google, Gmail.

Meet HP's new boss. Frying pan, meet fire?

So it's official. The NCR slash'n'burn supremo comes to HP, with the "unanimous" support of the HP board. Well, they would say that, wouldn't they?

Interesting how the public statement makes no mention of Carly, as if she's been airbrushed from history in true Soviet style. The closest it gets is to say that Hurd "replaces Wayman," who "was named interim CEO in February."

The 8-K is now out. Here are the high points...

1. Salary is between $8.4M-$22.4M ($1.4M base + 500% between 1500%). Although one could read it to mean that some of the bonus minima were zero, it also says that the first year's bonuses would be paid assuming target performance.
   
2. Golden hello of 1,150,000 share options at today's price and $10M in shares and cash. Most of the options are protected against falls of up to 20% in value.
3. Relocation package including $2.75M "allowance."
4. At least 25 days paid vacation.
5. An unspecified mortgage subsidy for four years.
6. Rent-free housing for one year.
7. If sacked, he gets $3.5M, vested options, and health care.

Let's imagine that HP stock goes up a modest 10% in a year. That makes his first year worth a minimum of $24M. Wow.

Categories: HP, HPQ, Mark Hurd, Carly Fiorina.

IBM's FairUCE

Cute name. IBM today announced an alphaWorks project that's been kicking around for a while. Precis: it tries to match the sender IP to the purported sender domain. If it can't find a match, it falls back to something similar to challenge/response. The theory goes:

1. All spam is spoofed, so it will fail the IP/domain match and won't get past the challenge.
2. The vast majority of legitimate mail will pass the IP/domain match, so will be delivered without needing a challenge.
3. The only legitimate mail that needs to be challenged is sent by "power" users, who will know how to deal with a challenge.

This could initially cause false positive problems for some legitimate direct marketers who use some bulk email service providers. However, the problem is quite easily fixed.

Note that this doesn't fight spam, so much as fight spoofed senders. Much like SPF, in fact.

Note also that there's been a deal of lousy reporting (say hello to WSJ and CNN), saying that FairUCE somehow spams the spammers back. What a load of old cobblers, as we say over here.

From the quotes attributed to an IBM exec, I’m worried that this mis-reporting might actually be IBM’s fault.

Categories: spam.