freeform goodness

Google launches yet another new service. Their own client is Win32 only, but, at least as far as basic functionality is concerned, that doesn’t matter as they’ve based their service on the very open Jabber (XMPP) protocol, so all of these are usable with the service. If you’ve already got a Gmail acoount, then you already have a Jabber account. Russell Beattie points out some of the nice things about Jabber here.

You can add me as a Jabber contact: marmoset AT gmail dot NOSPAM com. If you need a gmail account, just let me know in the comments of this entry.

:: Dave Walker 06:29 (EST/EDT) [+] ::

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You know, just in case.

:: Dave Walker 10:47 (EST/EDT) [+] ::

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I got a few more Gmail invites today. Regular readers/friends/acquaintances/names I recognize from mailing lists/etc. preferred.

:: Dave Walker 13:03 (EST/EDT) [+] ::

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Regular readers — I’ve got a spare invite, if anyone wants it. Drop me a line at marmoset (at) gmail dot com if you need one.

It’s taken.

:: Dave Walker 12:42 (EST/EDT) [+] ::

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I’ll be mostly offline for the next week, but checking webmail sporadically. If you need to get ahold of me, you can mail me at marmoset (a t) gmail (d o t) com and I’ll try to respond as quickly as is practical.

:: Dave Walker 21:13 (EST/EDT) [+] ::

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Note to those of you using AOL as your ISP (I’m especially directing this to some members of my family) — AOL has implemented an anti-spam strategy that relies on brute-force rather than intelligence. They are now dropping inbound mail based on the MAPS DUL, which is practically guaranteed to throw the baby out with the bath water. Because my IP address is in a DHCP range, AOL treats me as though I were Alan Ralsky or something, rather than a responsible admin who has never sent a single spam or allowed a spammer to relay using his resources.

At times like this, I really do wonder why the heck AOL bought Netscape. After all, the Mozilla project, the basis of the Netscape browser, has actually implemented intelligent spam filtering, and Apple has very successfully implemented latent semantic analysis in a widely deployed, real world mail client, so we’re definitely outside the realm of theory here. Instead of putting these sorts of smarts to work in their client, AOL puts out press releases.

My recommendation to end-users is to go with an ISP who lets you decide what’s spam and what isn’t, and provides you with intelligent tools that help you block the mail that you want to. And if I owe you email and you haven’t gotten it, maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t my fault. ;-)

:: Dave Walker 17:04 (EST/EDT) [+] ::

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Jabber is really neat technology — calling it “instant messaging” drastically oversimplifies the richness of the protocol, but it’s a nasty nightmare to set up. I have a Jabber identity now, marmoset@jabber.freeke.org. Add me to your “roster.”

:: Dave Walker 23:42 (EST/EDT) [+] ::

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If you’re a Secret Squirrel type you now have the option to send me covert stuff now using my public key, which I finally remembered to post on the site. Ooh, stealthy.

:: Dave Walker 13:50 (EST/EDT) [+] ::

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