We were offline for a few hours today. The site was being heavily hammered by spammers of various types, causing the load on the server to skyrocket, and our hosting provider temporarily suspended service in self-defence.

Most of the site is up and running again. Comments and the built-in search tool are, unfortunately, unavailable for the time being until we find a better way to block the spammers.

I've been doing a bunch of maintenance on the local network infrastructure lately. It seems that, in every network I've administered, one system always seems to cause a lot more trouble than all the others combined.

Yup, it's the Wi-Fi.

An open letter to Bell, Telus and Rogers

It seems that you folks, as Canadian telecom executives, are more than a little bit worried about Verizon's potential entry into the Canadian wireless market. (I saw the two-page spreads you've been running in the national dailies. They make you look terrified.)

You know what? I don't like Verizon either. And I certainly don't like the idea that our federal government might be rigging the rules to favour a big American player at your expense.