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RETURN (the webmaster's own SF/historical novel)

As of 24 March 2008, early copies of ReturnWhat lies beyond the passageways? are now available. Support independent publishing: buy this book on Lulu. Be in now if you want to be among the original few owners of this lifetime's work.
Short precis:It is transcribed by an eighteen year old boy (no longer). After discovering a burial chamber hidden on the outskirts of his city, he sets out to find out why it exists, who is buried there. It conceals some kind of secret- something that could threaten the natural order of things as he knows it. Nevertheless, he cannot dismiss its existence or the risk if someone finds out what he knows. As he slowly understands, his life changes forever. As events unfold he must embark on a journey his people have not travelled in a millenia to encounter an enemy they have never defeated. Is it a fool's errand, or does he know something they don't?

Website moved to new home

As from 6 November 2006, this site has a new home. It is now being hosted on our own server running under Ubuntu Linux in our office at:
16 Hudson Ave,
Upper Hutt 5018
New Zealand

Over the next few weeks, we will be ironing out any unexpected issues and anomalies as required. If you spot something that needs attention, please drop us a line using the feedback form at the bottom of this page. It would be appreciated.

Bot capture automated

As from 29 March 2006, the identification and logging of web bots became completely automatic. These pests are spread by viral means or sometimes by hacking. Often under the control of one webmaster, they can act individually or in combination to carry out anything from distributed denial of service attacks (DDOS) to key logging (capture of personal or secure information from web users). These things are also known for spamming attacks because their distribution makes it most difficult to identify the real source of the problem. Their one weakness appears to be that they behave like mindless automatons, repeatedly submitting to the same places. The results of monitoring their activity are available along with instructions on how to protect your website/scripts from attacks at Where are the BOTS?. Here you can find a list of IP addresses grouped by number you can capture for your own use.

Email issue fixed

As from 12 December 2005, a mystery has been solved. For several months, quantities of returned email appearing to come from our domain had been arriving from servers where the recipients did not exist. For a time, we did not know why, but believed it was being sent by unknown systems. Then two unknown files were discovered on the server, named cgiecho.exe and cgiemail.exe. Since they had not been placed there by anyone known to us, we guessed they might be involved and re-named them. In the days following, the amount of returned junk mail trailed off to nothing, leaving little doubt that someone had placed them there to relay their email from an unknown sender.

If you have files like these on your server, and have such problems, perhaps you should consider treating them in the same way. The internet has enough junk mail already!

Freemerchant Shop Closed

From 5 November 2005 our freemerchant shop site no longer functions. Over coming months, work will be undertaken to replace it with one based on the makepage script. This decision was prompted by several factors.
  • Cost of running the shop from year to year.
  • High proportion of fraud attempts by dishonest individuals (all failed).
  • Low numbers of genuine orders.
  • Greater success being achieved by servicing local (face to face) customers who appreciate personal service.

Orders may still be placed at our office by phone/fax at 64 4 5286786.
We wish to thank all our Safe Account customers who have stuck with us over the years. If your card has expired, please update your account according to the procedure at:SAFE ACCOUNTS
Due to a server upgrade, previous script submission links are no longer available. Currently, the following scripts may be used for link page submissions:
  • http://www.spunge.org/~johndurh/cgi-bin/links2s.cgi Emails you once (restricted to Link-O-Matic & manual submissions)
  • http://www.spunge.org/~johndurh/cgi-bin/mattslinks1.pl Collects a database of links and emails you once (restricted to worldsubmitter submissions)

All other FFA pages permit only direct personal submissions due to abuse by other submission scripts. Other scripts are no longer supported.

Developments

  1. We now have quantities of passive components (resistors, capacitors) available for electronics projects
  2. There is room for another trainee, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays 3:30 to 5:30pm would suit a college student with interest in electronics.
If you have received any virus laden email:
Address Stolen partial email address was stolen from a form around 25 August 2003. Please note: This was not a complete address. The one taken is NOT (and never has been) used by this system. The original from which it was taken was intended only to return feedback to the webmaster, and was not sent to others on any emails either. Following this, the webmaster began receiving returned mail from unknown addresses bearing signs of virus like content. Consequently, we believe the address was stolen by a spider, since it could not deduce the whole address. This same spider or its owner then used it to spam others with messages carrying a viral payload.
Possibly as a result of the activity of this nasty, our web server began experiencing problems starting around 28 August. All feedback forms were rendered inoperable.

We apologise for this break in our normal FREE support service.
Forms update was completed on Thursday 4 September with several new enhancements to prevent this happening again.
You may download a copy of this system (Feedback Master) for your website at our downloads page.
Note: Although help files are provided, it would be an advantage if you have some knowlege of Perl script and html when setting this up.
Our address used by somebody else:
Some months ago, our old form address (m|o|d|f|o|r|m|@|m|o|d|e|c|i|d|e|a|s.c|o|m) was withdrawn and changed due to spamming by others. We recently discovered someone has been sending unsolicited messages using it as their own address. Note: Such messages did not originate here. We do not know who is responsible (but we would like to).
Top technology stories
 

A major cleanout of broken links has been carried out on 28 March 2006
If you would like to give your site the treatment, please visit: Link testers and checkers
As a result of the cleanout, new space has become available on our permanent links pages. Please use the form on this page to request a link.

Latest virus alerts from Trend Micro Free scan click here


Virus Map


More Antivirus/Trojan links you can try

TrojanScan
Bit Defender
thefreecountry.com
PCpitstop Antivirus Scanner
Kapersky Labs
Links to online security information and security software
McAfee Security Scan
Free Antivirus Software
AVG What is Trojan Horse?
Detecting and Removing Trojan Horses
Securing against Viruses and Trojans
Advanced anti trojan scanner Download Free TDS-3 Evaluation
anti.trojan.org
anti-trojan-security.com
Digital Patrol — powerful Anti-Trojan Scanner

Updates to pages on this site


Where are the BOTS? (29 March 2006)
What are the essential things users need to do to maintain a PC?(17 February 2006)
How to use the makepage (web page generator) script (30 August 2004)
What is the latest news for developers?(3 May 2004)
What are the latest virus warnings?(3 May 2004)
What is the latest news on computer security?(3 May 2004)
What is the latest news on the open source scene?(3 May 2004)
What is the latest news on robotics?(3 May 2004)
What is the latest news from the wireless sector?(3 May 2004)
How do I find equivalents and specifications for old diodes?(22 March 2004)
What disadvantages do voice recognition systems have?(18 February 2004)
What advantages do voice recognition systems have?(18 February 2004)
How do I identify leads on older transistors from their markings and case types?(29 January 2004)
How do I identify capacitors from their markings?(1 January 2004)
Get/manage/create Safe Accounts(1 September 2003)
How do I find out if my idea has already been patented? Is there a place to check all things patented?(27 August 2003)
If a product has been patented, how long does it take to get into the public eye?(24 July 2003)
What do the colour codes mean on resistors?(16 June 2003)
What are the standard pinouts for my monitor's VGA connector?(15 June 2003)
Symantec FREE security scan (5 June 2003)
Rules of Speed Chess?(27 April 2003)
How can I use pictures to help present many different pages from my site?(26 April 2003)
What's your browser broadcasting to the internet?(26 March 2003)
Added NZ News to community centre(27 January 2003)
Added Scenic Attractions to community centre(20 January 2003)
What is the Partition Table?(12 December 2002)
What is the Boot Record?(11 December 2002)
What is the FAT?(10 December 2002)
Multivac(3 December 2002)
What sort of transistor is this?(21 November 2002)
Added Multiprocessor Development Challenge to the Star Trek Tech section(14 October 2002)
Updated all the FAQ help pages(1 October 2002)
Redesigned the arcade into a Community Centre(17 September 2002)
Downloads now with FREE CDs(28 August 2002)
Where we are using maps etc(9 August 2002)
Recycling PCs(24 June 2002)
Matts Links Page #2- Leave your link(21 June 2002)
Matts Links Page #1- high traffic submissions(21 June 2002)
Batteries for everything from Batteries.com (10 June 2002)
Google search in your email
Just click this link and enter your search keywords in the email subject line. Results will be sent to your email address. (18 May 2002)
Have the details of my new e-Book emailed to you!(15 May 2002)
My Netscape email got corrupted. How do I recover my address book?(1 May 2002)
List your site with our FFA pages directory(5 April 2002)
All sorts of file formats (18 January 2002)
Directory of Book & eBook publishers, suppliers and resources (13 January 2002)
What is PGP and what can I do with it? (7 January 2002)
How to get thousands of hits to your website (14 November 2001)
Winsock resource information (1 November 2001)
FFA Links page 9 (18 October 2001)
Link testers and checkers (3 October 2001)
FFA Links page 8 (17 September 2001)
Visit our Portal/Get your own (28 August 2001)
FFA Databases, Directories & Services (8 August 2001)
FFA links page 6(22 July 2001)
FFA links page 5(16 July 2001)
FFA links page 4(13 July 2001)
FFA links page 3(11 July 2001)
Ways to earn income online (12 June 2001-Main index page was subdivided)
Getting traffic to your website (12 June 2001-Main index page was subdivided)
Automating your promotion (12 June 2001-Main index page was subdivided)
News Headlines (12 June 2001-Main index page was subdivided)
Web Browser Downloads (6 June 2001)
How To Get up to 22,000 Hits Per Day To Your Site FOR FREE! (25 May 2001)
Routers (23 May 2001)
Proxy servers (7 May 2001)
High Speed Modem/Network connections (28 April 2001)
TV cards and applications (26 April 2001)
HTML/XHTML tools and utilities (25 April 2001)



Servicing

Servicing

Where possible we visit you. If it can't be done where you are, the system can be serviced in our workshop, often on the same day. Charge out rates are NZ$40/hour +GST in the workshop or NZ$45/hour +GST callout. After hours call outs cost NZ$50/hour + GST. Parts additional. Warranty service is FREE.

 
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