PGTS Journal Edition 0028
January, 2005

The Spam Tide Rises!

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The Spam Tide Rises

Last month (December) as I was preparing this edition, I was struck by the number of spam e-mails that have been coming in. The PGTS site employs open source software everywhere (of course). And the MTA is configured to use DNS-based blocking. Nevertheless, in the lead up to Christmas, there have been almost 2 spam emails per week! That is double what it was in July and quadruple what is was at the start of 2004!

After carrying out some investigation, it became apparent that spam has increased dramatically ... But hang on! Hasn't our government actually banned spam? Could it be that this ban has been somewhat less than effective? Some of you may recall that an article published on this site 15 months ago, predicted that those laws would fail. Now in a follow-up article entitled The Spam Tide Rises, convincing evidence is presented that shows the extent of the failure.

MSIE only 24 hours from Tulsa ...

In a recent Letter to his former browser, Robert Vamosi, bids a less than fond farewell. Something along the lines of:

Dearest, Darling, I have to write to say that I won't be home any more ...

Yes, it's one of those something happened to me while I was driving home letters. It seems Mr. Vamosi has found somebody new. And that somebody is Firefox Version 1.0. The log file statistics for this site (PGTS) reveal a remarkable upturn in the popularity of the little fox since the release of version 1.0. There are signs from elsewhere on The Internet that this is a trend. Although the PGTS sites shows a heavy bias towards Open Source Browsers. Not only is Firefox gaining support from other former Mozilla users, but it seems that some MSIE years are saying "I hate to do this to you ... but I've found somebody new". Still MSIE can be put to good use ... it can be used to download the latest version of Firefox. It seems that Firefox is hot!

Although MSIE may not be as predominant out on the open prairie and the free range, the corporate variety of MSIE is still well ensconced in its' niche behind the safety of substantial corporate firewalls. So don't race out and sell your Microsoft shares just yet! (Unless of course some of those corporations start to contemplate Linux desktops -- then you will wish you had thought of selling those shares earlier)

Nevertheless, the rapid rise of Firefox amongst the non-corporate and home market is a worthwhile story, which so far has not appeared in the major media outlets. It remains to be seen whether the growth can be sustained.

PGTS Blog

Also I have decided to start a Blog. This is an experiment that I have wanted to try for a while.

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