Ed Bilodeau

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This weblog had moved: http://www.coolweblog.com/bilodeau/

# Notice (Oct 19/05): So ends my stay here on Blogger. This morning Google implemented an anti-spam 'feature' that forces me to answer a challenge phrase when I want to post to my own blog. No notice of the change, nothing. Worse is that it doesn't even work! I type the phrase, submit, "An error occured", post deleted. Damn you, Google. Chances are I will revive my blog somewhere else, sometime soon. I'll post the new coordinates here as soon as they become available. (BTW, I'm unable to post anything to my RSS stream, so I'd appreciate it if readers could spread the word and ask people to take a look at this notice)

Update (Oct 19/05, ~noon): After a frustrating few hours (and not just trying out alternatives to Blogger), I've decided that this is a good time to take a break from all this. A day? A week? Who knows. But I need to step away from it before I pass a heavy magnet over the whole mess.

Update 2: According to this post, the reason I'm seeing the CAPTCHA (challenge phrase) is that Blogger has classified my blog as spam. Thanks. User for five years and now I'm spam. I searched the Blogger site, but there is no mention of how to get the spam flag turned off. There is also no way of contacting anyone at Blogger. Wow. Spam they say I am, so spam I must be. Maybe it is time to take a break.

Monday, August 01, 2005

Amazingly, I'm back up and running. More or less, actually, since I haven't installed all my specific software, but the basic WinXP/Office image is running and configured.

I ended up using the 'old' PC, an IBM NetVista with a 1.7Ghz Celeron and 512MB RAM. Less memory then my laptop, but almost twice as fast. The hard drive is also a bit bigger, and I have less garbage (docking station, etc) on my desk. So, an upgrade of sorts.

The laptop? Still no word. I'm assuming it will eventually come back working. My plan, however, is to use it as my teaching/presentation machine.