One thing I used to do was collect the mail for all names at my freeserve address -

dave@myaccount.fsnetco.uk, davef@myaccount.fsnetco.uk, tat@myaccount.fsnet.co.uk .

That way the kids could give out their own names and all the mail turned up in the one account, I could fill in web forms with an address and then see if I got spam from it and easily set up rules to bin it and any typos from friends did reach me -
dave.f@myaccount.fsnetco.uk / save@myaccount.fsnetco.uk / d*ckhead@myaccount.fsnetco.uk (I think the last one was a typo, don’t see quite how they did that though…)

However, at one stage I must have re-set up machines and forgotten to do that - in fact I remember being aware I was missing some mail and not being able to figure out how to get it. Yesterday I did figured it out, set up the server account name as myaccount.fsnetco.uk not dave@myaccount.fsnetco.uk - I just picked up 3000 mails to various typos, dummy names, spammers random addresses…. Which included the comment notifications to this blog - I did wonder where they had gone (sorry about my slow response to comments but you can see why now!)

If you do do this you should be warned that your spam volume will increase!

In any case it doesn’t seem to work with all servers, my other mail server doesn’t let me log in without specifying a full email address. As ever, advice is always appreciated

I get spammed by lovemoney and it is a worrying thought that I actually responded to some of their spam - I clicked a link in an email, they’ll know it’s me and send more & more

However before we had PC we had to deal our own cards at solitaire and had adverts (and attitudes) like this

http://www.icanhasinternets.com/2010/05/25-horribly-sexist-vintage-ads/

class Dad {
virtual void method() { print(”In class dad”);}
virtual void otherMethod() { print(”Do something”);}
}

class Son::Dad { // class inheriting from dad
virtual void method() { print(”In class son”);} // this method is over ridden
}

main(){
class Son son;
class Dad *ptr;

ptr = &son;
ptr->method(); // even though type is Dad, this will print “In class son” because the late binding knows it’s really a “son”
ptr->otherMethod(); // this will print “Do something” because the late binding knows it’s really a “son” but son doesn’t have an otherMethod of its own
}

That’s the kind of things we programmers do a lot - not because we like print out the class names but because the classes we use are more useful - say class Employee and classes Engineer and Salesman that both inherit the basic methods (holiday(), pay() etc.) but do different things for other methods (work(), think() etc.).

Everything is nice until you need to change the code (that could be the definition of my job really!)

You need to add a value to “method” so you change the code to:

class Dad {
virtual void method(int N) { print(”In class dad with value %d”, N);} // add parameter
virtual void otherMethod() { print(”Do something”);}
}

// Son stays the same

main(){
class Son son;
class Dad *ptr;

ptr = &son;
ptr->method(99); // this now prints “In class dad with value 99″ because Son doesn’t have a method called method that takes a parameter so I must want the one in Dad.
}

That should be obvious(!), what has bitten me is when I’ve changed the code to make use of optional parameters:

class Dad {
virtual void method(int N=0) { print(”In class dad with value %d”, N);} // add optional (defaulted) parameter
virtual void otherMethod() { print(”Do something”);}
}

// Son stays the same

main(){
class Son son;
class Dad *ptr;

ptr = &son;
ptr->method(); // this now prints “In class dad with value 0″ !!!!!! No change to Son, no change to this line but the affect is different - ouch!
}

I didn’t write the compiler but what I figure is happening is that because the parameter is optional (defaulted) the code
ptr->method();
becomes
ptr->method(0);
And we are back to “Son doesn’t have a method called method that takes a parameter so I must want the one in Dad.”

Which just teaches us what we should have known already - sometimes you need to be very clever just to be clever.

In 2000 and a bit I went back into an office so bought a decent PC for home. Having trawled the net for the cheapest I ordered it only to have the company go bust the next day. Fortunately I got the cash back as it was a credit card order and I went for safety and bought from the company I was working for. However, it came pretty much bare bones and I had to install my own memory as well as software. That PC (a P3) with various disk (60G), OS (dual booting 98 & XP) memory upgrades (maxed out at 256M) has staggered on until now. The lack of memory being the real issue.

I’ve built PC’s out of work cast offs for various family members and ended up keeping a laptop ebayed for the in-laws but beyond their eyesight and co-ordination to use. Unfortunately a dodgy power connection on the laptop (battery was dead from day one) meant you could lose your work at any time and as it was also maxed out with 256M of memory the chances of doing anything before it died were minimal.

So I’ve bought a new laptop. New, from a shop, with software installed, legal paid for software and everything - not just some old bit of kit I’ve reformatted and put a collection of freeware and borrowings on. It took it out the box, turned it on and it worked - spooky.

And where did this ageing techie go for his hardware? Having considered another ebay purchase, having price checked the company’s staff discounts and special offers, having perused the many el cheapo sites I’ve squirreled away over the years my arcane knowledge took me to….

..Tesco.

Yes, my local supermarket had a good basic laptop for not much over £300 (£329 but double points traded up gives me effectively another £25 off that and you can get a £10 off on line purchases). http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.207-0318.aspx is not quite what I’d have chosen given days to pore over specs but it was close enough to both the price and performance I had sketched out in my head and easy to get hold of and to take back if it was DOA that it was a no brainer in the end.

If you’d have told me 25 years ago I’d buy a laptop along with the weekly shop….