So today I finally got round to transferring my main domain email over to Google Apps. It's something I've been looking into for a while now (ever since Jem and work started using it, haha) but have either not had the time, or had some reason or other why I couldn't do it. Lately though, SpamAssassin - which I'd been using on my hosting account - had been eating a lot of genuine mail while letting some obvious spam through. No amount of twiddling the settings or turning on/off seemed to fix it and I was getting really bored of having to whitelist every single person who emailed me.

So far, so good. Gmail has caught lots of spam and genuine messages have got through. I'm a bit worried that all my forwarders won't work since I used multiple domains and Gmail doesn't seem to want to differentiate between domains... blah@domain1 is the same as blah@domain2, it seems. Oh, and the IMAP interface takes some getting used to, but I've been using it at work with no problems and Thunderbird seemed to be coping well so here's hoping it continues for my own account.

I did have a minor problem though... I had all my PHP-generated emails (e.g. new comment notifications, etc) go through my old SMTP gateway. Of course, that no longer works now since I'm all Gmailed, and Gmail seem to want an SSL connection when sending email and I can't work out how to do that in PHP right now (any ideas? Let me know! I know we had all sorts of issues at work doing it and Google weren't too happy at the end anyway so not sure if it's worth it...). Hope my ISP doesn't mind me using their SMTP for now, heh. :D

Right then, two weeks off :D I hope I can finally get round to finishing PAI/Askably/whatever-it's-called-these-days v3.1 as it's kind of been in the works for 2 years... Small matter of Christmas getting in the way but maybe I'll find some time here and there. Get any feature requests in now if you have any, the main point of this release is to tidy up coding and such really, database queries are stupidly ... stupid ... in v3.0 and need optimising, as well as the actual coding structure being awkward and full of stuff I thought I knew but really didn't. Busy busy!

If you remember, I have had a few problems with BT, the UK's main provider of landlines. We were stuck with a 12 month contract after we moved house, and they charged us £200 to reconnect a line that was already there (but disconnected. Oh really, is that why we could make and receive calls? ... Unfortunately they had just amended their terms and conditions to say they could do such a thing, so we didn't have much of a choice but to pay) and we had internet on the same account because of a prior agreement with the landlord of our old house. All of this was in said landlord's name, and they refused to change the name on the account, saying that we were mid-contract and were not allowed to change anything. Pffft.

Anyway, fast forward to August, when I was shopping around for more decent ISPs. Our 12 month contract had been up in June but we hadn't had time to go and find a new provider as yet. Having found a new one - Plusnet, if you're interested - we called BT to tell them to cancel our internet. They did everything they could to try and keep us, promising that they would lower the price to the same rate as Plusnet and blah blah blah. NOT THE POINT. The fact is, you messed us around so much last year that I am not prepared to give you any more money.

We decided to keep the landline with BT for now, as we weren't sure if we could get a better deal elsewhere, but when the bill came - still in our old landlord's name - we decided to complain, again. They wanted us to agree to a 12 month contract if we changed the name on the account. I'm sorry, what? Since when do I have to agree to a further 12 months of staying with you because YOU refused to change the name in the first place? No, I don't think so. We switched to Plusnet for our landline as well, and couldn't be happier.

That means we are completely free from BT, FINALLY. Good riddance, I say. Don't let the door hit you on the way out and all that.

Did you make the same mistake I did, and update to Safari 4 when it was offered as a Software Update, then found some things didn't work any more, or you just plain don't like Safari 4? If so, here's how to revert back to Safari 3.2.3 on Mac OS X Leopard.

1. Remove your existing Safari installation. Drag /Applications/Safari.app to the Trash, and rename the ~/Library/Safari folder (where ~ is your home folder, e.g. /Users/your-username) to something else (you're essentially making a backup here). It is important that you empty the Trash after doing this, as I found my 'new' Safari copied itself to my Trash folder.
2. Rename ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.plist and ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.RSS.plist (if you have it - I didn't, but then I wasn't subscribed to any feeds) to something else (backups again - these files contain your bookmarks and RSS feeds so if you don't want to lose them, don't skip this step)
3. Edit /System/Library/Frameworks/WebKit.framework/Resources/Info.plist and replace all instances of the number 5530 with 5525. Please note: you may need to modify the file's permissions in order to be able to edit it. This can be done by right-clicking it, selecting Get Info, and modifying the permissions at the bottom - you need to give your username read and write access.
4. Download Safari 3.2.3 and install it (you will be asked to reboot afterwards)
5. Hey presto, you have Safari 3 again! Replace the files from step 2 (you may need to remove the new files created by Safari 3). Some people have said this doesn't seem to work for them, and if it doesn't for you or screws up your Safari, you might need to open the files and add your bookmarks back in manually... It seems there might be an inconsistency in the XML but I haven't looked into it in too much detail.

There you go, just thought I would share :P

I will blog properly a bit later on - just the small matter of a car crash to sort out (I wasn't in the car, but the boyfriend was - he's ok, car is pretty much a write off though. Someone smashed into him) and a newly built computer (not mine, but I had fun building it XD ) which needs me to put together a build guide for it (yes Melissa, you can stop nagging me now :P ) :D

PS. (I like brackets () () )

Instructions for Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4)

Edit: I have been asked for instructions for Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) - unfortunately, I don't have access to that version, but I'm told the instructions do work, except that the following modifications are to be made:

• In step 3, you will need to replace the number 4530 with 4525.
• In step 4, download Safari 3 for Tiger instead of the Leopard version linked.
• Please note that file locations (steps 1, 2 and 3) may be slightly different in Tiger.