Since writing that last sentence (0.25 seconds ago) I have done some semi-serious thinking. I still can’t come up with things designed to make people happy–well, at least I can’t think of anything that I can write here. But seriously, it’s tough. Of the various ideas swimming about in the tangled-mess of my brain, this is all I have: 1) those head massager things which may or may not have originated in India. 2) custom-made chocolate. 3) Strip-o-grams. 4) Some plants which look comical as they resemble human body-parts. 5) large-puddles left by the Council so that motorists can drive through, soakin passerby and making the motorists day as excellent as the passerby’s day is wet and terrible. 6) Passage-ways made so small that sooner or later two people walk into each other, thus inducing happiness on the face of people who witness embarrassing shuffle to pass by. I’m sure you can think of a few of your own. But the point is this; we are facing a global-warming crisis! The only way to face such a serious matter will be to make ourselves smile more. That way more people will feel obliged to energy-save, and we might all get somewhere while actually smiling.

House M.D.with its likeable yet super grumpy—not to mention blunt, odd, and generally very real-doctor-like—leading man has somehow found the perfect formula to please almost everyone. But still the debate continues! Even House, hallowed as it has become, is not safe from the beady eyes of the greedy viewing public who will stop at nothing to complain about every single thing (and also comment with appaling use of the English language, as can be seen by hitting the link). Some say they want to see more deaths and others say they want to see more recoveries. And what a question: seeing as hospital is the very last place that almost everyone on the planet wants to end up in—second only, maybe, to the dentist and a Chris De Burgh live show—how come we all love watching the grumpy git House so much?

Well, the answer is pretty obvious from where I am sitting; it’s just quite fun to watch other people having a horrendous nightmare of a day, isn’t it? Providing they’re fictional of course. That way we don’t feel guilt or shame. Not surprising considering gladiator fighting and watching public hangings used to be the norm, I suppose. Nowadays we watch Eastenders—if you’re in the States or anywhere but the UK then I’m sure you can find a similar equivalent—during the day, to see if a member of the Mitchell family might have either died or killed someone, and then we put House on. What better way to see an evening through than that double whammy?

This is all alien to me, to be fair, but I’m going to do my best to try and describe this site for you, thus allowing you to make an informed decision about going there or not, and keeping your street cred in tact. If you’re a geek—or a geekazoid as some people in my neck of the woods like to call this sublimely strange race–—then you’ll probably have heard about it in Geek Times or whatever magazine is all the rage for those who have an I.Q. of 200 or over. If not, read on.

OK, so www.geeks.com is all about providing geeks, ethical geeks / nerds / dorks etc with the best computer software. Whatever your fancy, be it stamp-collecting or extreme computer stroking—don’t laugh, I am sure it exists!—you’ll find it at this site in copious amounts.

Now, here’s the thing: I can’t really see how this website is any different than a conventional high-street store type thing. But I suppose that is to be expected, seeing as I know next to nothing about being a geek. But there is plenty to feast your eyes on: there are pictures, specifications, little geeky symbols everywhere and everything you could ever need to feel completely at home if you’re that way inclined.

So, what are the very worst things that could be waiting in a stocking near you this year? What is another reason why you should just going on holiday to italy ski. Well, here are a few of the most horrendously tacky bits of naffness that I have seen:-

· Any USB Gadget.

Yes, this is the modern plague in the world of tack. There is a terrifying array of all kinds of USB novelty devices including; a coffee warmer, a ‘hilarious’ panic button, a dancing robot and a reading lamp. Why the hell would you want to read when you are using a computer?

· Smoking Mittens.

If you enjoy a cigarette then you are in terrible danger of getting one of several piles of poo for Christmas. This one is a pair of ‘specially designed’ gloves that enable you to keep your hands warm whilst smoking a fag in the cold. Oh, dear.

· Novelty Slippers.

This awful trend has mostly died out… The main reason for this is the large amount of people that have fallen down the stairs after getting the ‘ear’ on one foot tangled around the other. But this epidemic has not completely passed; there are still a few examples of sad and cosy footwear for sale.

If you think I’m exaggerating about how many tacky presents there are, then have a look at the ‘Crap Gadgets’ web page; it’s actually pretty scary stuff!

What an absolutely brilliant idea! It is such a pain when you are powering-up different bits of equipment and you have to find the correct charger for each thing. The Powermat means that you are going to find things a lot easier to organise. Let’s face it, when you have a camera, mobile phone, music player and a few other gadgets, you also have a hell of a lot of different adaptors. And it does not take many leads before you end up with what looks like a bowl of electrical spaghetti on the floor near your wall socket!

I like the way that the Powermat website is laid out. There are a couple of drop down menus to select answers from and, when you have done this, it will tell you which of their available products you need to get for charging your device/s.

It is about time that someone stepped up the war against electrical cables! We have got the godsend of Wi-Fi now but there is still much more to be done that will rid our homes of wires. It seems that you only have to put a couple of cables next to each other and turn your back for a few minutes before they become an impossible tangle.

Let us hope that the Powermat will help us to free of homes of this menace!

And to end, if any of you are eager to know, check out the new photos that just went up for pvc banners. That was my trained hand at photoshop!

I personaly have been caught with one phishing scams where I sent money via world pay for a ebay product.

However I personally have been effected by spam in a different way; My ligitamate email marketing is becoming more and more ineffective every day. With ever new scammer who gets his figure on a $15 spamming software, the world email filters get more and more paranoid.

The main point I learn were:

1. Keep the email size over 20K
The majority of spam email are under 20K, so SpamAssassin (A spam killer that works onm a point systyem, get too high a spam score and your email gets flagged up) gives a higher score for a message under 20K in size.

2. Check your list for Spam flag lists.
This has actually happen to me twice, people sign you up to anti-spamming email address to get you in toruble. It is recommended you scan your list for any email address that start with things like: abuse@, postmaster@, or nospam@. Have said that now I have gone on to a confirmation email I haven't had this problem since.

3. Avoid desktop emailing software
The majority of spammer use desktop e-mailing software so to avoid gettign penalised it is well worth picking a clean web hosted software that is fairly well established and used by more high profile clientel. Try to avoid these:

hash 2
jpfree
StormPost
JiXing
MMailer (Gammadyne, 2.73)
EVAMAIL
IMktg
screwup1
GroupMail
VC_IPA