Bugger that, instead I had a dig around and decided to copy across the rules from my previous installation. All the rules you’ve set up are stored in a .plist file within Mail’s data stored in your Library folder.

In Lion you’ll find the rules at:

~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/MessageRules.plist

Under Snow Leopard:

~/Library/Mail/MessageRules.plist

So all you need to do is copy/paste the relevant file from your old machine to the new one.

Edit

It’s worth noting that you can copy Smart Mailboxes and RSS feeds across as well.

Smart Mailboxes:

Lion: ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/SmartMailboxes.plist
Snow Leopard: ~/Library/Mail/SmartMailboxes.plist

RSS Feeds (both OSes):

~/Library/Mail/RSS/

- Chris

Upper bounds on password length

The most common issue I see across the plethora of inept schemes for passwords is bounds on length. I’m all for having passwords with a lower bound, it’s all about security after all and shorter passwords are much less time constringent to brute-force, 5-6 characters is the most oft seen bound. With that I’m absolutely fine.

But as soon as you start requiring that my password be no more than a certain number of characters a klaxon starts wailing in my head.

The initial suspicion is that if you have an upper bound on the length of my password, you must be storing it in plaintext. If you are storing my password in plaintext then you’re either an idiot or a complete and utter fucking asshole, you can choose whichever you want.

For god’s sake, salt and hash passwords before storing them.

Forms that cut off entry

An even worse offender in this area are sign up forms in which the password fields have a given length. That means that you can type in your 20 character password without realising that you’ve been clipped at an arbitrary 12 characters.

Then when you visit the login form, which obviously wont have the 12 character limit on the password field, and type in your 20 character password it will throw back errors.

Please stop making my passwords an arbitrary length and you should definitely have a uniform stance on field lengths in your forms.

Exact password length

Enforcing an exact password length is the bigger, uglier brother of having an upper bounds on length. Not only have you set the lower and upper limit on how long a password can be, you’ve also said that they must be the same!

Holy hell, you’ve completely and utterly missed the point. Aside from the fact that you’re vastly limiting the number of permutations of passwords available to users, and of course the number of permutations a brute-force attack would be required to cycle through; you’re making the password much harder for the user to remember.

If I have a 6 character password that I use everywhere, such as I’d wager most users do, and you enforce a password length of 8 characters then you’re essentially forcing me to append two erroneous characters to the end of my password usually, I’d wager, a ’11′ or ’00′.

Enforcing the inclusion / exclusion of certain characters

“Your password must contain at least one number”, “Your password must have one or more non-alphanumeric character”, “You are required to have at least one uppercase letter”, “Your password must have–” …fuck right off.

My password should be allowed to contain any alpha, numeric or non-alphanumeric characters; it should not be required to contain them. If you’re trying to make me adhere to a given structure to my password then you’re limiting the number of permutations available to me again.

“But what about the idiots who choose easy passwords?” They’re still going to be idiots, just your special brand of idiot, making the password harder to remember just ensures that you end up with either a post-it note with the username and password posted on the side of a monitor or some super-secret-cia-level-symbol-substitution-cypher being used to swap out the characters in their god awful password.

• a = @
• e = 3
• i = !
• o = *
• u = well, still u
• s = $
• l = 1
• t = 7
• …

My new super-secret, secure password should probably be p@$$w*rd!

On a side-note, if any of your passwords resembles any of these you are a moron.

Post your password in the comments below and I’ll tell you if it’s secure or not!
- Chris

Basically you’d have the following javascript functions defined:

function isNumber( evt ) {
	valid		= true;
	if( evt.which || ( evt.which != 0 && evt.charCode != 0 ) ) {
		var charCode	= ( evt.which ) ? evt.which : event.keyCode;
		if( charCode > 31 && ( charCode < 48 || charCode > 57 ) ) {
			valid	= false;
		}
	}
	return valid;
}

function isValidEmailCharacter( evt ) {
	valid	= true;
	if( evt.which == null || ( evt.which != 0 && evt.charCode != 0 ) ) {
		var charCode	= ( evt.which ) ? evt.which : event.keyCode;
		var char		= String.fromCharCode( charCode );
		var re			= new RegExp( /([0-9A-Za-z-_@.])/ );
		valid			= re.test( char );
	}
	return valid;
}

function isValidPhoneCharacter( evt ) {
	valid	= true;
	if( evt.which == null || ( evt.which != 0 && evt.charCode != 0 ) ) {
		var charCode	= ( evt.which ) ? evt.which : event.keyCode;
		var char		= String.fromCharCode( charCode );
		var re			= new RegExp( /([0-9+\s\[\]])/ );
		valid			= re.test( char );
	}
	return valid;
}

Then we add an onkeypress event to the relevant form fields to filter out any of the keystrokes you don’t want. This would look something like:

The only problem with this method of filtering input to the form elements is that key combos using filtered characters will not work, i.e. ⌘+A to select the entire entry in a text field will not work when we’re applying the isNumber filter to that field. The solution would be to create a list of key combonations that are allowed.

Not a necessity, but it can’t hurt.
- Chris

* That’s not to say you shouldn’t validate the form when it’s submitted, the non-JavaScript action will be to allow anything.

This morning when I arrived at work and sat at my desk I did what I usually do. I took my glasses off and gave them a clean on my shirt. Usually I just put them back on and get to the nitty-gritty, usually sitting sifting through emails to find out if any of the spam is actually useful.

Today, however was a different story indeed, as soon as I placed the glasses on my face I felt a ping and then everything went blurry. I thought that the screw holding the lens into my frames had pinged out again, yes it’s happened before, but alas no! No, the actual frame had broken right at the point where the rim meets the legs, leaving a jagged edge and a confounded Chris.

Anyway, after squinting for a while and ruling out superglue as a means to repair my glasses I eventually had to plump for Jack Duckworthing them using some tape. After which it was a quick call to the opticians to set up an appointment to get tested and some new glasses. To my amazement I managed to get an appointment today, earlier this very afternoon. An hour later and £155 down I’d managed to order two new pairs of glasses which should hopefully arrive sometime next week.

I’m continue to Duckworth until then though!
- Chris

They’ll be in the final of the Scottish Cup on the 24th May playing either St Johnstone, Rangers or Partick Thistle.

Isn’t there something quite ironic about this?

Just a note to say, if you are ever in need of a virtual machine with very configurable settings or the need to install certain software on it, Bytemark is a good choice – just a little more than I currently need (and more pricey as well).

- Chris

… because they fucking rule!

The majority of this dream is uneventful, I’m rich and live in a large mansion, two minders follow me throughout the dream, you know the type, one tall man in sunglasses and a shorter white guy with a near shaven head. Both wear black coats and skulk around in whichever room I’m in at the time.

Towards the end of the dream I’m in a room, my minders are floating around in the background, there’s a little black girl playing in the room. At some point I manage to end up crawling around on my knees, the girl has a small child size chair and is trying to put the legs over my head as to trap it in there. She is following me around, chanting something that sounds really sinister in child-rhyme style, although the words she is chanting do not sound like words at all.

(more…)

Lo and behold, the mantra of open source has reached the foodstuffs market.

The full text reads:

You might wonder why we’ve messed about with the front of this carton. Well, it all started when you told us some stuff. We asked you what you thought of this recipe and we got some interesting responses. There was a general feeling that it might be a bit too sharp, and could do with an extra slice of mango.

So off we went to the kitchen, to see if we could make it a little better. And after some blending and crushing, we are proud to present the result. An improved recipe, designed to your exact specifications. A kind of open source smoothie, without the complicated computer bits. We hope you enjoy it.

It made me laugh and I though it was worth a mention.
- Chris

At 10:40 AM on the 26^th December 2006 we had an earthquake lasting just 10 seconds and as I say measured 3.5 on the Richter scale. It’s the largest seismic activity to be recorded in the UK this year and the strongest recorded in this area since 1969, also on boxing day!

The full story can be found at the BBC News website “Dumfries is shaken by earthquake“.
- Chris

Are you hanging up a stocking on your wall?
It’s the time that every Santa has a ball
Does he ride a red nosed reindeer?
Does he turn up on his sleigh?
Do the fairies keep him sober for a day?

So here it is,
Merry Christmas,
Everybody’s having fun,
Look to the future now
It’s only just begun.

Are you waiting for the family to arrive?
Are you sure you’ve got the room to spare inside?
Does your Granny always tell you
That the old songs are the best,
Then she’s up and rock ‘n’ rollin’ with the rest…

So here it is,
Merry Christmas,
Everybody’s having fun,
Look to the future now
It’s only just begun.

Are you hanging up a stocking on your wall?
Are you hoping that the snow will to start to fall?
Do you ride on down the hillside
In a bobby you have made?
When you land upon your head then you’ve been Slade.

So here it is,
Merry Christmas,
Everybody’s having fun,
Look to the future now
It’s only just begun.

Merry Christmas to all,
- Chris

The new TV replaces my, in long need of replacing, 15″ portable which I bought more than 6 years ago. The TV I opted for was from the Samsung R72 Series (26″ version).

It boasts an impressive array of features on the website, including HD-readyness and an integrated digital tuner. HD seemed the way to go and ensures that whenever this new format war is settled that either of the HD-DVD formats will be viewable on the set.

Due to the recent demise of my current Freeview box, i.e. it stopped working at all, an integrated digital tuner is probably a plus and saves having to have that pesky box sitting around taking up space.

Most of the other stuff on the site looks to be pretty much jargon for sharp picture and good colour quality. Other than that there looks to be a pretty cool looking PIP (Picture In Picture) mode which allows you to watch TV whilst playing a console, or watch a DVD whilst flicking through TV channels.

Other than these extremely endearing features I mainly bought the thing for the “Ingenious Swivel Stand”:

The LCD TVs ingenious swivel stand affords consumers the ultimate flexibility in positioning the TV in their house. It allows for mobility and ergonomic comfort in your house.

It swivels on the stand, crazy!
- Chris

Also on the agenda has been getting a new mobile phone, after looking around for a while I found the perfect (or so it seems) fusion of the two: the XDA Exec.

The Exec is the O2 version of the i-mate JasJar and boasts the same list of impresive features. I managed to pick mine up with a contract for less than a quarter of the £600+ that would be required to buy a JasJar alone.

It should hopefully arrive on Tuesday morning and I can have a play around with it then. I’ll post more about the workings of the device then. For now look at the purty pictures above.
- Chris

25% Wizard of Oz, 25% interdimensional swords and 100% Sheercore.

I will be working in the pub today and will thus be saving the Christmas slobbing for Boxing day, hope everyone else has a productive / festive / slobby (delete as appropriate) day.

Merry Christmas,
- Chris

Where is he nowadays when he’s needed?

Anyway, if this is in fact bonfire night then you’ll be able to see my bonfire night theme for this site.

I thought I’d post the full rhyme that is linked to this day, I can’t ever remember hearing the whole of it before:

Remember, remember the fifth of November,
gunpowder, treason and plot,
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes,
’twas his intent
to blow up the King and the Parliament.
Three score barrels of powder below,
Poor old England to overthrow:
By God’s providence he was catch’d
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, make the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!
Hip hip hoorah!

A penny loaf to feed the Pope.
A farthing o’ cheese to choke him.
A pint of beer to rinse it down.
A faggot of sticks to burn him.
Burn him in a tub of tar.
Burn him like a blazing star.
Burn his body from his head.
Then we’ll say ol’ Pope is dead.
Hip hip hoorah!
Hip hip hoorah!

Have an explosive bonfire night,
- Chris

I thought all the smells would be light, subtle smells that hinted towards grass, flowers, chocolate and so on. They are, in fact, the strongest artificial smells I’ve ever had the displeasure of smelling.

And that’s just to start, I’ll be working with these smells for the next month. Oh the joy,
- Chris

We’ve just this minute got a delivery of the Vortex (smell) cubes that we ordered at the start of the week, from daleair.com. This means that we are more or less set up to start people on their olfactory adventures! If anyone will be around in Glasgow next week and in around 3-4 weeks time, drop me an e-mail and I’ll get you to do the experiment (you need digital photos ~500ish).

Everything else is going fine, I’m heading off to Edinburgh for the Fringe tomorrow with Gary and Derek, it should be reminiscent of last years trip, but this time with hopefully more busses!

got my PowerBook upgraded yesterday, a gigabyte of RAM added, bringing it up to 1,536 Mb of RAM altogether. It fucking flies now!

So I’ll probably have some more photos to post soon enough and probably a few stupid stories to go with them. Until then,
- Chris