The Turning Gate

Spam recruits heat, bricks Macbook

The war rages on

I last visited my inbox 30 hours ago; 599 unread messages, 17 of them legitimate and the rest spam. Textpattern and my array of defensive plugins have done a fine job moderating and hiding the spam so that only I have to see it, but I still have to see it, and that's a problem. Oh, but if spam were my only problem ...

Logic should dictate it's a separate, isolated incident. But my instincts tell me the gods of computing have it in for me. The timing is just too sinister. Yesterday, I checked my email before leaving the house, then closed the lid of my Macbook Pro, sending it into deep slumber. Or so I'd thought. Something went wrong, sleep did not descend upon the machine, and, when I returned hours later, I found it scalding to touch and totally cooked. My Macbook is bricked.

On reboot, it sounds the restart, the sleep indicator lights up solid, and the keyboard illuminates. Nothing on screen, and nothing going on inside.

Meanwhile, the spam has been reproducing, flooding my database and my inbox while I'm cut off from rendering aid.

I'm now in a coffee shop, on a friend's Macbook. I'll be taking my brick to the service center tomorrow, expecting to be without it for several days, and I'm trying to erect defenses to deter the spam in the meantime. I'd hate to see my inbox after three days of unchecked spamming.

I've noticed patterns in the spamming. It's not hitting every article, but the same articles again and again, and so I've selectively disabled commenting on the affected posts. Luckily, all of the affected articles belong to the Blog section, and none to the Lightroom section of the site. Therefore, the selective disabling of comments should have no impact on visitors seeking support for my Lightroom gallery templates.

With any luck, I will have sealed off every point of attack and will find my inbox clear in the coming days.

As for the brick, I've been running Time Machine backups. If it's my hard drive that's effected, my data loss should be minimal. I think I'd last had the drive plugged in Thursday evening, and not much should have changed from then until Saturday afternoon. And, because I'm covered by Apple Care, Macbook repairs shouldn't cost me a dime.

I should be able to check my mail from work, but my computer time will be limited until I get my Macbook back from the service center. In the meantime, please don't get upset if I don't answer messages straight away. I'll play catch up later and will get back to every one then.

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