Welcome to my most humble Home Page. I've been working on it on and off for nearly six years now. I guess it's my way of keeping a journal. Buried amongst these pages you'll find all my secret desires, and passionate beliefs. Unfortunately, I couldn't help but share them with the rest of the world. If you've found something amongst my web pages that has helped or entertained you in some way, then I've done what I've set out to do. I'll keep plugging away at the site. Hoping to improve and expand it until it's complete. Yeah Right!
Robert L. Vaessen
This listing is an archive of the What's New entries from 2002.
I'm on break again. I hope this one goes well. I've updated a few pages at Rob's World! recently. Most importantly, I've put the main page back the way it used to be. The spammer who was forging my domain name has apparently moved on to other victims. The forgery started around 7 November, and ended approximately 20 November. During that two week period I fought an uphill battle. The ISP's, and victims that I dealt with during that period of time were less than helpful. Unfortunately, I was unable to find out who was responsible for the forgery, and I'm pretty sure that they're still out there abusing others. I have seen the same spam since then, with other From: and Reply-To: email addresses on it. I left a recap, and some advice behind, just in case someone else encounters the same type of identity theft in the future.
In my continuing efforts to fight spam I have noticed that a lot of people are checking to see whether I have a formmail.pl or formmail.cgi script in my cgi-bin directory. Some such scripts are vulnerable to expoitation by spammers, and can turn your web site into an unwilling spam generator. Recently, I installed a formmail trap. If spammers look for the formmail.pl script nothing happens. If they test for the vulnerability, or try to exploit the vulnerability, an email is sent to their ISP alerting them to the activity. Hopefully this will result in a reduction in the number of Spammers with access to the internet. If you'd like to more about this 'spamtrap' you can follow this link. Spammers beware! Rob's World! doesn't appreciate your intrusive and sometimes illegal activities.
Aside from the re-establishment of my normal front page, I've been pretty busy trying to get my 3E D&D campaign ready. I'm planning to run a 3rd edition game with 2.5 edition combat. The Player's Options: Combat & Tactics rules were much more to my liking. The 3rd editin seems to be missing some necessary ingredients when it comes to combat. It just isn't measuring up to my level of expected detail.
Recent updates include new software. I updated my Operating System to OS 10.2.3. I haven't noticed a lot of differences yet. Hopefully they fixed the file transfer problems encountered with the .Mac applications. I also updated some of my other software. Most notably, I updated my copy of Transmit. Now it has Secure FTP capability. Check out my software favorites page for a listing of software you might want to own for web page development with a Mac.
Oh, by the way. Merry Christmas!
Minor update. Updated my encryption information on two pages. The Feedback page, and the page which actually lists my public encryption key. Not that anyone has ever needed to send me an encrypted message. I just wish more people would use authentication on their email messages. There are a lot of reasons for using encryption and authentication in todays digital age. Protect your identity, use encryption
Minor update. Added two new games to the Other Games page. Some day I hope to play some of these games.
It appears as if the spammer responsible for forging my domain name has relented. The last indications I have of his/her nefarious deeds occured on 21 Nov 2002. On that date I received a bounce message from an ISP. The bounce message provided more evidence regarding this case of identity theft. Hopefully, that date marks the last date of this abuse. If there are no further incidences of abuse, I'll return my main page to it's original state.
Aside from my war with the spammer, and a recent spate of bad luck, Kim and I are doing well. Kim's father is recovering quickly, and I actually have a piece of good news to report. Kim won the grand prize (door prize) at an employee appreciation night. The other night AAFES held an employ shopping night, and we won a free color television/VCR combination.
There haven't been many changes to the web pages lately. I've been busy messing up the annual Christmas cards, working on House Rules for my D&D campaign, and various other things. The one thing I did change was the name of my guest book's cgi script. Some spammers out there were trying to find a gust book script vulnerability to exploit. My guest book doesn't have the vulnerability they're looking for. But, that doesn't stop them from looking. Every time they try to determine whether my cgi script is vulnerable, they leave a blank guestbook message behind. In order to stop this annoying side effect, I've renamed the cgi script. That way they won't find my guest book script with their automated searches. Nice try spammer, but you lose this time.
I've been hard at work, struggling to fend off the damage that some spammer has been doing to my domain name. Someone has been forging my email address/domain on adult oriented spam. It's gotten so bad, that I felt I had to put up a notice in place of my main page. I have no idea how long it's going to take, but I'm doing my best to track down this spammer, and put him (or her) out of business. If you can help, please contact me.
As a result of the war with the spammer, I've decided to update all my web pages. Replacing all my mailto: links with Javascript in order to thwart address harvesting attempts.
Aside from my war with the spammer, Kim and I have had a lot of bad luck in the last two weeks.
First - One of my hard drives died. A Western Digital 80gb drive that was less than a year old. When it went it took my internet preferences and firewall with it. As a result, I was without an internet connection for about a week. Of course the drive I bought as a replacement turned out to be no good. I spent three days trying to reformat and partition the damned thing. I eventually bought another new drive; a Maxtor 80gb (Internal EIDE 7500rpm), that formated on the first try. I Installed OS X, and updated it to the latest version, and then transferred all the files from the old drive to the new one.
Second piece of bad luck - Kim's dad had to have open heart surgery. A quintuple bypass! I had no idea there were that many arteries to the heart! He's recovering now, doing very good. Kim flew home to De Pere to be with her family for 5 days.
No we're not done yet! - Someone got ahold of one of our credit cards. I have no idea how. I think it might have been when we had to order a second set of Visa's. Anyway, they used the card to open an AOL account, and made one other fraudulent charge to our account. We immediately contacted AOL, how insisted that we were reposnsible for the charges. Even after I explained all the circumstances regarding the incident. They never even transfered me to the fraud department. They kept giving me the run around. Then we called Visa. We eventually had to cancel the card. Thankfully Visa believed us. They actually listened to my explanation of what happened. I think we were lucky. The person who opened the AOL account, and made the other fraudulent charges, could have done a lot more damage. I wonder if it's the same person that's doing the spamming? I doubt it.
Well, that's just about it. Unless you want to count the Jeep problem. Yeah, looks like the Wrangler is on its way to the big mountain top in the sky. It needs a new engine. I can't afford that...
I've been hard at work, struggling to fend off the damage that some spammer has been doing to my domain name. Someone has been forging my email address/domain on adult oriented spam. It's gotten so bad, that I felt I had to put up a notice in place of my main page. I have no idea how long it's going to take, but I'm doing my best to track down this spammer, and put him (or her) out of business. If you can help, please contact me.
Aside from my war with the spammer, I haven't been able to do much else. I did manage to update my software favorites page. I recently upgraded my version of BBEdit to version 7.0, and my version of Transmit to 2.1.
I recently updated my desktop page. It seems that some of the photos weren't exactly the size I wanted (1024x768). I also added more descriptive titles to each of the photos. Enjoy!
On another sad note; I shut down my Uggg pages. The Underground Gamers Group is no more. Unfortunately, the group has died of atrophy. It seems everyone is just too busy to stop and enjoy a rousing game of Nuclear War these days.
Recently, I learned that some unscrupulous spammer has been forging my email address, and sending spam with my email address in the From: line. As a result, I've been doing all I can to figure out who did it, and prevent it from happening again.
Perhaps you know that I've spent many years tracking down spammers. I know how they forge headers, obfustcate urls, and try to hide their identities. I've spent a considerable amount of time learning their nasty little secrets, and how to track them down.
I'm not surprised that some unscrupulous spammer has forged my email address. Over the years, I've been responsible for shutting down quite a few spammers. Perhaps you remember my Spam matrix? I wouldn't be surprised if some spammer has decided to drag my name through the mud.
I hope that I'm able to obtain a copy of the original spam, with full header intact. Without it, I will not be able to track down the spammer. In the meantime, I've been exploring ways to authenticate my identity via email. One such method involves the use of customized mail headers. See
My addition of the Habeas customized mail headers came after a bit of research and experimentation. I had to figure out how to add the customized mail headers to my Mail.app. Once I figured that out, I sent the procedures to the Habeas web site. They've since published the steps at their web site.
All this spam fighting has given me a headache. Oh, by the way, I just updated my Spam Offer.
Updated my software favorites page. Upgraded the OS to 10.2.2. Upgraded my GraphicConverter to 4.5.1, and I also added two new pieces of software to my computer. Software by Unsanity.com. I added Xounds and Fruit menu to my Mac.
Xounds is a haxie that brings back Appearance Sounds to Mac OS X. Xounds is able to convert Mac OS 8 or 9 Sound Sets.
FruitMenu is a haxie that gives you the ability to customize the Apple Menu and contextual menus. Using a visual editor you can edit the contents of the menus to suit your needs and taste. FruitMenu also displays the contents of the FruitMenu Items folder inside of your Library folder, launch applications and shell scripts from the Apple Menu and contextual menus, to allow easy file navigation and launching. To make the haxie completely flexible and customizable, you can assign hotkeys to particular menu items.
I just finished adding a favorites icon to my web site. Some of you might be asking, "What's that?". Well it's a little icon that IE (5.0+) & NN (7.0+) places on the URL location line, and the start of bookmark entries. It's a little customized icon. I had to create the icon myself. I used GraphicConverter 4.5 (It's one of my favorites) to save the image in Windows Icon format.
Why? Well, I was noticing a lot of errors, and access requests in my servers logs. People kept looking for a file called favicon.ico. Turns out that their browser was looking for this little icon that I described above. If you're using a Windows machine you can see the icon using IE. If you're using Mac, you may have noticed the icon using NN, as Microsoft didn't bother building an .ico interpreter for the Mac version of IE.
Aside from the icon, I've been busy battling a spammer. Seems that some unscrupulous spammer has forged my email address (the RobsWorld.org address), and is using it in his spam emails! As a result, I've been busy doing some research, and sending email. I'll post more details after I've resolved the issue.
Just updated the guestbook script. Turns out that I forgot to update the cgi script when I moved the guestbook to the new location. Thanks to one a visitor (Terry) for catching that mistake.
Just a quick update. I registered a GraphicConverter update yesterday. I'm now using GraphicConverter 4.5. It's one of my favorite applications. I've been a registered user since Oct of 98'.
Thanks to some intense troubleshooting, and the help of a really good friend (Thanks Rob!), I've been able to get my Slide Show back up and running. It's a screen saver that anyone using Mac OS 10.2 can subscribe to. The Slide Show is based on my Desktop Photos. If you're a Mac OS 10.2 user, I encourage you to check it out.
Recently removed some information from my web site. I will no longer be posting work schedules online. Sorry.
Work is over, for the time being. I hope I can enjoy my weekend. So far I've been back to work for 5 hours, and I can't get some of my .Mac applications to work. I've been trying to make publish my iCal calendar. I've tried HTML and PHP publication. Haven't been able to get either of those to work. I can't get .Mac Slides Publisher to work either. It worked the first time I used it, but it doesn't work anymore. I've also been trying to make use of my 100 free photos through iPhoto, but that's not working either.
I was able to post my new schedule to the web. Thanks to that trusty old BBEdit Table Builder.
As I mentioned earlier (see below), Kim and I celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary on the 26th of October. As you may already know, the 26th is also my Birthday. We spent the weekend in Estes Park, CO. A quiet little resort town, nestled up against the majesty of the Rockies. We stayed at a fantastic Bed & Breakfast called the Taharaa Mountain Lodge. (They even gave us a 15% military discount!) We spent the 26th sight seeing at Rocky Mountain National park. On the evening of the 26th we ate a little place called 'Grandmaison's Bistro'. The food was outstanding, and the service was stellar. We had a terrific time. If you're interested, you can check out the pics on my family photo's page.
Aside from the family photo's, I've also updated my Desktop Photo's. I've been trying to get my screen saver updated, but I'm not having much luck. My iDisk keeps timing out, and I can't get the screen saver updated.
Just returned from a weekend getaway in the mountains. Kim and I spent our Anniversary (my Birthday) in Estes Park, CO. We had a really good time. I'll post some photo's later. While there, I managed to read a couple of essays about time. As a result, I updated my Time Does not Exist page.
Updated my software favorites page. Upgraded my copies of Stuffit Deluxe, and Transmit today. The Transmit upgrade looks favorable. A whole new version. Went from 1.7b2 to 2.0
Updated my Chopsticks page. The page seems to be rather popular, so I spent a bit of time cleaning it up some. Come to find out, the two pages I used as reference, they're both gone. Folks are coming to Rob's World! for chopstick instructions.
Updated my Misawa page. Adding a link to a new page. The new page discusses wild life in the vicinity of Misawa Air Base and an encounter with a Tanuki.
Updated my Sugar Grove page. I added a graphic banner, and changed some of the content due to security concerns. I've also changed the name of my Guest Book page. I changed the name because people have been probing my server and the guestbook script for vulnerabilities. By changing the name of the Guest Book, I hope to thwart some of the annoying problems caused by this intrusive and annoying (blank guest book entires) behavior. Please let me know if you experience any problems accessing my Guest Book.
Updated my books page. I finally finished reading the 4th (and final) book of the Hechee Saga. The fourth book was really slowed down by the authors insistence on introspection and repetitious explanations regarding the nature of the characters in the story.
Updated a bunch of little stuff. I put the mac.com address back on my feedback and junkdec pages. I finally did it. I upgrade my temporary Mac.com membership to a full Mac.com account. Although there were numerous benefits, it was the 100 free photos that finally made me do it. I updated my picture on the Bio page. I updated one of my D&D pages, made a change to my movies 'to buy list'. Thanks to Mac.com and the Mac Slides Publisher, I added info regarding my screen saver subscription to my desktops page. If you own a Mac (with OS 10.2) and you liked my desktop photos, you'll love the screen saver.
Added another new page. Something I've been meaning to do for some time. I've added a link to some Desktop Photo's. They're pictures I've taken over the years. Kim & I have lived in, and visited, quite a few interesting places around the world, and these are some photo's from those places. They've been edited, and cropped for use as desktop photo's. I hope you like them.
I also updated my Movies page. Considerable expansion of the main page. I've added 'Movie Musings', 'What I look for', 'The Watch List' and 'The Buy List'. I've added notes, thoughts, and ideas regarding movies. I've even added a link to some notes I took while watching one of the top movies on my list.
Just updated my Schedule for the month of October. Kim and I were stricken with a horrible 24 hour stomach virus last week, and missed our chance to go to Elitch Gardens as a result. Damn the luck.
I also updated my music and movie listings. I've noticed that the music listing gets plenty of hits from search engines, so I figured I'd update it a bit.
One last change. I updated, and changed the Index Page. I broke it up into to pages. One related to FRPG material, and one for everything else. Hopefully that'll make things easier for some people.
Updated my software favorites page. Upgraded the OS to 10.2.1, Stuffit Deluxe to version 7.0, and iCab to 2.8.2. Stuffit's Magic Menu is back where it should be, and iCab is smiling once again. Stuffit 7.0 is the Jaguar upgrade, fixing the Magic Menu, and introducing a new compression standard; Stuffit X, a.k.a. .sitx The iCab update is another Jaguar upgrade.
I just finished updating my H.R. 3598 page. There's been a significant development with this piece of legislative garbage. If your interested in Individual Freedoms and Compulsory military service you may want to check out this web page.
I added another new page. Something I've been meaning to do for some time. It's an artificial language. Something I cooked up a long time ago. I'm sure you're intrigued by this little teaser. Indulge your curiosity now. Check out my new language, read all about 'Hallowese'.
I made a few minor changes. Updated the versions of GraphicConverter, and BBEdit on my software favorites page; updated the version of GPGMail on my feed back page; and updated my Table Builder web page. Table Builder is a fantastic little application. I wish BBEdit hadn't discontinued it's development and distribution.
Believe it or not, I just updated my Think Tank page. I added some information regarding my attendance at the 2002 World Forum in Beaver Creek, CO.
Just posted the schedule for September, updated my feedback page with new encryption information, and corrected some errors to one of my photo pages. Enjoy!
Kim and I recently returned from an extended Colorado vacation. We were off taking Colorado by storm. Kim's parents and my mother spent a week each. The vacation took the better part of the month for Kim and I. We had a fantastic time, and I took a lot of photos. In case you're interested, the photos have been posted to my web site. I hope this doesn't max out my disk space!
I recently upgraded my operating system from Mac OS 10.1.5 to Jaguar (aka Mac OS 10.2). As a result, some changes were noted on my software favorites and feedback pages.
Kim and I are still in the middle of a month long vacation. Kim's parents have departed, and my mother arrives tomorrow. We've been having a blast. In the meantime I've been performing a little web maintenance.
I've had to clean up the guestbook a little. Please don't abuse the guestbook. Your IP address is logged. I also updated my bio page, as well as some email addresses on the feedback and junk mail declaration pages.
I just updated my schedule for the month.
Kim and I just returned from a two day vacation. The 25th of July was her Birthday, and we took off this weekend to celebrate. We left on Saturday morning, and returned around 1400 today. We had a wonderful time, and took a bunch of pictures. I put some of them online. I decided to make some of our vacation photo's public using iPhoto. If you'd like to see some photo's from our vacations, check out the Vaessen Family photo page.
There have been a few other changes at Rob's World!. I finally took the original web site down. Rob's World! can no longer be accessed via GeoCities. (See the What's New entry at April 28 for more details). It's too bad it didn't work out. But the changes implemented since the merger with Yahoo have not been in my favor. The final straw was the move to eliminate free pop3 email. With that change came my decision to move everything to my own domain. I'm glad I did it, and wish I had done it earlier.
Speaking of unfortunate changes... Apple has decided to start charging for it's iTools services. Rebranded as .Mac the new pay services are somewhat expanded, but leave me out in the cold. Fortunately for me, the only thing I'll miss is the use of the free mac.com email address. $100.00 a year is too much for an ISP without internet access. As a result, I removed the mac.com addresses from my feedback and junk mail declaration pages.
The only other changes are updates to my software favorites page, my other games page, and my books page.
I just updated my schedule for the month.
I've been working in the coal mines! I spent a week working at the 2002 World Forum in Beaver Creek CO. It's an annual forum hosted by former president Gerald Ford, and sponsored by the American Enterprises Institute and the Vail Valley Foundation. I volunteered as a driver and security forces augmentee. I had loads of fun. By the way, I went as a private citizen, not as a member of the Armed Forces. My lawyer forced me to say that. AEI/VVF put us up in Condos in Avon, and we drove Lincoln Town Cars. It was a lot of long hours, but I had a good time. The hilite of the week came while I was escorting some people to a dinner party. On the way there, two of the people, a Palestinian Banker, and a Canadian Businessman, were discussing ways to solve the Middle East crisis. Now that was cool! I had a good time, and it was a welcome break from my normally stressful job. I will definitely volunteer again next year.
I went and saw a movie while I was in the Vail/Beaver Creek area. I saw the new 'Bourne Identity' with Mat Damon. It rocked. That movie was awesome. I hope to see 'Minority Report soon'. I also bought a slew of movies. On DVD I bought a copy of 'A beautiful mind', which I haven't seen yet, and 'Frank Herbert's Dune'. I bought the Special Edition Director's cut. It's a 3 disc set. If I'm not careful I might just OD on Dune! Aside from the DVD's I also bought some movies on VHS. A few movies that have been on my buy list for some time: Dungeons & Dragons, Company Man, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, and Tomb Raider. Speaking of video games. I bought my first PS2 game. I bought a copy of Gauntlet: Dark Legacy. I've always liked that game (Gauntlet). Ever since it first came out for the Commodore 64!
Our third session of Uggg finally happened! It occurred at 1800 vice 1230. I'm thinking of moving the time permanently. The turnout wasn't what I expected. Unfortunately, three people backed out on the session. We still played though. Three of us. We played 'Devil Bunny wants a Ham' and 'Fluxx'. See the Uggg chronicles for more details.
That's it for now. July should be a busy month at work, as one of my coworkers goes on leave. Leaving me to train the new guy, and run the shop.
There haven't been many web page updates. A few changes to the software favorites page, and another new email address on the feedback page. Aside from that I haven't done much work on the web site.
Another new page joins the Rob's World! web site. It's a bit tongue in cheek, I hope you enjoy it. It's the Vaessen Institute for Strategic Insight. A Think Tank for the 21st Century. That's right a think tank. I've always thought it would be cool to be part of a Think Tank. Well, I went ahead and founded my own Think Tank. How do you like that? I'm currently in need of a few other members. If you'd like to be able to add your name to the membership list please send me an email. Wouldn't that be a kicker? Something to lay down at your next party scene. 'Yes, I'm a member of a Think Tank.' It ought to be worth a few yucks. Aside from the think tank, I updated my schedule as usual.
The guestbook has been working flawlessly. I'd like to thank those individuals who signed it, and look forward to more signatures in the future. Your comments were great. Thanks for the effort.
Wow! My arms are sore. Kim and I got back from our white water rafting trip a few hours ago, and my arms are sore. Our white water rafting trip was originally supposed to take place on the 21st of May, but it got moved to the 27th. Memorial day certainly will be memorable. My arms will remember it for many days to come. A full day of rafting on the Arkansas river. The water was very cold, somewhere in the 40's. I was actually glad we had wet suits to wear. To bad they weren't dry suits as well. Kim got a little sun burnt, but we managed to stay in the boat. Nobody in our raft got thrown out of the raft. The lunch could have been better, but from the way we threw it down you'd think it was a gourmet meal. We had a really good time. The only recent updates to Rob's World!, are some small changes to the front door. I added direct guestbook and email links.
There's been a lot of updates to Rob's World! in the last few days. The most recent is a new page. I recently added a Mac evangelism page. It's a short page which explains why I choose Apple/Mac over Windows/PC as my home computing platform. If you've never owned a Mac I encourage you to check it out.
I just added a new page to the Rob's World! site. It's a Guestbook. That's right I've added a Guestbook to the site. You can access the new guestbook from the feedback page. It's a perl/cgi script that I downloaded from the internet. I was able to configure and install it all by myself. After the pains I had getting page counters to work, this turned out to be easier than I suspected.
I just added a new page to the Rob's World! site. It's a search page. That's right I've added a Rob's World search engine to the site. You can access the search page from the site wide index page, or from the front page. It's a perl/cgi script that I downloaded from the internet. I was able to configure and install it all by myself. After the pains I had getting page counters to work, this turned out to be easier than I suspected.
Next in line is a working guestbook, followed by local time on the schedule page and a couple of survey scripts on the music and movie listings.
I just downloaded a new version of GraphicConverter and finished updating my software favorites page. Aside from that I recently paid a visit to a Web Page called Rob's World. It certainly is a small world.
As you are aware... I recently completed a migration of Rob's World! from GeoCities to a new hosting service. I just completed work on my page counters. The page counters are now up and running on many of my web pages. If you notice any problems with them please let me know.
As you are aware... I recently completed a migration of Rob's World! from GeoCities to a new hosting service. I'm still working on that project. I'm currently trying to get my counters working, as well as some other server side includes. If you'd like to monitor the progress check one of these two pages. counter.html or test.html
Aside from the cgi-bin/perl testing, I've also been updating some of my Ugg documents. Ugg will now be know as Uggg. I added an extra 'g' because of trademark concerns. We didn't play on the 8th of May because everybody had other things to do. The next meeting is scheduled for the 20th.
I just completed the Great Migration. Rob's World now has a new home on the internet. The web site is www.RobsWorld.org. That's right, I've registered the Robsworld.org domain. The web site is being hosted by a friend of mine at http://dreamer.propagation.net. I left the Yahoo/Geocities cabal. Rising prices and lack of service were the primary reasons. Read the entries below if you'd like to know some of the details.
Aside from the new Rob's World! domain, I also registered Vaessen.net. As a result you can reach Rob's World! through robsworld.org or vaessen.net http URL's. You can also send me email at either of these domains. I used to own the RobertVaessen.com domain, but now it belongs to Yahoo.com. I hope they're enjoying it! (Once again, read entries below for some details)
Rob's World at Geocities will remain on the air for a while. It'll have a banner indicating the move. No further updates will be posted there, and after a while I'll discontinue it altogether. Today's posting should be the last posting to the GeoCities location.
I spent a lot of time copying, updating and posting pages to the new site, but I've still got some work to do at the new site. In particular, I hope to get the page counters back in service. If you notice any problems with the new site (i.e. broken links, old yahoo or geocities email addresses, etc) please drop me an email
I'm on break right now, but I took some leave, and won't be back at work until the 6th of May. I hope to get some serious web work done.
Aside from the huge changes in store for Rob's World! (see below), I also updated a few other pages. As usual, with a new month comes a new schedule. In addition to the normal update, I also added a copy of my shift schedule for the rest of the year. It's a new schedule. New and improved. Aside from the schedule changes, I also updated my feedback and spam declaration pages. The Uggg Chronicles were also updated. Adding a synapsis of the most recent session. I even updated the site index. I kind of forgot to add the Uggg Chronicles and the Human Barometer pages to the index. While I was at it I even added the Charlie Crew shift schedule. Finally, my software favorites page got a minor update.
Now for the dramatic new news! Rob's World! is moving!
Until further notice... Please do not send email to me (or Kim) using any of the following domains: geocities.com, RobertVaessen.com, Yahoo.com.
I'm having a bit of a problem with my email services.
You can email me at one of my other addresses: 
, or 
(I've got others as well). You can email Kim at 
(No longer valid) or 
Here's the problem...
Yahoo.com has decided to start charging people to access their email via pop3. So now I am forced to check all of the following email accounts through a stinking web portal. 
, 
, 
, (No longer valid) 
,(No longer valid) and 
, (No longer valid).
The Yahoo email web portal is slow (even with an aDSL connection), ugly, cluttered with blinking advertisement (which frequently resizes), difficult to use, prone to crashes and errors, adds advertisement to both received and sent email, and is a general pain in the Ass!
I've been a GeoCities customer for a long time (Since 1995). With Geocities Plus I got a pretty good deal. $4.95 a month for 20Mb hosting (and no pop-up ads), some precompiled scripts (page counters and such), and pop3/smtp access to geocities.com email.
Then Geocities got bought out by Yahoo, so I inherited a free Yahoo.com address as well.
Then I signed up for Domain hosting of RobertVaessen.com through Yahoo.com. They redirect all http/web requests to my Geocities.com web address, so it's not true hosting. They also gave me a few email addresses that I could redirect to any email address I wanted.
Nowww... Yahoo is beginning to charge people for pop3 access or forwarding of email. It's affected all my related web services. Anything addressed to the addresses listed above is currently showing up in my 'Web based' suck ass Yahoo.com mail box.
Aside from affecting my free Yahoo.com email address, it's also affected my Geocities.com and RobertVaessen.com email as well. No they didn't send me any notice that this would happen.
This sucks, and is totally unacceptable. They blew me off (responding with a generic answer which did not address my questions at all) each time I emailed them (three times now), and my only option at this point appears to be further extortion ($19.99 (Going up to $29.99 after 24 April)). Or I could call their $1.99 a minute phone service number and try to get things straightened out that way!
I'm currently paying for Geocities.com web services ($4.95 a month), and the RobertVaessen.com domain hosting service ($35.00) a year. But another $19.99 (or $29.99) a month is unacceptable. Especially since the $19.99/29.99 is just for email!
I'm planning to drop all their services, moving my Web and email services somewhere else.
So; you will definitely notice some changes in Rob's World! in the near future. Stand by for change!
I just posted another new web page. Another one of my wacky theories. Can anyone predict the weather without instruments? Can joint pain be used to predict weather. One mans experience as a Human Barometer.
I just updated the H.R. 3598 page. Believe it or not, someone withdrew their support for this bill. I added a 'Recent news/Update quick link to the page.
This may come as a surprise, but Rob's World! is moving. That's right, it's been a while since I moved the web site, but Yahoo/Geocities has finally gone and pissed me off to the extent that I'm planning on moving.
Until further notice... Please do not send email to me (or Kim) using any of the following domains: geocities.com, RobertVaessen.com, Yahoo.com.
Here's the problem...
Yahoo.com has decided to start charging people to access their email via pop3. So now I am forced to check many of my email accounts through a stinking web portal. Two of the affected email addresses are: ,
(No longer valid)
The Yahoo email web portal is slow (even with an aDSL connection), ugly, cluttered with blinking advertisement (which frequently resizes), difficult to use, prone to crashes and errors, adds advertisement to both received and sent email, and is a general pain in the Ass!
I've been a GeoCities customer for a long time (Since 1995). With Geocities Plus I got a pretty good deal. $4.95 a month for 20Mb hosting (and no pop-up ads), some precompiled scripts (page counters and such), and pop3/smtp access to geocities.com email.
Then Geocities got bought out by Yahoo, so I inherited a free Yahoo.com address as well.
Then I signed up for Domain hosting of RobertVaessen.com through Yahoo.com. They redirect all http/web requests to my Geocities.com web address, so it's not true hosting. They also gave me a few email addresses that I could redirect to any email address I wanted.
Nowww... Yahoo is beginning to charge people for pop3 access or forwarding of email. It's affected all my related web services. Anything addressed to the addresses listed above is currently showing up in my 'Web based' suck ass Yahoo.com mail box.
Aside from affecting my free Yahoo.com email address, it's also affected my Geocities.com and RobertVaessen.com email as well. No they didn't send me any notice that this would happen.
This sucks, and is totally unacceptable. They blew me off (responding with a generic answer which did not address my questions at all) each time I emailed them (three times now), and my only option at this point appears to be further extortion ($19.99 (Going up to $29.99 after 24 April)). Or I could call their $1.99 a minute phone service number and try to get things straightened out that way!
I'm currently paying for Geocities.com web services ($4.95 a month), and the RobertVaessen.com domain hosting service ($35.00) a year. But another $19.99 (or $29.99) a month is unacceptable. Especially since the $19.99/29.99 is just for email!
I'm planning to drop all their services, moving my Web and email services somewhere else.
So; There are some big changes in the future of Rob's World! Stand by for change!
I just added another new page to the Rob's World web site. It's a follow on to my Uggg page (which has also been updated). It's a chronicle of the Uggg Sessions. In addition to the new page, I also updated the H.R. 3598 page. Believe it or not, someone withdrew their support for this bill.
I just added a new page to the Rob's World web site. I've been slaving away on a web page that I've been meaning to add for quite some time now. It's a page which opposes some proposed legislation. The web page attacks H.R. 3598, the Universal Military Training and Education act of 2001. I think you'll be surprised when you find out what the bill is all about. In addition to adding the H.R. 3598 page, I also updated the site wide index.
I just added a new page to the Rob's World web site. I wrote a web page concerning DejaVu and mind control. I hope you enjoy it. In addition to adding the DejaVu page, I also updated the site wide index.
I'm back from the NCO (Non-Commissioned Officers) Academy. Six weeks in Colorado Springs has finally come to an end. I learned a lot of Stuff about leadership and management, graduated on the 4th of April, and have been trying to unwind, recover, and relax since then. I start back at work on the 8th. Until then I've got a lot of domestic stuff to get caught up on, email to read, and web pages to update. I'm sure my first day back at work (without any turn over) will be rather interesting.
I've updated my Favorites page. GraphicConverter and AppleWorks have both been updated. I also updated my Books page. Adding a whole bunch of books to the list of books to be read. I updated the Uggg page, my schedule, the feedback, and Junk email declaration pages. Yahoo email is no longer free. That just about covers it. Time to get started on all those great new web page ideas I came up with over the past six weeks.
I just updated my BIO page. I added a picture of me from my early days in the Air Force, and updated the current picture of me.
I just updated my Music page. It's been a while, and I've been receiving a few inquiries about my collection. Seems I've managed to collect some rather rare cuts. If you're interested in acquiring any of the titles on my list feel free to drop me a line.
Well I've certainly been busy. I've posted two all new web pages to my site. One is devoted to my belief that Time does not exist. That's right, you heard correctly. Time and motion do not exist. I've believed this for quite some time. After reading 'The End of Time' by Adrian Barbour, I was finally able to codify and describe my harebrained beliefs. Check it out, if you dare!
Aside from the Heretical Diatribe above, I also created a web page for something I call Uggg. The Underground Gamers Group. I've been lax in my gaming habit of late. As a result I decided to establish a gaming group at the ADF. A small group of folks. Who are, as of yet, unselected, or recruited as you might say. I plan to put the Uggg plan into effect after I return from the Academy.
I updated my Favorites page today. The updates to that page consisted of new icons, and some html tweaking. The new icons were ripped from various applications using an OSX utility called IconGrabber. A nifty little tool that roots through an applications resource files, finds all the icons and displays/saves them in multi-page tiff format. Pretty neat! Saved me a lot of time, and I ended up with better looking icons!
What have I been up to? Glad you asked. Not satisfied with merely updating a few web pages, I've been busy this break. At the insistence of a few friends, I've placed my movie collection on-line. This move necessitated the creation of two web pages, one support page (not posted), two graphic images, and an update to the master index.
In addition to the movie page, I also updated some of the older FRP campaign pages. In particular you'll find that I updated my main campaign page, and a few other related pages. Best of all I came up with some new ideas for additional web pages.
January is over. A month of cold... The temperatures certainly dropped in the month of January. We received a 'little' more snow. Kim and I are doing good. We haven't taken any leave/vacations. We're kind of conserving our money and liking our wounds. Kim had surgery to remove her wisdom teeth, we had some vehicle repair bills, Christmas is coming due, and we're still paying rent.. So much for that pay raise!
First of all... Be sure to check out my iPhoto page. I created the photo pages using iPhoto. A fantastic, free, application for Mac OSX. It rocks! Maybe you should switch to a Mac :-)
Let's talk about OSX for a few minutes. With the advent of OSX, Unix has been introduced to the Mac user. It's an introduction that I've been waiting for. Something that I think will ultimately prove to be one of the smartest things Apple ever did. It truly is an introduction. You don't need to use it. OSX is sugar coated with a fantastic GUI. Aqua has every thing a user could want. Once you fire up the terminal, and look behind the curtain; You'll find eight slamin' pistons stokin' under that hood. Unix is the engine driving OSX, and it's powered by Rocket Fuel. With power that most users never imagined existed.
I've been using Unix continuously (in one flavor or another) since 1985, and I know from experience that it's got a lot of oomph! I started out on Xenix, and have used everything from VMS to Linux. They're all pretty much the same (aside from that VMS thing!). They may not be easy to use, but they're powerful, and once you get to know them, somewhat intuitive. It's a step below programing, but combines aspects of programming. Shell scripts are extremely powerful animals. Similar to AppleScripts.
The only thing I never had the permission or time to do (while using these various forms of unix), was compile and install binaries. Taking Unix applications, importing them from other users, sites, and versions, and making them run on my machine. I was either prohibited, too busy with other stuff, or advised not to muck about with such things. Well, since the advent of OSX I've taken a dip on the wild side. I've been doing the forbidden dance baby, and I'm lovin' it! Some of the most powerful computer applications available, written by/for Universities, Hospitals, Major corporations, and the Military have been written for Unix, and they're now available for your Mac. It'll take a little bit of elbow grease, but they can be yours if you've got a hankerin for something with a little more kick than your run of the mill commercial release. One of my favorites is the GIMP. Check out the web page, and you'll see why people should be excited by the power of OSX's Unix underpinnings. One of the best things about all these new applications... Most of them are free! (Including the GIMP)
In order to run all these fantastic applications, you're going to need a few new software titles. Namely: Xfree86, XDarwin, and my favorite, fink. Once you get your X windows environment running (I use OroborOSX), you'll find thousands of powerful applications that have been a well kept secret for all this time. Fink will be your gateway to the new possibilities of Unix applications. It'll help you (Trust me, it does most of the work) find, compile, and install hundreds of Unix software titles for your Mac. Hopefully, you'll become familiar enough to start compiling and installing the programs without fink's help. If you get stuck at any point you'll find that there are many help forums and web pages where you can find answers to your inevitable questions.
O.k. time to step down off the soapbox. There have been a lot of changes to the web site lately. One of the most exciting is the new web address. That's right I've got a new web address. Are you ready for this?... www.RobertVaessen.com O.k. I admit it's a bit vain, but what the hell! I deserve it. I registered the website through GeoCities/Yahoo using their Yahoo! Mail Personal Address service. It cost me $35.00 a year, but comes with five email addresses as well. I might move to a different service later on, but I figured I'd give the Geocities/Yahoo folks a try first. Right now the new address simply points to my geocities web site. With this addition I'm using the GeoCitiesPlus, and Personal Address services. The GeoPlus service gives me a basic Geocities web page without the advertisement, free email, and 25Mb of web space. Even with all my web pages (Over three hundred pages!), and graphics (appx 150), I'm barely over 5% of my limit. The Personal Address service gives me highly personalized web and email addresses that I can give out to friends and family.
No that's not the only new thing at Rob's World!. I've also updated the favorites page. I've updated and upgraded a lot of my software lately. I upgraded to BBEdit 6.5 recently, and I'm very happy with the performance. Although I don't use a lot of the new features, I'll continue to upgrade as long as they continue to serve up this fantastic application, and fabulous customer support. Long live BBEdit! Aside from the BBEdit upgrade you'll also notice that I've also updated some of the graphics on that page. I stole the new graphics from the PICT resources inside some of my OSX/Carbonized applications. In addition to the software updates, I also added a new 'category' to the page. I'm sure you read and enjoyed my treatment of OSX's unix power above. The new category supports my love of OSX's Unix power. I don't plan to list separate Unix application on the favorites page, but I felt that I had to put something on the favorites page. I'm sure you'll agree that it deserves it's own spotlight.
Even more updates! A little bit of bad news... I now have to pay for my email address. So much for iName's 'Free for Life' email address. Oh, you can still receive the service for free... But, you'll be limited to a 10Mb mailbox, and have to access your email via the web. With the $9.95 annual fee you get unlimited forwarding/redirect service. The price is set to go up to $19.95 next year. Blood suckers! I'm still happy with the service, but in my opinion, the price is steep. I decided to pay because the myself.com address is my primary email address, and I'd have to do a lot of rearranging to change that. I'll stick with it for now.
And finally; I've updated the usual assortment... The Feedback and Junkmail pages have my new email and web address. I even added some new services to my feedback page. I found a site (J2 Global Communications) that offers free voicemail and fax services. The faxes and voicemail messages are forwarded to your email account. Can't beat that for a dollar! I wonder how long they'll be free? I've also updated my schedule for those who want to know what I'm working.
Welcome to 2002!, 2001 is done, and we're moving on to a new year. Things are looking sunny here, and I hope to spread some good cheer. What's new in your part of the woods?
December was a relatively quiet month. Until the last few weeks that is. Of course there was Christmas, and Kim and I had a very good one. Our biggest gift would have to be the new Passat. We bought it in April, and the down payment took a big chunk of our savings. The payments are high, and it'll be a while before we get that monkey off our back. Aside from the car, we both got a lot of clothes. Computer gifts of note were; 256Mb's of RAM, and a new 80Gb hard drive. I didn't get that Playstation 2 though. The price still hasn't come down from $299. That's a little to high for me. Maybe it'll come down this year. Maybe I'll buy a used one?
The new hard drive was the cause of December's (and early January's) problems. It's the reason I'm so late in getting my web page updates posted. After unwrapping the new 80Gb drive, I immediately set about installing and partitioning it. In my zealous fervor I inadvertently erased my OS 9 partition! It was all my fault, I should have slowed down, and taken a break. I had stayed up very late, and disregarded a warning from the computer. As a result, I had to take an old hard drive out of the closet (Thank god I had that!), install it, and copy the entire contents (An old version of my OS 9 partition) onto my new hard drive. The old data was about 9 months old, and I lost a lot of data as a result. All the digital photos, web pages, and other files that I'd accumulated since June of 2001. I've just recently finished restoring my OS 9 partition to it's post disaster state. I recovered my lost web pages by downloading them from the web. All this extra work has taken up a lot of my time lately, and made me a bit grumpy. The ironic part of this disaster, is the fact that I got the new hard drive so that I could create incrementally synchronized daily back-ups of all my data. The good part of the story is that I now have room to do this, and will soon purchase the necessary software.
Along with the 80gb hard drive, I also purchased another 256mb's of RAM. So now I have 1gb of RAM, and 120gb's of storage space. I'm a happy camper. I imagine that I'll have to live with this configuration for at least the next five years. It's not that bad, much better than working on a Performa 550 (My previous computer).
O.k. let's talk about the weather in December of 2001. Kim and I haven't experienced a full year of Denver weather yet, but I'd have to say that it's relatively mild. Very dry! According to NOAA; "December 2001 ties as Denver's 9th driest December in Denver weather history with only 0.14 inch of precipitation recorded. 1881 was the driest December on record with no precipitation recorded...the only month in Denver history to ever record zero precipitation. December 2001 had only 3 days with measurable precipitation... 0.04 on the 12th, .09 on the 15th, and 0.01 on the 21st. snowfall was also well below normal with only a meager 2.9 inches at the former stapleton international airport. This compares to the average december snowfall of 7.3 inches." Now that's dry. As a matter of fact, I'm thirsty right now... Excuse me a moment... That's better. A nice cold glass of lemonade.
Alright; Enough with the Jibber-Jabber. Let's talk about the web site. Yes, I've updated it some. The most notable changes are the feedback and junk mail pages. Where I added some new email addresses. Can never have enough of those babies! I added a Hotmail account, and put the bigfoot account back on the list. I also updated my software favorites page. As usual, I updated my schedule page. The only other thing I updated was the autobiography page. I added links to the various places mentioned on the page; even creating a page for Sugar Grove West Virginia.
Hopefully that's enough to keep you busy for a while.
Return to Main Page of Robert's Home Page.
Take a trip into the Past. View the "What's New" archives. Venture way back to the Distant Past. Fire up the way back machine,
and study some Ancient History. In order to experience previous "What's New Archives", manually enter the URL in the form
'https://www.robsworld.org/wn####.html'; substituting the year for the number (pound) signs.
The archives begin in the year 1996.
Author: Robert L. Vaessen e-mail: 
Last Updated:
This page has been accessed times since 07 Jan 02.
Access to 'this page' indicates access to any/all of my "What's New" pages.