RETURN (the webmaster's own SF/historical novel)

As of 24 March 2008, early copies of ReturnWhat lies beyond the passageways? are now available. Be in now if you want to be among the original few owners of this lifetime's work.
Short precis:It is transcribed by an eighteen year old boy (no longer). After discovering a burial chamber hidden on the outskirts of his city, he sets out to find out why it exists, who is buried there. It conceals some kind of secret- something that could threaten the natural order of things as he knows it. Nevertheless, he cannot dismiss its existence or the risk if someone finds out what he knows. As he slowly understands, his life changes forever. As events unfold he must embark on a journey his people have not travelled in a millenia to encounter an enemy they have never defeated. Is it a fool's errand, or does he know something they don't?

Website moved to new home

As from 6 November 2006, this site has a new home. It is now being hosted on our own server running under Ubuntu Linux in our office at:
16 Hudson Ave,
Upper Hutt 5018
New Zealand

Since this notice was presented, the site has remained in our office forseveral years (successfully). However, if you spot something that needs attention, please drop us a line using the feedback form at the bottom of this page. It would be appreciated.

Bot capture automated

As from 29 March 2006, the identification and logging of web bots became completely automatic. These pests are spread by viral means or sometimes by hacking. Often under the control of one webmaster, they can act individually or in combination to carry out anything from distributed denial of service attacks (DDOS) to key logging (capture of personal or secure information from web users). These things are also known for spamming attacks because their distribution makes it most difficult to identify the real source of the problem. Their one weakness appears to be that they behave like mindless automatons, repeatedly submitting to the same places. The results of monitoring their activity are available along with instructions on how to protect your website/scripts from attacks at Where are the BOTS?. Here you can find a list of IP addresses grouped by number you can capture for your own use.

Email issue fixed

As from 12 December 2005, a mystery has been solved. For several months, quantities of returned email appearing to come from our domain had been arriving from servers where the recipients did not exist. For a time, we did not know why, but believed it was being sent by unknown systems. Then two unknown files were discovered on the server, named cgiecho.exe and cgiemail.exe. Since they had not been placed there by anyone known to us, we guessed they might be involved and re-named them. In the days following, the amount of returned junk mail trailed off to nothing, leaving little doubt that someone had placed them there to relay their email from an unknown sender.

If you have files like these on your server, and have such problems, perhaps you should consider treating them in the same way. The internet has enough junk mail already!

Freemerchant Shop Closed

From 5 November 2005 our freemerchant shop site no longer functions. Over coming months, work will be undertaken to replace it with one based on the makepage script. This decision was prompted by several factors.

• Cost of running the shop from year to year.

• High proportion of fraud attempts by dishonest individuals (all failed).

• Low numbers of genuine orders.

• Greater success being achieved by servicing local (face to face) customers who appreciate personal service.

Orders may still be placed at our office by phone at 64 4 5286786.
We wish to thank all our Safe Account customers who have stuck with us over the years.

Due to a server upgrade, previous script submission links are no longer available. Currently, the following scripts may be used for link page submissions:

• http://modecideas.com/cgi-bin/links2s.cgi _{Emails you once (restricted to Link-O-Matic & manual submissions)}

• http://modecideas.com/cgi-bin/mattslinks1.pl _{Collects a database of links and emails you once (restricted to worldsubmitter submissions)}

All other FFA pages permit only direct personal submissions due to abuse by other submission scripts. Other scripts are no longer supported.