Setting up Amavisd to run chroot on OpenBSD
Over on The Register, I’ve been doing a series of articles about setting up your own email server with spam and virus filtering. You can find them here: part 1, part 2, part 3. In the third part, I...
View ArticleUsing Postscreen to filter out connections on your mail server
In my recent series at The Register, I’ve explained how you can set up a mail server with spam and virus filtering, using OpenBSD, Postfix and Amavisd. The configuration I’ve used is, at heart, one...
View ArticleWhen will your Freeview box stop working?
My recent post on the new rules for Freeview has prompted some questions about how much longer people will be able to carry on using their first generation Freeview kit. To recap, from January 2017 all...
View ArticleTime to have your say on the BBC
If you’ve read some of my recent pieces about the BBC, you’ll probably be aware that there’s a consultation going on, and a Charter Review is due soon. The deadline for responding to the government’s...
View ArticleShould you buy a 4K television?
There’s a generalisation, known as Betteridge’s Law, that states that any headline ending in a question mark can be answered by the word “No.” Normally, of course, it’s about something a little more...
View ArticleSurrounded by terror
I’ve written before about binaural stereo – the technique that gives a surround sound experience through an ordinary pair of headphones. I must admit that when I’ve tried to explain this to people in...
View ArticleTalkTalk hack doesn’t affect Blinkbox, they say very quietly
The news today has been full of the attack on TalkTalk and the potential security breach, which may yet cause havoc for a lot of people. We don’t entirely know yet, but the list of information that may...
View ArticleLet’s TalkTalk about privacy and censorship
Much has been said in the media about the recent attack on TalkTalk, and the worries that many people have about whether or not their bank accounts might be at risk. That’s a legitimate worry, made...
View ArticleWRC – The story so far
I’ve mentioned WRC here before, and today the meeting has opened in Geneva, with 3,800 delegates from over 160 member states and more than 130 organisations represented. But what is it, and why should...
View ArticleIs Theresa May going to make me a criminal?
On Wednesday this week, the new Investigatory Powers Bill is to be published, revealing at last the extent to which our goverment thinks it should have access to all the communications we send over the...
View ArticleFreeview wins in the battle of Geneva
Good news from Geneva – the future of terrestrial broadcasting in Europe is safe for now, thanks to the decision at WRC-15 to keep the UHF band exclusively for DTT services. As the EBU reports, this...
View ArticleBuild your own mail server – Revo One a snip at £149
A few months back, I did a series of articles on The Register, in which I explained how to build your own mail server. The system I used to do that was the Acer Revo One RL85, which I previously...
View ArticleScary numbers
When you see people posting dire warnings, sometimes it’s a good idea to Google them. One I’ve seen today is about not calling a number that rings you, because it costs you £42 just to ring it, and £14...
View ArticleA quick first look at Android Pay in the UK
Android Pay launched today in the UK, so I decided I’d have a quick play with it on my Moto X (2014), and see how well it works. Most of the time these days, I don’t take cash out with me, since all...
View ArticleAdventures in VoIP at Ars Technica
My first piece for Ars Technica has just been published, looking at how to set up a VoIP system for your home. I’ll write more here about the Vigor BX I played with, but meantime read the piece here:...
View ArticleA farewell to Skype
Don’t panic! Skype’s not going away. But it is transitioning to a new future. Where once it was based around a peer to peer architecture, for various reasons – explained in this article on Ars Technica...
View ArticleLove tech, hate online voting
In the wake of the UK’s referendum on EU membership, there has been a lot happening in politics. One of those things is the launch of a new movement – it’s not a political party – called More United....
View ArticleTV makers cause trouble for Auntie’s iPlayer loophole
There has been a fair amount of coverage in the news recently about the closing of what’s been called the ‘iPlayer loophole.’ This was a gap in the rules for the TV licence that said that you only...
View ArticleFeeling at home with Three?
Earlier this summer, UK mobile network Three announced a massive expansion of their “Feel at Home” scheme, essentially adding all the missing European countries to the list. This means that, wherever...
View Article$300 ransom? It’s the price of doing business
Today computers across the world have been hit by ransomware – notably including the UK’s NHS, and Spanish telco Telefonica. Some initial comments suggested “well, $300 isn’t a very big amount, it’s...
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