Ok, I said I’d tell you the longer version, and here goes. About mid-morning yesterday I fire up Thunderbird to check my mail. I typically leave it open most of the day since TB has a nifty little tray-notifier when I get new mail. Well, around noon the thing starts going nuts. Mail is pouring in and its comment notifications from my journal. Of course they’re all spam. I look down at the bottom of the email expecting to click on my MT-Blacklist link and ban the sucker. The link isn’t there. No problem, I’ll just do it manually from the website. Open my browser and I can’t get to the page. Not good. So then I try my main MT control panel. Can’t get that either. Panic starts to spread. I figure maybe someone’s hacked the MT install to make my life miserable by sticking in as many comment spams as possible to raise the rank of their zoo animal sex site. So, as a last resort I fire up my FTP program. I figure maybe I can reset things manually. FTP can’t connect. More panic. I email Chip.

Thankfully the problem with the FTP is that we’ve moved over to something more secure. So, crisis averted but my Movable Type install is still messed up. Well, since I didn’t have a local copy of a 2.x install I had to download 3.1 from the website. That also means that I had to upgrade MT-B as well. After some fooling I got it to install and fix whatever problem it was having. After that I installed the new version of Blacklist and at the moment everything is going nicely. It’s a temporary fix but it’ll do the job. So, I’ve activated MT-B as well as comments again and I’ve turned off TypeKey authorization, so people can comment freely without having to create an account, BUT I set it up to not allow comments on entries older than 14 days as well as comment moderation. This is only temporary. Once everyone comments on something (hint, do it now please) I’ll be able to “allow” your comment which will be remembered by MT. So, the next time you make a comment it should go strait in. I’ve also told MT to delete comments I don’t moderate, so, the spam will just sit in the pending box for a few days before being deleted.

It was kind of the long way around, but I’m glad I actually upgraded. My worry about the whole TypeKey thing was a bit much considering you can turn it off and there are quite a few more options to deal with comments when you do. So, it’s all good.

In other news, I had quite a surprise from work. A nice little bonus to specifically buy a new graphics card. A big thanks to my boss for being so cool. The only problem is that the card I want is out of stock at NewEgg. 🙁

I’d like a XFX GeForce 6600GT AGP. They have plenty of the PCI-express versions, but since I loath PCI video cards in the first place AND to use a PCI-E card I’ve have to get a new mobo and power supply, I don’t think that’s going to happen. AGP please.

The reviews on the card are solid. It beats the ever living crap out of a 9800 Pro and is dead even with a X700. Since I don’t have $400 for a 6800GT, this little screamer will have to do. Not a bad card for $220. The only thing is that I haven’t heard anything about the brand name: XFX. As far as I know, that card is 100% a Nvidia reference card, which isn’t saying its bad, it’s just been re-branded.

I’d really like Gainward or BFG or VisionTek to come out with a 6600 AGP card. I’d be all over that like white on rice. Who knows, maybe by the time NewEgg has it back in stock they’ll be more than one 6600GT AGP card on the market. We’ll see. I can’t wait to get it and fire up HL2. Yeah babe!