blog - jaidev.info » Tech

Yahoo! Group’s B0rk3d Email

Jaidev — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 16:30:12 +0000

This broken email setup at Y! groups is messing up my email delivery and logs for the past few days. This issue affects email delivery to any yahoo group member with an email account on a server configured to perform sender verify callouts. Looks like somebody went on her Christmas vacation too soon (and for too long).

[11:21:01 root@~]# host -t mx returns.groups.yahoo.com returns.groups.yahoo.com mail is handled by 10 rmx1.grp.vip.sp2.yahoo.com. [11:21:11 root@~]# host rmx1.grp.vip.sp2.yahoo.com. rmx1.grp.vip.sp2.yahoo.com has address 98.137.34.56 rmx1.grp.vip.sp2.yahoo.com mail is handled by 0 . [11:21:24 root@~]# telnet rmx1.grp.vip.sp2.yahoo.com 25 Trying 98.137.34.56... telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Connection refused [11:21:35 root@~]#

Update: After a break of two full weeks, this has been rectified. I guess the vacation is over.

[20:56:37 root@~]# telnet rmx1.grp.vip.sp2.yahoo.com 25 Trying 98.137.34.56... Connected to rmx1.grp.vip.sp2.yahoo.com. Escape character is '^]'. 220 returns.groups.yahoo.com ESMTP quit 221 returns.groups.yahoo.com Connection closed by foreign host. [20:56:40 root@~]#

Nokia e71 Crashes / Reboots with AT&T 3G

Jaidev — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 01:04:13 +0000

I use a Nokia E71 U.S. version that I got unlocked off amazon a couple of years ago. Its a great phone, but being in the smartphone business for eternity, one would expect Nokia to have figured out the importance of frequent software updates. Whats worse, while the rest of the World gets some updates when Nokia feels generous, the U.S. version seems to have been abandoned (a search for 0569371 shows the mess).

Recently, I hit a serious issue with the phone. My phone now crashes and reboots continuously when I’m at home. Well, it eventually shuts off. The interesting bit is that I see this issue only at home. Turning 3G off does solve the problem. But where’s the fun in that? It turns out that AT&T is upgrading its network and is deploying a third WCDMA channel in certain markets. The e71 and other symbian s60 3G phones have a software bug that makes them reboot continuously in such areas.

Thats still okay, it seems to be a rarely used configuration and Nokia should probably be able to fix it soon enough right? Not so soon! I’ve found instances of people from other regions complaining about this issue since August 2009 and Nokia still does not have a software update with the fix. Here comes the kicker, the last available update for the U.S. e71 version is 200.21.118 (built 27th November 2008). Some versions seem to blessed with a more recent firmware upate though.

I do not think Nokia gets it! The days of releasing a new phone every couple of weeks is gone. Its all in the software now. A great phone like the e71 would have been far more successful with a company who understood the new realities.

PS: AT&T apparently stopped selling the e71x and other s60 in some regions.

Update – 5th May 2010

Nokia finally responded to all the 0569371 complaints and released firmware version 410.21.010 for this e71 product code yesterday. This update seems to have fixed the issue with the 3rd WCDMA channel.

Web 2.0 Annoyances

Jaidev — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:18:52 +0000

I don’t understand what the deal is with not having a simple, non-javascript, non-flash, plain HTML login form on the front page of websites where most (all) content require authentication. Twitter, linkedin, flickr, (to name a few) are all guilty of this. I do not like staying signed-in to any of these services and have my browser clear their cookies after every session.

Its not lack of real estate, most of them find space for elaborate sign-up forms. All I ask for is a simple one line login form which shouldn’t take more than 24×240 pixels. While we’re at it can we all agree to set tabindex=1 on the username field so that I don’t have to tab over a gazillion times?

Google Voice Infinite Loop

Jaidev — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 18:39:54 +0000

Give a boy a fancy toy and the first thing he does is break it open to see whats underneath. So when I started using Google Voice, I had to break it.

Now, the most important feature of Google voice is call forwarding where it can ring multiple registered phones when your Google voice number is called. Here’s a bit of fun with this feature –

From a registered phone, dial your Google voice number
Key in your PIN, press 2 and dial your registered phone number (the same one you’re calling from)
Say “hello” and enjoy the infinite loop, its more fun if you love hearing your own voice

Wanted: gSSO

Jaidev — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 23:14:57 +0000

While certain companies are always viewed with a suspicious eye, certain others are considered a joke. Google, on the other hand is considered the son of God despite its evils.

With the explosion of Web 2.0 services, I find it a pain to sign on to Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, and the million other sites that have mushroomed. (I’m paranoid about staying signed on to sites with everyone and their brothers abusing beacons). So, on this day, the 13th of November 2008, I nominate our friendly neighbourhood do-no-evil company to implement a single sign on that I can ~~indiscriminately~~ blindly trust.

Indian ISPs Technically Challenged?

Jaidev — Fri, 02 May 2008 03:02:17 +0000

I was glancing through the BGP Instability Report which is a measure of the number of updates from various ASes over the past month. For a stable network, the number of updates must be relatively low.

I don’t understand why five of the top twenty most active ASes must be Indian ISPs. For a country with 3.6% of the World’s internet users and 0.5174% of the World’s IP addresses, it does seem more than a bit unusual.

It does point to very incompetent ISPs.

Why MSFT and YHOO are MFEO

Jaidev — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 18:53:09 +0000

More genius:

[14:45:27 jaidev@~]$ host -t mx yahoogroups.com yahoogroups.com mail is handled by 10 mta2.grp.vip.scd.yahoo.com. yahoogroups.com mail is handled by 20 mta1.grp.vip.re1.yahoo.com. yahoogroups.com mail is handled by 30 mta12.grp.scd.yahoo.com. yahoogroups.com mail is handled by 30 mta13.grp.scd.yahoo.com. yahoogroups.com mail is handled by 30 mta14.grp.scd.yahoo.com. [14:45:31 jaidev@~]$ telnet mta2.grp.vip.scd.yahoo.com 25 Trying 66.218.67.194... Connected to mta2.grp.vip.scd.yahoo.com. Escape character is '^]'. 220 yahoogroups.com ESMTP helo 250 yahoogroups.com mail from: 250 ok rcpt to: @yahoogroups.com 250 ok data 354 go ahead Subject: Photos . 554 we cannot accept this message because it appears to contain virus (#5.7.1) quit 221 yahoogroups.com Connection closed by foreign host.

Yahoogroups just refuses to accept emails with a subject line containing just Photos. Wow, my spamassassin setup is better than that.

GPL Violation

Jaidev — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 04:48:28 +0000

Dear Lazyweb,

Someone brought this to my attention recently. I don’t care much for attribution, but he’s stripped the original copyright message and even attached his own terms. I’m officially peeved.

Update: And now, another!

How would you deal with a GPL violation?

HOWTO Retrieve Nokia N75 Security Code

Jaidev — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 18:45:04 +0000

Okay, the Nokia N75 has a serious bug. When you change the default security code from 12345 to something else, it allows you to choose a security code with more than 5 digits. But when you’re required to enter the code, it accepts only 5. This bug and the time gap between when I changed the code to when I wanted to use it meant that I forgot what my code was.

I didn’t want to flash the phone, so I figured out a simpler way of recovering the code off the phone. This may or may not work with other phones and may or may not hose it. Here goes (windoze based) –

Install Nemesis Service Suite (NSS).
Connect the phone through a USB cable, choose pc-suite mode on the phone.
In NSS, go to the Phone Info section and the Permanent Memory tab.
Read the permanent memory into a file.
Open this file in a text-editor, it is organised in numbered sections. Locate section [308] and the line starting with 5= within this section.
The 5 ASCII values (in hexadecimal) following 5= should be the security code. For instance, if the code was 12345, the line would be 5=3132333435 …

For older Nokia phones, just use this master security code generator.

Personal Data

Jaidev — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 00:47:11 +0000

In a landmark ruling in Europe, a privacy regulator has ruled that IP addresses constitute private data. This is very interesting and long overdue. These days before every Google search I fear the cookie that Google has on my computer. I’ve disabled Google Web History, but I know they’re still gathering data! I could set firefox to delete the cookie after every session as I do with most other cookies, but (a) I like to stay signed in to reader, gmail, etc. and (b) Google can still mine a lot of data from my searches while I’m signed in. (Aside: Perhaps I need to start using different browsers for searches)!.

Coming back to privacy, I talk of Google but its true of anyone. Even if someone doesn’t use private data right now, there’ll always be an evil project manager who’ll wonder why they never thought of using it – its an obvious gold mine. The amount of data someone can collect about you with just a cookie (and an IP Address) is freaky! Just look at the cookies stored by your browser (beyond the necessary authentication cookies) to know how many companies love to collect data!