Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year
I haven't been posting on here much of late - I have been avoiding adding anything new online, because it is Christmas and I do have a life offline! That said I am hoping that everyone has had a wonderful and fulfilling Christmas and will ahve a great and exciting new year!
I suppose at this time of year it is common to look back and see what we have done and what we want to achieve in the next twelve months. I have no intention of boring the crap out of people so I won't publish all that I want to see happen and achieve in 2003. Instead I wish all people a wonderful and promising 2003!
Denial of Service Attacks
Yesterday my web host was attacked by a Denial of Service Attack after they upgraded come hardware and their faulty DNS information. For all you non techy geeks that just means that someone tried to bring down all their servers - or so I have been told.
So if you were having trouble reaching the site that is the reason why!
Update Monday
I have just found out that any mail sent through the server which includes emails to you for new members has been stored since Thursday and is only now coming through. This is a follow on from the DOS attacks, but i have been informed that all should be fixed within the next 24 hours
The Start of the Bushfires
I know it's off topic for this site but.....
The Bushfire season has well and truly started in Sydney again with bushfires ringing the suburbs around the city. Yesterday afternoon when I met the boy to drive up to Oxford Street we could see the huge plumes of smoke South and North, at first we thought it was impending storm clouds coming in, but soon realised that it was smoke from Bushfires.
Sydney is a city surrounded by Bush and this means that we are always at risk from fires, especially since the Australian Bush actually needs regular fires for plants to grow and germinate. It's a strange reality that some Australian native trees and plants will not flower until the extreme heat from a bushfire cracks open their pods. Last year we were in Europe as the bushfires took hold so we didn't really experience it.
The last time I remember really bad bushfires was back in 1994 when the fires really were horrific and came so close to both our houses. Both of us grew up in areas just bordering on National Parks which is quite common in Sydney, so the threat from bushfires was always very real.
The sad thing is that many of the fires are deliberately lit, by firebugs, arsonists and often children. They end up killing people and buring down inncent people's homes and businesses. It's sad really but this is only the begginning of the season. lets hope that it doesn't get worse!