Shut down by spam comments

Some readers may have noticed GBMINI slow or non-responsive today 😦
Turns out, GBMINI was hit hard by comment spambots!

Looking through the access log files tonight, I see …

208.111.154.* had about 500 accesses, but that seems to be a legitimate search engine identifying itself as www.searchme.com (and I just visited searchme.com – it’s quite impressive!)

67.159.45.10 has almost 3000 accesses, looks like a search engine but doesn’t identify itself.

83.233.30.104 has 1,771 attempts to post comment spam.

91.207.4.210 has 1,795 attempts to post comment spam.

So, the last three IP addresses are now blocked – I’ll let a valid search engine visit, but not the “spammy” one!

I also made a change to the comment filenames, which should deflect some comment spambot attacks, and shouldn’t have changed normal commenting.

Black cars require Zaino

I believe it’s a rule! Warm enough today to wash and do a quick shine … I don’t have all the “stuff” to do a full blown multi-hour effort, but I’m happy enough with the results …

One thing I discovered while washing the Q5 … it’s bigger than a MINI! I needed to stand on a chair to reach all the roof 😉
Also, my cleaning products need refreshing! The only shampoo I found was P21S, and it was rubbish!

Friends & Flowers

We headed over to Western Massachusetts today (300 mile round-trip – achieving 19mpg in the Q5!), to meet up with MINI friends and tour the Smith College Spring Bulb Show – a great way to remind everyone that winter really will end one day!
Great to see all our friends again – too much work, not enough meets this winter! Lots of beautiful spring bulbs too …

Sadly, I accidentally left my camera at ISO 1000 – so these pictures are disappointing at high resolution!