I just wanted to give a shout-out to a business my brother and a friend of his runs here in Sweden. It’s called Diffrey. They sell high-end kitchen cabinet doors, panels and handles that fit on IKEA standard cabinets called Faktum (or Akurum for those of you in the US). The business is still in its infancy, but I have a good feeling about it. Thus far, they only ship within Sweden, but I believe it’s their intention to start shipping to other countries as well.
I did the web programming for the site including the e-commerce and backend stuff. It does require both cookies and Javascript, but with that enabled, I think the shopping experience is quite nice.
A couple of years ago, I created an account on Neteller. For those of you who haven’t heard about Neteller before, they basically do what Paypal does. I can’t remember why I created an account, but I believe I needed it to play online poker or something like that.
So, anyway, the other day, I received an e-mail from them and the e-mail contained an unsubscribe link. I don’t want more crap from these people so I clicked the link. Here’s what I got:
The server at x1.neteller.com is taking too long to respond.
The day after I tried again and this time the web page did load properly (it’s down again by the way). I was greeted by a form in which I was asked to enter my e-mail address. It should be noted that the unsubscribe link that I clicked to get to the form contained a massive query string containing various IDs and other crap that would appear to identify me. Still, I entered the e-mail address I used for the account (myusername+neteller@gmail.com) in the form and submitted. Here’s what I got:
Not a valid email address
This, of course, is wrong. The address I entered was 100% valid. My guess is that there’s some kind of validation code on the server that incorrectly flags the e-mail address as invalid due to the plus sign (see instant disposable Gmail address).
On the same page as the non-working unsubscribe form, there was some text telling me that I could e-mail support@neteller.com if I ran into any problems. So I did. I contacted them telling them what the problem is and that I would appreciate if they could fix their unsubscribe feature. In reply, I got this:
Dear Member,
NETELLER is pleased to announce a new web-based service to submit your questions! Please click on the link below to send a question to NETELLER Customer Service:
NETELLER will no longer reply to questions sent by email; we will not be answering the email you have sent. To submit your question, please click on the link above.
Sigh. So I clicked the link in the e-mail and tried to use the “new web-based service” instead. After inputting my e-mail address and a subject and message body, I submitted the form. Did it work? But of course not. Instead of submitting the form, I was redirected to a new form in which I was asked to create a new account.
Have you ever worked on a Windows 2003 server? If yes, have you ever noticed a directory called wmpub in the root of your C drive? The directory contains nothing except an empty subdirectory called wmiislog. I don’t like clutter in the root directory so I took a look at the last modified timestamp, noticed it was really old and tried to delete the folder. Windows complained that the file was in use and that it could not be deleted. I search and ran across the following on Mark Burnetts blog:
A quick search revealed that that directory belongs to the Multicast and Advertising Logging Agent. So if I used Windows Media Services, had IIS installed, and wanted to use multicast for logging, which is really only practical on an intranet, a dll file wmsiislog.dll would exist in this directory.
But how many media-streaming-IIS-using-multicast-logging people are there really out there? And why does everyone else need this directory?
The server on which I took the small screenshot above has neither IIS nor Windows Media Services installed. In fact, I haven’t had any contact with Windows Media Services at all on any of our servers, ever. Apparently, the root of the problem is that Windows File Protection is monitoring that directory for a DLL that appears if you install Windows Media Services and enable multicast logging. For some reason, the directories have to exist in order for WFP to be happy even if there is no DLL to monitor.
Here are a few pros and cons for Sweden. First, the pros:
It is, reportedly, the least religious country in the world. That means very little religious interference in government as well as education. It also means no ridiculous restrictions on stuff like stem cell research.
Universal health care. It might not be the best in the world anymore and every now and then, you’ll have to wait a while for treatment, but at least you don’t have to worry about insurance and whether it covers everything you need. In general, I would say it works really well.
All foreign TV programming is subtitled as opposed to dubbed as it is in many other European countries. As a result, Swedes are generally pretty good at English.
Free education. All education, including university studies, is government subsidized and costs you nothing. Currently, this applies to foreign students as well, but that might change within a few years.
Sweden is a very environmentally concious country and so are its people.
Gun control. It’s true that guns don’t kill people, but I believe people are far more likely to kill each other if they can buy a gun like they can buy a bag of Doritos.
Summertime in Sweden is lovely. Hardly ever over 90°F (32°C) and lots of golf courses :)
Now, some cons:
Taxes. Suffice to say, if your ambition in life is to get rich, I would avoid Sweden. Personally, I don’t mind it all that much. I feel that the benefits outweigh the cost. It also feels good knowing that by paying taxes, I am helping not only myself, but also the less fortunate Swedes.
Wintertime in Sweden is pretty miserable. At least in the southern part of Sweden where I live. November through February is a cold and wet period we could all do without.
Immigration is a problem. It’s a very touchy subject though because discussing it you run the risk of being labelled as being hostile towards immigrants or even a racist. Immigration over the last 50 years has brought with it a lot of positive aspects. Sweden is now a multicultural nation. Currently, a large part of the immigrants originate from Iraq due to US warmongering.
Swedes are the sickest people in Europe, at least if you look at the number of days Swedes are home sick from work each year. Obviously, we’re not sicker than anyone else. There is however a lot of cheating and scamming going on because being home from work doesn’t necessarily mean you don’t get paid.
Swedes have a tendency to be a bit introvert and shy. People coming here from the US or some other country where people are very outspoken and approachable usually find that Swedes are difficult to get to know. Sad, but true.
I just wanted to give a shout-out to a business my brother and a friend of his runs here in Sweden. It’s called 
Have you ever worked on a Windows 2003 server? If yes, have you ever noticed a directory called wmpub in the root of your C drive? The directory contains nothing except an empty subdirectory called wmiislog. I don’t like clutter in the root directory so I took a look at the last modified timestamp, noticed it was really old and tried to delete the folder. Windows complained that the file was in use and that it could not be deleted. I search and ran across the following on