Wow, it's been quite a week.  Who'd have thought that running an email newsletter would be so challenging?

A lot of people reported problems receiving their articles.  Others, who joined the group later than others, wanted to get back issues.  And over a dozen people signed up but never confirmed their subscriptions.  In one case, that's because they put in the wrong email address.  I'm guessing that spam filters ate the rest.

And, at the opposite end, some crazy spammers have gotten the idea in their head that my sign-up forms are comment forms, and they keep sending all sorts of spam through as signups.  I'm a little worried about the backwash from that, especially since my newsletter service was temporarily on a spam blacklist because somebody else using the same machines was sending mail to unconfirmed lists.  Sigh.

So, to make a long story short, I'm going to change my method of sending the newsletters, and set up a new front-end for subscribing.  Hopefully that'll be done by sometime next week.  If all goes well, I'll be using my own mail servers instead of ones shared with other people, so I'll have more control over a variety of issues, including better SenderID compatibility, meaning fewer newsletters lost to spam filters.  Don't worry, though, you won't need to re-subscribe, and if you haven't subscribed yet, you still can.

So far, I've sent out four articles: "As Good As It Gets", "How Ratchets Control Your Life", and "Cut Your Life To Pieces" (parts 1 and 2).  If you're missing one or more of these, please don't write me asking for a copy right now.  Once I have the new mail system set up, I'll let you know how you can get copies.  I'm sorry for the inconvenience, and I'm really glad that so many of you enjoyed the articles you did get so much that you're clamoring for the others!

Between all the spam (and spam filter) problems, I haven't had as much time to work on finishing the expanded Six Master Keys document as I would've liked, but I expect to have it out by this weekend.  In the meantime, I'll continue writing and sending articles to the list every 2 or 3 days.

Meanwhile, my blog went "off the grid" for a while at the Unofficial Planet Python, so if you read my articles via that site, you might want to check back on the following articles posted during our most recent absence:

• The Day After Christmas (Self-Improvement)
• They Swim All Their Lives (Self-Improvement)
• Where Zope Leads, Python Follows (Programming)
• Zope Haters Prove My Point About Women in IT (Programming)
• How To Keep Your Resolutions (Self-Improvement)

(Also, please note that if you received this article via email, but didn't receive either of the "Cut Your Life To Pieces" emails, that's because you're subscribed to my blog via email, but not my "Life In Every Moment" newsletter.  The two things are different, and you need to sign up to get both if you want both.  Go to the Owners' Circle website and sign up for your every-other-daily dose of dirt-simple inspiration and motivation!)