The Mentos challange
A number of years ago myself and a few friends did the who coke and Mentos thing which I’m sure most of you are aware of by now however if not, then allow me to explain. Basically when you add the sweets Mentos to diet coke it causes an subtle explosion from pressure in the bottle. I suppose a video would better explain:
Now the reason I’m blogging about this now is that just last night I came across a little contraption which was close in design to that which my friends and I discussed about all those many years ago, we even dabbled with the idea of making such a thing but never took it any further. It amused me and reminded me of days gone by, so I thought I’d share. 
My blog also sends this article out to Facebook, I’m not sure it will include the image as I’m never tried before, if not then please click this link to see the original article and image: Auroral.co.uk
Removing cPanel Catch All E-mail
So your using cPanel and you’ve got a ton of spam sitting in it using up valuable server resources, you’ve Googled the problem and found out how to disable the catch all address but still it’s showing that the mail exists and is wasting space.
For those looking to turn off the catch all address first, this is how you do it in cPanel:
First log in, then click on the ‘Default Address’ icon:
You will then be presented with a list of option, you need to change the radio from ‘Forward to email address’ to ‘Discard with error to senter (at SMTP time)’:
This will then reply to all e-mails sent to addresses which have not been set up (all catch all addresses *@domain.com), the message sent can be specificied on that page but if not it will simply send ‘No such person at this address’.
As you can see, you can also discard the message totally (no reply to sender) but keep in mind if someone sends a genuine email they will not be aware they mistyped your e-mail address and thus assume . The other option is to pipe all e-mails, this is commonly used in scripts like help desks (PHP, Pearl).
Disabling catch all by default for new cPanel accounts in WHM:
If you are running WHM on your server and want to have catch all disabled by default then it’s simply, log into WHM and go to ‘Tweak Settings’:
Then scroll down to ‘Mail’ and change the setting from ‘Local’ to ‘Fail’:
Save the settings and then all new accounts will have catch all disabled.
Removing existing emails.
So now you won’t receive any more, you still need to get rid of the existing mail which could be taking up copious ammounts of space, for this you may require assistance from your web host depending on how they have everything set up because you will need to delete some files outside of your web root.
If it’s your server the path should be ‘/home/user/mail/’ if it’s not and you just have a cPanel account then you should just see ‘/mail/’.
Within the mail directory you will see three folders, cur, new and tmp:
You need to delete the ‘cur’ directory and then recreate it (basically, your deleting the contents of the folder), you then still have a cur folder with absolutely no contents.
That’s it, that’s everything!
Note: In cPanel you might still see the usage for the catch all account still takes room, well that’s not strictly true, the server simply needs to update which it will do but be rest assured the space is not actually being taken up.
As you can see in the image, there is a note stating that space usage is recalculated every few hours.
You can force an update, but I wouldn’t bother, just let cPanel do it, it’s safer.
One & One… Again… How boring!
They persist with their constant hounding and illegal activities despite being warned not to. They try to bill at the wrong times, they try to take money which is not rightfully theirs and they offer really shoddy customer server which is way below any decent standard of what should be expected. Anyway Here is my e-mail/letter to them:
To whom it may concern.
To be clear my customer number is: ********
I refer to all accounts within my name and registered to me. I’ve had an ongoing issue with your poor technical and customer service including your billing methods and how you have illegal took money from our accounts without having permission after explicitly being told not to do so. This has damaged my family financially and left us with further bank charges to pay. I’ve tried to tackle this in a polite manner and got no adequate response, I’ve tackled this in a more aggressive manner due to you enraging me with your petty games and still no adequate response.
I have been in the process of transferring all my products away from you and to a reputable host who is capable of performing the simplest tasks which you seem incapable of doing. it’s a great shame, I’ve been a loyal customer of yours since around 2003 and the way you have treated me is disgusting.
Take this as my notice, you are to cease (that means stop) with any billing and renewal of any items. They will either be transferred away, renewed with another provider or left to expire. Please close down my account after completion. Should you require further clarification then please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Kindest Regards
Timothy Bowers
Your once loyal customer.
Its really sad, there a bunch of idiots who really don’t read or listen to what you say. As a company they have really let me down and I know I’m not the only one, across the net they get stinking reviews because of it.