Year: 2010 (page 9 of 13)

April 13, 2010

Yes, but how does Matt really feel?

It reads a little like a rant, but you really can’t blame him.

I’m not even going to link any of the articles because they have so many inaccuracies you become stupider by reading them.

If you’re a web host and you turn a bad file permissions story into a WordPress story, you’re doing something wrong.

via WordPress › Blog » Secure File Permissions Matter.

It’s not rocket science and the real problem is explained in detail elsewhere but can be summarized as “It’s the hosting company, Stupid!”

Which leads me to a posting on another blog. Partial blame is leveled “At WordPress for requiring that the database credentials be stored in clear-text. At WordPress again for not installing itself securely by default.”

The ignorance continues with “I also have to agree with Network Solutions that this problem can happen at any shared host site. Not only for WordPress, but for any CMS out there that store the passwords in clear-text.”

That’s just a stupid thing to say. If you are going to make a statement like that, then you need to back it up with “WordPress should have followed example X for how to store that data securely”. It sure is good to call out from the cheap seats and that’s all that blogger is doing.

The impacted users are on a shared server that’s not setup properly. Users get a pass because, well, they’re users. It’s not really the users responsibility to understand how their self hosted blog works and prevent these compromises from making the neighborhood look bad.

Network Solutions loses any credibility because instead of just saying “Yeah, we screwed up and we’re fixing it” they played the ignorant blame-the-software approach. Network Solutions is not a flash in the pan company and should hire someone who can help them overcome Web Hosting 101 issues.

April 11, 2010

New Nike ad

Like most people (hopefully), I really don’t care about a golfer’s infidelities. I do feel sorry for his wife, just as I felt sorry for Hillary Clinton. But the stupid, selfish, narcissistic, self-destructive behavior of people in their private life is none of my business. I tune in to watch them perform in their sport.

Now that that’s out-of-the-way, let’s talk about Nike’s new ad. I saw the spot on TV and listened to the voice over of their star’s late father and I had only one reaction. Read more

April 10, 2010

Team Fortress 2 was never this cool

I saw this on Twitter this morning. This is an amazing editing job.

You can see the non-split screen version here.

April 5, 2010

Yes, it blends

Wow. With some work the iPad did get into the blender.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAl28d6tbko

You knew this was going to happen to an iPad.

April 3, 2010

Playing with WordPress 3.0, Beta 1

As I usually do, I switched this blog from WordPress 2.9.2 to the current 3.0 beta. I always run the beta versions and I have not yet gotten myself into a hole. It also helps that I have very good backups for the last 30 days.

I re-ran my overnight backup job one more time to make sure I’m up to date and used SVN to perform the switch.

$ cd /my/wordpress/web/directory
$ svn sw http://core.svn.wordpress.org/trunk/

When I went to the login page I had to upgrade my database. And that’s all there was to it. I’ll do a regular “svn up” and keep my install current with the beta.

I have been kicking around the idea of taking the sites I manage and making them one multi-site WordPress 3.0 install but that will be down the road for a while. For now I’ll continue to maintain them separately with the released version (2.9.2 as of right now).

As for the beta, there are not many visual differences (the color scheme is lighter and less “harsh”) and each of my plugins check out. I am hoping that when 3.0 is released, the usual forum drama will not happen. But I also know somewhere someone will upgrade without doing the work of a full backup.

March 30, 2010

Browsing the web like it’s 2002

I’ve re-acquainted myself with StumbleUpon and finding out it’s a much better time waster than Reddit. It’s like Reddit without the witty comments. I pressed the Stumble! button and went to the Stellarium web site.

Stellarium was a fantastic find. I installed it and was explaining to my kids that this is how the start are laid out in the sky right now. I had no idea this was freely available and here’s the best part: this is GPL’ed software too.

When you visit a website you can give it a thumbs up or thumbs down. Or you can ignore it. Mostly I press the Stumble! button and get sent to web sites that are in my chose categories. With your account you get to select those subjects that interest you, and can add or subtract later on.

It’s very addictive. I have narrowed down to astronomy and photography (not at the same time) and I get some really good websites. StumbleUpon has been around for many years and I’m glad that I’m using it now.

March 27, 2010

Strangely enough, I don’t watch enough TV

I have been busy at work these past two weeks and I normally don’t watch much TV. But this episode of The Daily Show from March 18th makes me wish I’d at least DVR’ed this show.

Jon Stewart is not really a political hack and he does make fun of everyone. That’s his job and calling him a liberal operator is really funny since his show is on Comedy Central. He’s a comedian for crying out loud.

I don’t watch Glenn Beck because I don’t agree with him and I don’t like his Morton Downey, Jr. shtick. The few times I have seen clips of that clown on other shows, it’s really obvious that he’s afraid that someone will call him out on his ignorance. Even on Bill O’Reilly he tries to out “intellectualize” other people. The interview video clip with is great; he’s explaining to O’Reilly what a liberal is?

I don’t like O’Reilly either (he was rude to someone who I grew up admiring in an interview) but I do respect him in the sense that he does the math and understands what he’s talking about. Bill O’Reilly just makes the decision to skew the facts for his point of view. That’s fine and it’s just political commentary. While many people won’t like the comparison, Rachel Maddow does the same thing. In my opinion, she’s just more polite, rational, and reasonable.

Glenn Beck is a shrieking maniac. He is just an entertainer that deluded people into believing that he’s a savvy political commentator. He’s honest enough to tell people that he’s doing it just for the money, but once the roller coaster ride is over, he ends up in the dust bin with all the other flash in the pans. The fact that people mistake him for a political leader is scary.

He’s as smart as an 80’s talk show/variety host desperate for ratings and Jon Stewart, whose job is just to be funny, does great work making fun of him.

March 25, 2010

Nikon 50mm f/1.4G

New 50mm

After using my brother’s Nikon 50mm f/1.8D lens for a few weeks, I broke down and picked up a new AF-S Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G lens. From all the reviews I’ve read, it’s an improvement over the older f/1.4D version being more sharper while still having a good DOF.

Here are some samples of what I took with the older f/1.8D lens. I like 50mm on my camera because I can get good photos without being in people’s faces.

I’ve really enjoyed using the 50mm f/1.8D and have taken some good photos with it. But it is on loan and I wanted my own. The new one is a better and more modern lens so getting that version should work out for me.

My initial test shots with the 50mm f/1.4G lens shows that the depth of field is really good. The object I focused on is sharp but the background is nice and soft.

This weekend I’ll use it a lot and post some of the results.

March 23, 2010

Politically, this is a really fun week

David Frum demonstrates that he gets it. Political cartoonists get it (Danziger’s was too good to not show).

GOP? Nope. Senator McCain? Nope. Democrats probably do get it but it’s a long way to November and there is plenty of time to let the bully on the block take their lunch money.

The GOP had the opportunity to participate and they did get involved with amendments. But it was all an act since no matter how bipartisan the Obama administration got, the GOP was just wasting time.The Democrats had the votes and the GOP thought they did not have the spine. Now the GOP platform is to hope that the country implode before November.

There are many rational discussions about what’s wrong with the bill. But so far the GOP only panders to the gun totting racist fear mongers. Which is what you do when you care about getting the votes instead of getting the job done.

March 22, 2010

Even their web server went into a coma

Just for giggles I tried to go to the GOP web page to see what kind of response the opposition has to the health care reform.To be honest I was hoping for some rational arguments about why this health care reform is bad. I wasn’t counting on much, but I hoped it would be something profound.

Two things happened. First I was redirected to a Fire Nancy Pelosi web page.

Nice graphic. The second thing was that the rest of the GOP website was FUBAR. There is a link at the bottom of the page that is supposed to lead to the real website and it just does not work.

Putting aside any politics for a moment (I’m for reform myself), their lack of technical expertise is appalling. This is the GOP website for crying out loud. It’s just not that hard to get it right.

What these folks need to do is speak with (read as “HIRE”) some of the talent that hosts conservative websites. While the styling and graphics are important, just being able to serve HTML pages without a redirection loop might help them get their message out.

Year: 2010 (page 9 of 13)

Yes, but how does Matt really feel?

Like this:

New Nike ad

Like this:

Team Fortress 2 was never this cool

Like this:

Yes, it blends

Like this:

Playing with WordPress 3.0, Beta 1

Like this:

Browsing the web like it’s 2002

Like this:

Strangely enough, I don’t watch enough TV

Like this:

Nikon 50mm f/1.4G

Like this:

Politically, this is a really fun week

Like this:

Even their web server went into a coma

Like this:

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Jan Dembowski