Category: tech

Sa-kur-atee!

I’ve noticed a huge upswing in attempts to crack the admin account for my blog lately. Way more than usual. Its no secret I monitor my log-in records. Its an easy way to spot people up to no good. I use a legacy hack from an old version of WP. It records your key strokes at log-in, your IP, how many times you fail to log in, etc. If I notice someone with too may attempts they get a friendly email (if I recognize them) or their IP blocked (If I don’t).

I can’t help but wonder if my last post might have spurred them on. hehehe  I keep a pretty good password on my admin account already. Plus, you only get 5 tries before the system blocks you anyway. [1]courtesy of a little plugin called User Locker  If you can crack it in 5 or less tries, I probably deserve to be hacked.

As an extra precaution, I switched over to a different user account. You probably won’t notice anything different on your end. I figured one extra layer of protection wouldn’t hurt. The administrator account with WordPress comes with a default administrator account and you can’t delete it. That said, there is no reason you have to use it either. You can simply set the password to something incredibly complex and create your own account with admin privileges. Tip: If you use the same plugin mentioned above (or a similar one), incorrectly log into your default admin account until it locks up. Now its permanently locked until you reset your password by email or change it from your newer admin account. Most savvy bloggers do this already. [2]Or they should!  I confess after I switched over to my new database last year I never got around to it. I know, BAD MOBY! lol

References

References
↑1 courtesy of a little plugin called User Locker
↑2 Or they should!

FB Log In

Ok, I think ( I THINK ) I got the damn log in for Facebook to work now. If you are on FB, please click the log-in link in the sidebar on the right, under “universal log-ins”, and attempt to sign into my blog with your FB credentials. Don’t worry, I’m not culling any data. Its strictly to allow FB’ers to log in. I’m not sure if it will post back to your FB page or not. I’m tinkering with code that is beyond my understanding.

Please post your success rate along with any error messages you might encounter in the comments.

Thanks!


**Update – I found an error in some of the code I was using and have changed it. anyone who hasn’t already tried or tried and failed, please try again. **

**Update II – After tons of hours tinkering and no support from the site provider, I’m removing the FB option for universal sign-ins. It only works randomly and with no explanation of why it fails. If you wish to use universal log-ins, you’ll have to use one of the others provided. **

Deleted II

I deleted over 100 user accounts from my blog today. Most were sp*mmers. On the odd chance I deleted a legitimate account in error, you can just re-register. I only block IP’s for known baddies. This is becoming a chore so if things continue on this vein, I’ll have to remove the 3rd-party log-in plugin. I had to adjust the security controls in wordpress for it work properly and now I’m getting a weekly hit of fake accounts.

I’m also taking suggestions/recommendations for a new sp*m blocker plug-in. My beloved SK2 is no longer supported. Its held up for over a year of newer and newer versions of WP with no problems but lately, cracks are showing. The WP code is changing so much I think its time to move on. I have akismet loaded but no running.  I’ve read good reviews but I’d love to find another plug-in as good or better than SK2. Suggestions?

FB Fail

If you’ve tried to log-in to my blog via Facebook recently you’ve probably noticed it ain’t working. Apparently, they changed the api for that shit and I don’t have the time or patience to go back and figure it all out again.

All of the other log-ins work though. Amazing how simple of the others were to setup but Facebook’s is a nightmare of BS. Why am I not suprised?

Rant

Considering more and more people are consuming their news, blogs, etc on the go these days, I am irritated at the lack of sites that still haven’t upgraded their sites to include a mobile version.

And considering most platforms already include free templates, not switching is just laziness.

Upgrade your damn sites already!

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming. . .

/rant

Direction

I’ve been weaning myself off Facebook and twitter as of late. Its just too time-consuming. And frankly, the energy invested is almost never returned. lol   If it wasn’t for my moto group, I think I would abandon FB all together. Filtering, while still possible, is way more complicated than it used to be and trying to sort thru the lists of people just gets old after awhile.

Access to social aspects is great but the onslaught of “friends” is often too much and/or eventually waters down the entire experience. I’m leaning toward leaving parts of my profile, normally restricted, open and just weeding down my friend list to people I actually interact with on a regular basis. This way people who are just dying to know what I’m up to can. Ok seriously though, I’m not a celebrity or social icon. One really doesn’t need thousands of friends that never interact w/you but feel slighted the moment you remove them. Seriously. It all becomes very high school-ish after awhile. Apple guy de-activated his account completely the other day.

Even my blogging has suffered. I still have plenty to say but my free time is limited and I have to pick and choose where I waste it. heehee  As often happens, by the time I actually get time to sit down and blog, I’ve already moved on to other topic or forgotten the topic I wanted to blather on about.

Shifting my priorities away from FB and twitter will give me more time to ramble incessantly on my blog anyway. This way I can feel validated and still get my online time in. [1]Yes, I’m being sarcastic here. duh!

References

References
↑1 Yes, I’m being sarcastic here. duh!

Deleted

I made a booboo and deleted my RSS feeds today. I was cleaning out some directories and got click happy. Naturally, I cleaned the recycle folder before I realized what I’d done.  ooops!

Oh well, I’d been thinking of starting over anyway. I guess it was a sign to start sooner than later. lol  Many of my old favorites have gone by the wayside anway. I guess with Facebook, twitter, etc it was bound to happen. This just gives me a good impetus to start fresh. But, this time it I’m sticking to blogs I actually read on a consistent basis. I got far too click-happy previously and added way too many over the years. This also gives me a good excuse to go blog hopping [1]randomly clicking from blogroll to blogroll, finding blogs you like again. Something I haven’t done in a very long time. hehehe

*

Speaking of, I still use twitter more than Facebook but both are loosing their appeal to me. Its fine when you have a few friends but after a few hundred, it becomes cumbersome and a pain in the butt. I don’t know how people with thousands of “friends” do it. [2]Well, I do but that’s another story. lol  Seriously, there is no way you can interact on a consistent basis with that many people. Hell, I don’t even interact w/half my list as it is.

References

References
↑1 randomly clicking from blogroll to blogroll, finding blogs you like
↑2 Well, I do but that’s another story. lol

Frozen

Well, mark your calendars. Hell has officially frozen over….yours truly bought an iPad. Lol I’ve been tinkering with it for a couple weeks now and thought I’d give you MY review on it. For the record, I don’t hate Apple, I just never cared for how proprietary they are or the lack of compatible programs. The latter isn’t so much of an issue anymore so I thought I’d give it a whirl. And considering who the hubby worked for, it was inevitable. hehehe

Hardware: Basically, its a giant iPhone w/o the actual phone. The device is sleek, trim, and very stylish. It has a very solid feel to it, albeit an adjustment for carrying it around. Apple has always gotten high marks in this area. Simply put, they produce very aesthetically pleasing products. While adding to the overall appeal, the screen is glass and just begs to be broken if you drop it. I highly recommend you get a case or cover to protect it.

We ended up with the 16 gig version. By some standards that is considered tiny but I doubt I’ll ever use all of it. I use my phone as my mp3 player and while I can see using music once the multi-tasking update comes out, it will be more of a convenience than a required feature. If you plan to use the iPad as a laptop replacement you might opt for one with a bigger drive. It comes with Bluetooth and wifi built in; however, I have yet to get the bluethooth to work for file sharing. It works fine for using a keyboard though. Overall, the hardware is of the same impeccable quality you would expect from Apple.

Software: Apple is way ahead in this arena in terms of sheer numbers. Being on the market longer, that is no surprise. Anyway, the store has a good mix of free and paid apps. I downloaded several that were equivalent to mine (on Android) and had mixed reviews. Some were equal if not better and others outright sucked. I also hate the built in email app as it takes way too many clicks to switch between email accounts. These are all style issues of course but were of particular annoyance to me.

I don’t care much for the OS at all. Granted, again, this is mostly a style and comfort issue more than functionality. The OS is responsive and has yet to crash on me. [1]I was only able to get the browser to crash twice.  Currently, you can only run one app at a time. There are some very small exceptions on push services but overall a total failure there. The new OS v4 coming out soon is supposed to remedy that and I eagerly await it. [2]Apple guy hacked ours of course so I have limited multi-tasking already. My biggest complaint with the OS is the difference in activating submenus. In Windows, no matter the version, you know its a simple right click to activate a submenu in virtually any application. Even Android borrowed from this with its long hold tap on the screen to bring up submenus, regardless of the application. Apps on the iPad seem to randomly utilize their own version of activating submenus. It gets a bit annoying trying to figure out each apps implementation of the submenu process. Again, a style issue but my biggest annoyance. The copy/past functionality, which came as add-in after the fact, is a bit odd as well. It is not at all intuitive and completely alien to what you would expect. The OS is designed from a simplistic approach and while very aesthetically pleasing, I’d argue its a tad too simple and caused more work than necessary at times. On this area, I still give Android props for better implementation.

Summary: The iPad is a sleek usable device pushing the bar on convenience and portability in our ever increasing conversion of PDA’s, phones, netbooks, and laptops. Let’s face it, Apple sets the standard that others follow. Even Android takes queues from Apple’s UI.

If you are an Apple fanboy, you’ll be right at home. Everything will be familiar and easy. Over 95% of the iPhone apps work in various levels on the iPad. On the other hand, if you a more recent user like me, you might like it but you won’t be blown away. Apple might have set the bar but Google’s Android is catching up and fast. I’d love to port Android over to the iPad. I’d be happier than a pig in slop.

If you are a long time Windows/Linux user, you will definitely find Android a tad more user friendly. And speaking of, if Microsoft doesn’t get their act together soon, they may find themselves pushed completely out of the market. Apple & Google will be the dominate players regardless IMHO.

References

References
↑1 I was only able to get the browser to crash twice.
↑2 Apple guy hacked ours of course so I have limited multi-tasking already.

Picture Perfect

I have decided to abandon flickr for picasa. While flickr does offer quite a bit more in the way of editing, I already do most of that myself. The biggest selling point for me was Goog’le’s picasa gives you a full gig of storage for free vs Flirckr’s 200 megs. On top of that, flickr charges $24.95 for their ‘pro’ account. Google offers a whopping 20 gigs a year for only $5.00. Oh hell yeah! lol

The one thing I will miss the most is the ability to do subfolders within albums. [1]flickr refers to it as collections and sets.  For the cost savings, I’m willing to forgo the previous perks. Now comes the arduous task of physically moving the files. Sadly, I couldn’t find a direct transfer method. I did, however, find a nifty free program that downloads everything from flickr and allows to re-upload it to picasa. Actually, you can pick and choose from a whole list of different sites. Anyway, I opted to manually re-upload myself as the download process dumped everything into one big folder. It also gives me a chance to filter out duplicates, or so I’m hoping. That didn’t sound so bad until I realized how many pics I really have. lol I easy have almost 2 gigs worth of photos. Who knew?

Anyway, I’m still in the process of moving stuff around. Once I’m done, I plan on ditching flickr all together.

References

References
↑1 flickr refers to it as collections and sets.

Heave-Ho

Before I start let me say for the record, I love TiVo. It far exceeds the offerings from cable companies when it comes to DVR’s. That said, some of their choices when it comes to expanding your hardware border on draconian.

The low end HD model that I have came with an eSATA port for adding external hard drives. As my consumption of HD content has increased, I needed more storage space. Not to mention, I had several digital movies, via Amazon, I wanted to keep. The simplest choice was to just attach an external drive right? Wrong! Lol.

Allegedly, all you had to do was plug in your new drive and reboot the TiVo. The device was then supposed to detect the new hardware, format, and set everything up for you. NOT!

After 2 1/2 hours of tinkering, Googling, and several failed hacks, it was discovered my particular model only works with one specific external drive. [1]Naturally, this was not the drive I purchased. we then decided that the best approach would to simply replace the existing drive completely. Being a geek, I normally tackle such projects with gleeful exuberance. However, having no working knowledge of Linux, [2]TiVo is based on Linux I was leery of cracking open the case to attempt a drive transfer. If I were to brick the TiVo, I currently can’t afford a new one so I was more than a little perturbed.

Apple Guy, having run his own computer business for years, was less daunted and took over the task before I decided to chunk the whole pile out the window. Even with his knowledge and skill set, it took several more hours of tinkering and failed attempts before he managed to get it up and running. I couldn’t thank him enough for doing it for me. In the end, I did lose all my recorded content but retained all my licensing and settings. Fortunately, I was able to redownload all my Amazon movies so nothing of real value was lost. I’m now the proud owner of a ‘new and improved’ TiVo with a 1 terabyte drive of storage!

References

References
↑1 Naturally, this was not the drive I purchased.
↑2 TiVo is based on Linux