Geek Practitioners Blog

This is Funny

Marshall — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 14:12:15 +0000

Yet I can totally see it happening, based on my experiences with people and buildings and companies. Server room is a unique location.

Intentional… Or Malware?

Marshall — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 15:10:46 +0000

I have run into the scenario of checking an end user’s computer for signs of porn, or surfing porn sites, and seen ambiguity introduced by popups from sites that are not porn per se, or clicks that were unintended and aborted. Obviously, malware can not only cause popups, but also download files nefariously.

This is an extreme cautionary case, in which a worker was fired for child porn, had his reputation ruined, faced criminal charges, and was found to be innocent. Tech support completely failed and even helped persecute him. That’s bad.

Big Bang As Zero?

Marshall — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 21:43:32 +0000

What could be geekier than cosmology?

It’s amazingly cool that we seem able to detect Hints of ‘time before Big Bang’, which explains entropy and the apparent one-way orientation of time. It’s as if the Big Bang were the zero on a numberline, in which we are on the positive side, while what came before was on the negative side.

Mac Eye for the Windows Guy

Marshall — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 02:09:12 +0000

Ever think about switching to a Mac, or adding one to your stable of computers?

Phillip Zannini has written a cleverly named book and transition guide: A Mac Eye for the Windows Guy - The Complete Guide to Software for Your Mac!

It’s worth a look, if you’re thinking about expanding your horizons.

Geek Dinner

Marshall — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 14:40:16 +0000

If I had more money and less else to occupy me, I would consider going to the Providence Geek Dinner tonight. Oh well.

That and I don’t always do well jumping into a crowd of people I don’t know and socializing.

Desktopple

Marshall — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 21:45:04 +0000

Desktopple sounds like the thing for me. I work centered mainly around the desktop, but that leaves me having to clean it up periodically. Usually that’s a dramatic sweep every couple months, with “running out of space” sweeps of the easy to move stuff in between.

Upgraded

blog — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 02:30:19 +0000

Talk about feeling watched. No sooner did I remove the rogue links than they were replaced with similar ones off a different college URL.

I dropped everything to upgrade WordPress. Seems to be working so far.

Time to Update WordPress

blog — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 19:03:24 +0000

I came over here to update the blogroll and noticed a funny thing:

Someone was able to hack WordPress in a way that gave them access to the blogroll. No idea when it happened, but the links all redirected through this WordPress blog using a trailing structure in the form of:

?q=cash-loans

At the end of the URL to which I linked. Not sure offhand what the ?q is and how it differs from the ?s format used to return search results. It did the job, anyway, redirecting to an entirely different location. I suspect the blog in question was also victimized and had no active role.

The lesson? This is probably why there have been security-related updates to WordPress that I should have installed periodically. I’m pretty sure none of the WP blogs in our “empire” are fully updated except the newest one. Oops.

The other lesson? If I posted here regularly as I really do plan to, I would notice these things promptly, limiting any benefit accruing from the linkage.

Now multiple WordPress updates are on my list of things that must be done sooner rather than later.

Resume Posted

blog — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 17:06:38 +0000

I have updated my resume page. Eliminated beta and scratch stuff and added a link to the current blogging resume in Word format.

Perhaps I’ll get around to posting other stuff here one of these days…

Web Worker Daily Et Al

Marshall — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 18:59:28 +0000

Web Worker Daily remains a source of great content, but I hate their new design enough that I’m not sure I can call it my favorite anymore. Not only does it not fit the name neatly as the old design did, but as is so common, the featured content panel across the top feels like an obstruction getting in the way of my perusal of the posts.

I got over the redesign of Ars Technica that I disliked almost as much, but in their case the content has also slipped a bit since.

I also like to check out The Register, which for me predates almost everything I read online, and ZDNet Tech Blogs daily. Once in a while I also peruse ITtoolbox Blogs. Everything else is on a no more than once a week basis.