A Random Pattern

Just some quick links for bloggers and tech hounds out there:

-Plogger, a photo gallery tool. I may experiment with it here on my blog, though it doesn’t sound like it has the ability to add other users who can upload photos / media.
-Zapr is still in beta, but looks like a nice tool if you need to send large files to other people. I often do, so I will probably review this app sometime soon.

-The review actually gives Windows Live Writer (also in beta) surprisingly good marks. It’s a tool for posting to blogs, and sounds like it’s got a lot of the features missing from everything else.

-Interested in Content Management Systems? Here are some guidelines on how to pick a CMS.

-As I’ve become more interested in Design, I’ve noticed the difficulty in getting my company to acknowledge the need for this type of role. The problem, at least with the people I work closest with, is that this type of role is still not well enough known or valued. Here’s an article on how design is becoming part of some company strategies.

-Ok, this software virtualization thing will be a little hard to describe unless you’re pretty hardcore geek. Here’s the basic idea: if you download and try lots of windows software, only to end up not using 2/3 of it and having problems with finding the other 1/3, this is one tool to help. It DOES NOT GUARANTEE PROTECTION from spyware, but for regular apps it will let you install them, and later remove them, without your Windows PC (registry, et all) getting bloated, slow, and troublesome. Cool, huh?

Interested in getting a Remote-Desktop-type setup to work?  I’m overdue for another post on the Ubuntu and Kubuntu methods of doing this, but in the meantime here’s a good link for setting up between a Mac and a Windows PC.  It uses rdesktop, as the Microsoft client for Mac is apparently not very good.

There’s been a good amount of unreasonableness over Mac OS security the last year or two. Here’s how it looks to me:

Mac “attack”: Look, another security hole / trojan / blatant problem! Macs aren’t Invincible!

Mac “defender”: No one ever said Macs are invincible, but your security hole / trojan / blatant problem actually isn’t. Here’s the reasons. Blah blah blah.
Mac “attack”: I was attacked by Mac zealots, but the basic point is that Macs aren’t invincible and you should practice ‘safe computing’. (Oh, and the details on that problem I mentioned are that it’s actually not a problem, but blah blah blah.)
Mac “defender”: @#)*$U@#%&U@

Throughout the discourse, a healthy set of mindless parrots (bloggers) and trolls give each side adequate cause to go off the tracks into ranting, and inevitably some on each side do so.

Anyways, the point is to bring you to this story on the latest Mac security brouhaha. Daring Fireball provides some really good technical reporting on the subject of Apple, though unfortunately the writing is sprinkled with “colorful” references (swearing, people, it’s never professional or necessary). Anyways, John Gruber has done an excellent job laying out the sequence of events and finding the culprits in the latest “security crisis”.

Honestly, I was surprised to not have found an intelligent write-up on this before now. John clearly identifies the terms that have been bandied about in confusion, and provides all the context and links necessary to make sense of the mess that the initial story caused. Shame, once again, on someone trying to implicate OS X in a security scandal purely to enhance their reputation. I hope their reputation suffers the damage it deserves, as shoddy journalism should always be exposed and discouraged.
For those that may already be composing flaming replies: I already know the Mac is not invincible. If your comment is sufficiently bone-headed, I will delete it.

Interesting quote:

I would put it to you that an ‘ideal A-List’ set (and yes, we’re always going to have a ‘head of the long tail’ somewhere) should consist of bloggers who were influential for their own merits and not because of the number of people who want to see where they will link to next. It would also consist of people who write well about their subject matter – be it informatively, entertaingly, whatever.

Have to say I’m not too worried about A-list bloggers, for exactly the reasons he lays out. Besides, I think it will normalize, and is in the process of doing so. Or maybe that’s just my lazy-fair (bad spelling intended) attitude since I know I won’t ever be on the A-list.

If you’re interested in the new Apple OS that will be out next spring, check out ThinkSecret.com.  They’ve got a good write-up and several pictures identifying what’s changed so far.  Don’t spout your disappointment in the comments, because I’m fairly confident that we’re going to see a lot more in the final product.

On the way home from church, the girls had an interesting conversation.

Tessa (the older one):  Selah, say “Yes”

Selah (the toddler): Yes!

Tessa:  Selah, say “Yes!”

Selah: (with even more gusto) Yes!!

Tessa: (laughing) Selah, say “Yaaaaaay!”

PAUSE

Selah: Yaaaaaaaaaaay!

Who knows where that came from? 

As you can see by my last test post, I do have the arc90 lab javascript code working. Now I just need to clean it up (it’s a mess!) There are several things I want it to do differently, but hopefully you’ll just notice the improvements and not all the work (frustration) going on behind the scenes.

I’ve just been looking through some buttonsnap and moresmilies php code, and it looks like it might take me a little longer than I hoped to make my first plugin. So for now I’m going to manually insert my sidenotes by hand-coding.

While I’m on the subject, I’ll list the other things I want to accomplish with this plugin. But first, I’d really love your feedback on whether these sidenotes are useful or distracting, and what could be done to improve them.

1. Change the colors. I want to tone them down quite a bit. The free colorpix tool will help tremendously here.
2. Make them behave more like the other hyperlinks on this page. That is, red text until you move the mouse near them, at which point the sidenote shows up.

3. Behind the scenes, I want to make it easier to create sidenotes. Instead of manually typing a bunch (ok, a little) code, I just want to click a button and type in the sidenote. Even better, I hope to have it handle urls (web addresses) and perhaps images gracefully. Cross your fingers.

4. Finally, I’d like to clean it all up into one or two nice little plugins, then yank it out of my code and use it properly as a plugin. This is probably me dreaming, because I doubt I really have the know-how to finish this. Hey, if anyone wants to mentor, answer questions, or even just help out a little….

Last thing on WP plugins. Here are a few of the articles that helped me get started.

Good recommendations on software tools to use

How to write a simple WordPress plugin

Tons of useful WP articles. Tips, tricks, you name it she’s got it.

The codex (official WP documentation) on plugins. It’s all greek to me. :p

This is a test, this is only a test. You can ignore this post.

In fact, please do ignore this whole thing. Skip ahead to the next post. More unnecessary text to test some more display type things.

So here’s some more text.

Family and friends, my brother Michael has started a blog. Check it out, and leave him a comment. Everyone needs a comment now and again to keep them encouraged that they’re being read.

Speaking of blogging, this is a good time to mention that I’ve got several posts scheduled to come out over the next several days, spanning almost all my favorite topics. Next up is a post on the recent conversation about “A-list link getting” that happened in the blogosphere. (The blogosphere is a geeky term for the conversation that happens amongst a bunch of nerds bloggers that all link to each other, sort of like an adult nerd version of myspace.)

So make sure to come back around for some news, tips on Ubuntu, pictures, and other cool stuff.

Peace.

This has been a train wreck in the making for awhile. There are a lot of people still using an Operating System on their computer that is no longer supported. And by “no longer supported”, I mean “about to become a spamming tool owned by hackers”. Put simply, if you are surfing the web, and your startup screen says “Windows 98″ on it (you probably see it often if that’s the case), get off the internet until you can get a more secure OS.My recommendation? Drop $500 on a Mac Mini, then you don’t have to worry about it. Or just install the FREE but just as effective (for web surfing, email, and similar activities) Ubuntu Linux. The easiest way to do it? Just contact your local geek. Trust me, they like doing this stuff. (Even if they’re muttering something about hunting me down under their breath. Really. )

Why do I care? Because all the people that ignore this advice are going to end up sending me (and everyone else, including themselves) spam without their knowledge, as well as contributing to the general “clogging of the tubes” on the internet.