Monthly Archives: September 2006

the Sound Republic

5

So I see that my podcasts folder is looking empty and I’m missing a few from Derek.
I go to his site – http://soundrepublic.co.za and from there find all but the first. [Actually it does have them all] So that’s 15 16 of the best trance podcasts ever. Looking around that site I see the link to http://derekthebandit.wordpress.com – now how cool is that? This guy is in my workplace – it’s not often you can say that!

If you like trance – get these files.

Organising photos

4

I’m taking more and although it’s not as many as some, it’s growing quite fast. So I need to get a grip on it. I want them more organised and here is what I think so far:
Get on one of these photo albums
Before I do anything with that, organise my photos into folders by date.
Then using the software go through and categorise/tag/whatever so I then have a date-based set and also another based on how I sorted them. That seems to me to be the best way to do it. Is it?

I dislike things like picasa – and probably others – which just search the HD and then display. For backup purposes that is a mess. I want to know it’s all in one folder.

I’ve got a lot of much older images (on photocd) which I could bring in if I get the organisation right. If you’ve cracked this sorting, does my way sound okay? I’m sure it’s not far off but learning from your mistakes is cool by me :)

Plugins…..

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Aaron Brazell has posted that a certain WP plugin has a vulnerability. The plugin has been fixed and a new release is here. I commented over there twice and asked what I consider to be two fair questions. I was subscribed to the comments so returned when some were made. This comment sticks out:

These plugins can be very dangerous. I think the WordPress culture is to install as many plugins as possible without doing a ton of research.

The guy that said that runs a WP blog. He also runs K2 and from what I know of K2 it has a fair share of javascript in it. That js will be perfectly safe because it’s been written by guys who know their stuff – but I’ll bet that 99% of users of that theme do not know js that well. But they do not need to because they trust the authors. A lot of people trust plugin authors because they don’t know PHP. I pointed out that statement above in #wordpress and someone said they broadly agreed. Fair enough – it was a coder who broadly agreed. So what we have is two people who know code saying plugins can be dangerous. I think that’s a bad thing to say without quantifying it.

  • What is dangerous ?
  • Is there a bad combination ?
  • What should we not mix ?
  • How can we tell what is good and what is bad ?
  • Can we test these plugins to find out ?
  • Who should we trust and how do we know we can trust them ?
  • How much research is enough ?
  • Should we not ever use plugins ?
  • Is it a permissions problem every time ?
  • What is “Best Practice” ?
  • Which plugins do you think are bad ? Why ? Have your changed yours if you use it ?

The reason the above is important is because making blanket statements is not helpful. Another reason is that people doing support for the product will be on the receiving end of the “Are they dangerous ?” questions. It is they who spend the time helping and it is they who should be armed with the knowledge to advise and even try to make the situation better.

So for those coders who think that “These plugins can be very dangerous” here’s a challenge: Answer at least all of my questions above. Write it so forum helpers and others can use the knowledge positively. Write it to show you know. Write it to benefit WordPress. Improve the culture. Blog it.

Spiders on stilts

1

Took Winston for a walk about an hour ago. Late, dark, not windy. Part of our route involves the old road between our village and the next. It’s around 12 feet wide at least. It has raised verges now – to stop “travellers” camping there – and just behond those verges are trees and bushes. It’s a quiet night, no breeeze. I’m walking along in the middle of this road and I’m getting facefuls of spider web. Maybe not ‘facefuls’ but enough that it’s irritating and I can feel them going over my head and off when I brush through my hair (I’m worth it ;) ). So how do they get 6 ft up with a 12+ ft gap? They can only be using stilts.

Dream dream dream……..

2

I read some posts actually at Gordon’s blog instead of in FeedDemon. I was unaware of the protection that my feed reader afforded until now. I am in the early stages of a cold and I blame Gordon :) . He passed it to me. So I sit here feeling like some crap and knowing that the next two days at least will be horrible.
It’s at this point that working from home becomes not so hot – I can hardly ring in sick can I?

I updated – and then unupdated – to the latest alpha of Thunderbird. Plugins I use didn’t work and I really dislike the default theme (the new mail notification per folder isn’t good imo) but they have somethings I did like. Unfortunately it’s very much a Web 2.0 thing – tags. Instead of labels, I can tag my email. It’s colours again but this time you can add more which is neat. Very neat. More labels (tags). There is a limitation of colours of course. What is a shame is the lack of ability to background colour these labels. It’s all very well having the blues and greens but it’s small type on a white bg – it doesn’t stand out a lot. I’ve yet to find a fix but the ability to set the background in the summary pane would – for me – be more useful than colouring the text itself. I know I can filter to label but that takes more clicks and Web 2.0 is all about ‘less is more’ isn’t it? So colouring label backgrounds – I’d be amazed if no-one has asked before and even more amazed that there is no plugin for that. usercontent.css is not a friendly place, esp with the constant exit/reopen. They have some funky Saved Search folders going on – which gave me an idea for my email habits (I remain appallingly bad at my own email. If I was me sending me mail I’d be disgusted.). So, that was a mini-review :)

I’ve literally while writing this come across another site. You’ll have to link it because I’m not: http://.premon itionweb . com. They want £6 a year for you to “register your dreams” and for that you get to update your dreams up to 6 times a year! Woooooooo. What complete bollocks. Which dillweeds are going to fall for this heap of crap? This is funny – his “Private Policy”:

Records will be held electronically, only accessible by the administrator Mr B.C.Bamber

Okay… even though reading the site it’s pretty obvious that it’s a one man op. He may as well call himself CEO.

Any paper copies shall be kept in a locked filing cabinet

So Mr Bamber will make paper copies, and then he will lock them away. In a filing cabinet. (I’m sitting here laughing an image of this guy patting the cabinet “Your sssssecretsss are sssafe”). But why is he making copies? Because he just bought a shiny new filing cabinet?

Any request to receive a copy of held records will also be complied with within 28 days

What? They wrote them you idiot. Or have you added some juicy morsels for your … entertainment?

Good grief – he’s even selling the dreams. And when you go to submit a dream he even gets you to choose just what sort of dream it was. Studying that list it is obvious he is aiming for the more mature person – there is no category of “Wet”. And do people really PDF their dreams? (Maybe in that ‘missing’ category they would laminate them :) There’s a PDF download. I just cannot bring myself to get it.
The scary thing is that someone somewhere will pay their cash. I’ll bet a packet that he never has to buy another filing cabinet.

Catholic purple

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[This post is brought to you by The Magic Roundabout]

Before I rattle on, I thought of a program I could use today. Not for anything to do with WP at all, but for another project. I thought it was about $30 which is my ‘no-thought-just-buy’ price. But it’s $80. How much do I really want it I ask myself… or do I just get it for free. I’ll probably buy it….

Pillows. I have 3 pillows. There is one that I dislike completely, one that is tolerable and one that is perfect in every respect. Being a bloke I rarely make the bed – and when I do I make sure the event does not go unnoticed too. Why – blanket term coming up – are women obsessed with having a bed made? Or is it just me showing my slob side? While freshly-washed sheets/duvets are indeed nice, isn’t it also comforting to just pull the crumpled quilt over? So – 3 pillows. Why oh why oh why does J put the nicest and most comfortable pillow at the bottom? Every single night I take the top pillow off, throw it away off the bed, get the bottom pillow and put it on top. Then I can lie down. J knows this. I have told her. She does not change her behaviour. Now she won’t because she says my pillow isn’t ‘good enough’ to be seen. I don’t care, I just want all the expended effort at the end of the day to be removed.
Does any man in a relationship get to decide the style of the bedroom? Am I the only man married to a woman who has several schemes for the bedroom? One such look involves colours – quite a few colours. I don’t mind colours but I think muted shades are best in a bedroom. But this look has colours, the predominant of which is purple. I generally like purple or at least have little against it. Except this one. This one I dislike.
Having to go to church every Sunday at a young age burned – with hellfire and brimstone – certain things into my mind. One was the priest walking up the aisle with the crucifix bearer in front and another choirboy waving an incense burner (which made me feel really sick), another was the passing of the collection box (I’m sure I’ve said before about the next priest who took over and the way he changed the box to a plate to shame people into giving more) and another was a firm belief that I would never inflict religion on my girls (who remain un-christened and un-baptised. They can choose when they understand what it is they are choosing. Religious indoctrination is as bad, if not worse, here than in Middle Eastern countries where we are shown kids in the streets yelling about faith and we are meant to belief that societies that do that are bad. We do it too.) I also remember purple. But it wasn’t just purple. It was a rich deep shiny purple. It was on altar cloths, garments, those odd scarf like things priests wear. That colour became something unpleasant. It’s texture became unpleasant. Seeing it – even though it is just an innocent colour – is just …. weird, odd, not nice. The pillow – the top pillow – has a stripe of this purple across it. So it’s not a pillow. By virtue of it’s colour and texture it is something I do not want to touch let alone have near my face. So the best pillow cannot simply have the best pillowcase on it. And I can’t not have the pillowcase I want on top because it won’t match the look of the room. It’s probably a really nice pillow and it’s the Pope that stopped me using it.