Once again I am noticing that Facebook fails to pick up my blog entries. If I reset the link, it collects all recent posts (and displays the last one twice, for some reason, on my “Wall”) but then it stops collecting them again. Weird. Of course it’s probably nothing personal, just an uncorrected bug in Facebook’s RSS harvesting code.
I’ve been using WordPress for this blog for the last several years. Lately, I noticed a problem: every new post I add appears in the “Uncategorized” post category, and it is impossible to remove a post from a category.
I’m sure the good folks at WordPress will fix this problem soon, but until then, here are the SQL statements I need to remove all posts from the “Uncategorized” category:
DELETE vttoth_term_relationships FROM vttoth_term_relationships, vttoth_posts WHERE term_taxonomy_id=1 AND object_id=ID AND post_type='post'; UPDATE vttoth_term_taxonomy SET count=0 WHERE term_taxonomy_id=1;
My WordPress database is called ‘vttoth’; for a WordPress database that uses a different name, the above instructions must be altered accordingly.
Recently, Facebook stopped importing entries from my blog again. I can set up the import, Facebook imports all fresh entries (and for some reason, shows the most recent one in duplicate) but then it never imports anything again. I don’t think it’s anything wrong on my end, but it sure is annoying.
I am not usually in the business of recommending software or hardware products, and it’s certainly not something anyone pays me to do… but recently, I began using two products, both of which have exceptional value, even though one came free of charge and the other cost only 150 dollars.
The free product is Secunia’s Personal Software Inspector (PSI), a software application that turned from something I never heard about into something I cannot live without virtually overnight. It is an application that keeps tabs on all the software installed on your computer and lets you know if any of them are out of date and require updates. Like antivirus software, PSI sits quietly in the background most of the time, but it pops up an unobtrusive warning whenever a new update becomes available, and even offers a direct link to the manufacturer’s download site. It is nice, incredibly useful, it recognizes hundreds of installed applications, and, well, it works as it is supposed to and doesn’t cost a penny.
The product I paid money for is a Cisco RV042 small business router. It does what small business routers do, connects your internal network to an external (DSL, cable, etc.) Internet connection. What makes it special is that it allows your internal network to be connected to two external connections at the same time, and it performs dynamic load balancing and failover functions between the two. I now set up my network architecture to take full advantage of it… and in the coming days, it will be working overtime, as I am planning a major change to my DSL service which will likely involve some unpredictable downtime. The router has other useful functions, too, not the least of which is that it can act as a VPN server, allowing a remote computer to connect to the internal network. The best part is that, like Secunia’s software, it simply works as advertised.
First the first time in seven years (!), my main Internet connection is down, and will likely stay down until at least Tuesday. This being a long weekend, no telco technician is available until then, and they determined that the fault is likely a partial short in the physical circuit. Bloody hell.
Now I am scrambling to reroute everything to a backup server, provided courtesy of a good friend of mine. I asked him to only move around on tiptoes until Tuesday, and I am begging Murphy not to strike again until then…
Using the Internet in China just got a little harder. Not content with operating one of the most heavy-handed Internet censorship regimes in the world, Chinese authorities decided that free Wi-Fi makes it just too easy for all sorts of unsavory electronic communication to take place without appropriate supervision by Big Brother… so they ordered public Wi-Fi access providers to install costly software to record the identities and monitor the Web activities of users.
This is why I am not really afraid that the 21st century will belong to China. Sure, they became an economic giant, but this kind of institutional paranoia is ultimately self-limiting. Now if one day, they suddenly kicked out the Chinese Communist Party and replaced its one-party rule with a pluralist society… but then again, if that were to happen and China became the world’s most populous liberal democracy, why would I need to feel worried about their economic prosperity?
I was trying to resolve a tricky problem today with the domain name system on one of my servers. One possibility was that a broken root server might have been responsible for the faulty behavior. So I began reading about broken root servers. Reading up on this topic, I happened upon an article published a few years ago discussing the pros and cons of internationalizing the Internet’s numbering authority. So I went to Wikipedia to read up about the current status of ICANN. This led me to another article about the proposed Interplanetary Internet, and about delay-tolerant networking in general. Soon I found myself reading a variety of articles on the history of computing, including the legendary decline of once famous companies like Data General and Digital… and eventually, after reading about early computer architectures and calculators, I was staring at an article discussing the early inventions of Hero of Alexandria, who indeed had a steam reaction engine and another invention that used expanding hot air to displace water which then opened church doors, two inventions that are often confused these days, leading many to believe that Hero’s engine was capable of useful work.
Unfortunately, I am not capable of useful work when I get lost like this on Wikipedia. My problem with DNS remains unsolved.
John Deere, a manufacturer of agricultural machinery, would not be the first company to come to mind when I think about a controversial issue related to the Global Positioning System… but in retrospect, it makes perfect sense. Large, automated farming operations rely heavily on precision (augmented) GPS.
And according to John Deere, it’s precisely those kinds of users who would be most heavily affected by the wireless data network proposed by a company named Lightsquared, permissions for which were mysteriously fast-tracked by the FCC in the United States last fall. Yes, it smelled fishy… On the other hand, the United States is not some corrupt third-world country and I was somewhat skeptical about the dramatic claims of interference. Weren’t radio devices, including GPS receivers, supposed to be equipped with sufficient frequency filters to ensure no interference from neighboring frequency bands, no matter what? Is it really valid to assume that just because a neighboring frequency band is reserved for mobile satellite applications, all transmissions in that band will be low power? Well, John Deere’s material answers my questions in full, and it seems that the concerns are valid, more valid even than initially thought. I wonder how the FCC will respond.
Earlier this week Egypt, a country of 80 million, collectively left the Internet.
I think this, more than anything, demonstrates that the days (if not the hours) of Mubarak’s regime are numbered. The damage this step causes to the Egyptian economy are likely quite considerable. And a number of other countries are worried: it appears that a significant share of the data traffic between Europe and Gulf oil states, as well as Asia, passes through Egypt. This connections aren’t yet affected, but who knows what happens next?
We live in interesting times.
Here’s a wonderful quote from Saturday Night Live’s impersonation of Julian Assange talking about Mark Zuckerberg: “What are the differences between Mark Zuckerberg and me? Let’s take a look. I give you private information about corporations for free. And I’m a villain. Mark Zuckerberg gives your private information to corporations for money and he’s Man of the Year.”
SNL’s Assange also praised Time magazine for being on top of things, discovering Facebook “only weeks after your grandmother”.
Conspiracy theorists, rejoice: Paypal apparently admitted that the decision to freeze the Paypal account of Wikileaks was due to US government pressure. Long live freedom and democracy. No wonder some folks are comparing our treatment of Assange to China’s treatment of Nobel laureate Xiaobo. We are, after all, doing the same thing China is doing: we are trying to suppress information, and we threaten and intimidate those who release it. I find myself in strong agreement with the writer of an article that appeared in the Vancouver Sun: we are forced to ask questions (about torture, detentions, intimidation, death threats and worse) that ten years ago none of us thought we’d be asking.
There is, though, a silver lining. Perhaps all this evil has always been part of our “civilized” society, and it’s only now, in the era of the Internet, that we can so easily find out.
I’ve done it: I donated to Wikileaks. While I still could, at least using a credit card, now that the Paypal option is gone.
Does this mean that I am now on somebody’s list as a supporter of Mr. “rapist, worse than a terrorist” Assange and that I can expect to be sexually assaulted, er, I mean, strip searched when I next go through an airport?
And isn’t this something that only denizens of evil police states should have to be worrying about?
News flash: Paypal blocks Wikileaks.
But no, we’re not like the evil Chinese. We don’t do censorship. It’s strictly for legal reasons, you see.
I wanted to send money to Wikileaks yesterday. Perhaps it’s better that I didn’t, because for all I know, monies in Wikileaks’ account may be frozen by Paypal. I’m sure there will be other ways. Hopefully I won’t be charged one day as a supporter of terrorism because of a $20 contribution.
Yes, I’ll continue to use Paypal and buy books from Amazon. I just have a worse opinion than ever about our commitment to our cherished Western values.
No, we don’t do censorship. This is the West, after all. We are civilized, democratic, and we deplore evil regimes that prevent their citizens from prying into the secrets of the almighty State.
Except…
Except when said secrets are a little too inconvenient. We then stop pretending and issue an international arrest warrant against the founder of a Web site for a crime that, even if it was really committed, was likely little more than an unwarranted sexual advance; we “convince” a large hosting provider to stop hosting the unpleasant content; and we convince the DNS provider to stop servicing the name of the domain in question. This is so much more civilized than running a state censorship establishment!
My arse.
For the record, Wikileaks mirrors can be located by looking them up at http://wikileaks.info/. As of this morning, the following information was provided there:
Find all the current Wikileaks Mirrors here. Helpful, if the main site – wikileaks.org – is down.
Real mirrors on different IP Addresses
Important Wikileaks Links
Contrary to what is being said above, the wikileaks.de domain name works this morning; it points to 213.251.145.96, which seems up to date, including the “cablegate” releases.
Bleeping hypocrisy. At least the Chinese are honest about what they are doing.
No, I didn’t smoke anything unhealthy. The “cloud”, in this case, does not refer to a state of mind nor, for that matter, to structures formed by condensed water vapor in the atmosphere. I am talking about the computing “cloud”, the idea that you are using the Internet to access computing resources, the physical location of which is irrelevant.
This past weekend, I decided to set up a virtual server in the “cloud”. I am amazed how cheaply it can be done nowadays. And one day, it may help me migrate away from a home office based server to one that I no longer have to maintain myself. That’s the long-term plan anyway. For now, I am taking the first tentative steps as I am exploring my brand new server and test its robustness and reliability.
The founder of Wikileaks has been charged with rape in Sweden. As of this morning, his whereabouts are unknown.
Are these charges true? Is Assange a rapist? Perhaps. He is certainly a weird fellow, and for all I know, he’s not necessarily weird purely in a good sense.
But… are these charges true? He pissed off a lot of people, and not just people, but some of the most powerful institutions in the world, including the US and other governments, corporations, and even shady entities like the Church of Scientology. Just how far are governments (and non-governments) willing to go to get rid of him? Are they capable of theatrical dirty tricks? At one time I would have said no. But that was at a time when I could not have imagined that a modern-day government would poison a former agent on foreign soil, using an exotic radioactive substance. At that time, I could not have imagined that a modern-day democratic government would engage in a systematic campaign of lies and deception to justify an unjust war of aggression. Compared to such things, a trumped-up charge against a (to them, very) annoying individual is nothing. Perhaps he should be grateful that he’s still alive and he’s not setting off any Geiger-counters nearby.
Update: And now, a few hours after I wrote the paragraphs above, here’s breaking news from CNN: “WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange ‘no longer wanted’ and not a rape suspect, Swedish prosecutor says on website”. Sooo… What was this all about?
Speaking of blogs and people who yell back… sometimes, those people are actually yell for money. It seems that a new industry is about to be born, the industry of copyright trolls. Be careful what you quote in your blogs, especially in the US.
I went for a walk last morning and it gave me time to think. About this here blog of mine. Notably, about the fact that this is my first new entry in ten days, probably a record since I began this habit some eight years ago.
Of course eight years ago, I was not using blogging software. I was originally just adding content to a static HTML page. Eventually, I wrote some home-brew server-side code that allowed users to access a specific day. Which is how the software organized entries, by day that is. So I felt compelled to put something in every day, even if it was nothing more than just the comment, “another boring day”. (Not boring to me mind you, but to people reading my entries.) But then, two years ago I decided to join others in the 21st century and set up WordPress. (It was perhaps around this time that my resistance finally broke down and I began to accept the word “blog” as part of my vocabulary.) One side effect of this change was that I no longer added a new entry every day… but then, there were days when I added more than one. Even so, I blogged less. Was it because of the change in software?
Or perhaps I just have less to say? How many original (or, well, not too unoriginal) thoughts can be stored in an average human brain? How soon before we start repeating ourselves, griping about the same issues over and over again? Perhaps I am blogging less because I already said everything I needed to say?
Or maybe it’s something else altogether. Maybe it’s not the blogging software per se, but the fact that it allowed me to configure my Facebook account to pick up my blog entries and post them there. Suddenly, people actually responded to what I had to say. They actually commented. What on Earth?
You see, blogs (and I mean real, personal blogs, not news media outlets that call themselves blogs) are the ultimate write-only media. You write about things that matter to you, not about things that matter to others. You yell at the world, not expecting the world to yell (or, for that matter, whisper) back.
So perhaps I just became shy because suddenly the world talked back. Suddenly, I had to pay attention to what I wrote because there was a reaction. Usually a friendly one, but even so… I had to explain my thoughts. Heaven forbid, I sometimes had to revise them because somebody convinced me that I was mistaken. When you yell at the world, you’re not expecting the world to explain to you why you are wrong.
Maybe I’ll just establish a secret blog site. One that is not linked to Facebook or anything else, the URL of which only I know. (Who needs pesky readers?) Then, I’ll happily yell at the world again secure in the knowledge that nobody pays any attention whatsoever…
To all the smartalecs on support forums out there: what the hell is wrong with you? If I ask someone with a map about the route from town A to B, I expect them to tell me directions, not question my sanity for wanting to drive to town B in the first place. Similarly, if someone posts a question in the form of, say, “I have device A giving error message B under operating system C, how do I solve this problem?”, the one thing they are absolutely, positively NOT interested in is lectures such as “Why would you be using device A?” or “What kind of a moron still uses operating system C?” and the like. If you don’t know the answer, can’t you just shut up and not pollute Google searches with your asinine remarks?
For instance, today I was trying to use a floppy disk. (Yes, people still need floppy disks sometimes. Not because they live in the stone age, but because they may be using a floppy to update a motherboard BIOS, for instance.) I ran into a problem. I searched Google, and found a support forum where a similar problem was discussed. There were a few helpful answers. But then, look at this little exchange:
>>> The other thing is - why do you need it?
<<< I need the floppy to run the Western Digital program to test <<< the drive [...]
>>> If you're getting lots of bad sectors, then the drive has >>> problems and you should be getting it replaced under warranty >>> warranty, not attempting to 'fix' it. [...]
<<< yes, but the thing with western digital is before you can send <<< the drive back you need an error code [...]
>>> But what error code could possibly be worse than a bad sector? >>> Tell them the "error code" is xxxxxxxxxxxx bad sectors!
How bloody helpful. This really told the guy how to fix the floppy disk problem that he was seeking help for.
Recently, news have been circulating about a new form of phishing attack that doesn’t rely on some unpatched vulnerability; rather, it uses a legitimate feature of Adobe Acrobat to hijack users’ computers.
Sophos Labs offer a detailed description of how it works. (Basically, it’s the ability of Acrobat to open non-PDF attachments that is abused, tricking a user into running an executable program.) They also offer advice on how to disable this feature. I think it’s a darn good idea to follow their suggestion: most of us never deal with PDF documents containing non-PDF attachments anyhow.