Going back to Linux

When I first started this blog at wordpress.com it was called “Learning Linux And Loving It”. At the time I had an old Intel based PC that I had been given. Not wanting spend any money on an operating system, I installed a version of Linux called Ubuntu. The version was Warty Warthog. It was horrible. I had awful problems trying to get the machine to run in widescreen, get a soundcard working, and most important of all get a wireless network connection running.

Needless to say, I gave up. This blog has, since then gone through a couple of re-designs, becoming my personal blog when my main hosting was down, and latterly my geek rants blog.

It would seem that things have come full circle. Yesterday I grabbed a machine that was left in my garage, brought it indoors, dusted it off and installed the latest version of Ubuntu - version 8.04 LTS (long term support) Hardy Heron Edition.

So? Initial thoughts? What a bloody revelation. It was a positive experience without the trauma scarring my memory from my earlier experiences. The “new” machine is an AMD Athlon XP2800 running with 512mb RAM and onboard sound and video. A generic wireless card and hardwired ethernet too.

The installation itself was a few guided questions with simple options for the novice (or windows convert) to understand. All the hardware was detected and installed, both network cards, video and sound. The system even detected the most suitable screen resolution as 1280×1024.

Using the OS is a breeze too. OK, there’s a bit of searching on the net for me to figure out what I want to do, remembering that I have to use “sudo apt get” in a terminal for example, but it’s still fun and the knowledge on the ‘net is awesome.

I am going to live with it for a few weeks on my second machine and see how it goes. I can’t permanently convert from Windows because of iTunes for my wife’s iPod, but I might end up using this one as my main machine and just leave Windows on the old machine for the boss to use.

I have found a couple of problems though. I don’t know whether it was just a glitch, WP staff mucking about or if it is FUBAR, but the screenshot below is what greeted my when I visited the wordpress.com support forums a few minutes ago:

Once I have settled in to using it a little more and found resources that I believe are really useful (Donncha already provided a couple, thanks Donncha!) I will put up a new post with those links for others to share. In the meantime if you have any tips or tricks to share I would be most pleased to hear them!

M$ Q1 Profits

The Register reports today that Microsoft’s quarter 1 profits were down by 10.9% to just $4.3bn.

So, M$ is still feeling the after effects of yet another crappy OS in Vista and the only thing that’s really saving it is sales of the Xbox.

M$ has claimed that it has sold 140 million licences for Vista. Even taking into account world-wide sales, that sounds like a hell of a high number to me. If I had been asked I would have said it was closer to 10 million, taking into consideration all the other operating systems available, and that no corporate customer I know of has upgraded to Vista yet. Certainly my lot have stayed with XP and that’s no bad thing. Hell, much of the MoD is still running NT!

So, what’s next for M$? I know that Server 2008 is on its way, and there was a rumour floating round the ‘nets that M$ might break its desktop delivery schedule and replace Vista in 2009, a year early.

In the meantime I also heard that SP3 for XP will be available Monday. Wonder what’s going t break this time when we install it…

Vista According to the Bastard Operator From Hell

One of the best reviews of Vista I’ve seen yet:

“You should go to Vista.”

“So you like Vista?”

“Not really, no. I run a Vista simulator.”

“Virtual Server?” the Boss asks.

“Nah, I just turned on all the flashy crap in XP, changed the background image, took some memory out of my box and clocked down the CPU. Then broke Media player. Works like a charm.”

“So you don’t like it?”

“No. But it has does have one advantage.”

“What’s that?”

“It causes a clean reinstall of XP which is generally good from a defrag point of view.”

Blatantly copied, unedited, direct from the Bastard Operator From Hell

If You’re Happy And You Know It…

Here’s a really quick one for Windows Users to try:

Either hit the Start button and click Run or on the keyboard hit the Windows key + R.

You’ll get to the command prompt. Type in the following:

If you’re happy and you know it…

Hit return. The result shouldn’t be any surprise. You’re using a Windows system after all…

Yet Another Reason To Avoid Blogger

We all know that Blogger is the root of all blogging evil. It’s been well documented in the past that Blogger has been hacked and malicious scripts, viruses and malware installed on users’ blogs.

BBC News is reporting today that Alex Eckelberry from Sunbelt Software noticed booby-trapped links on 27 August.

From the report:

Now many hundreds of blogs on the site have been updated with a short entry containing the link.

Mr Eckelberry said it was not yet clear how the links were posted to blogs. The bogus entries could have exploited a Blogger feature that lets users e-mail entries to their journal.

You would have thought that after the first three widely publicised takedowns that Google (who own Blogger) would have tightened security on the application. Apparently not.

Among the other recipients of spam e-mails generated by the virus are users’ mail2blogger accounts, which allow them to update their blogs via e-mail,” said the spokesperson.

The email addresses on mail2blogger accounts are stored in Blogger so that the system can associate the account with the email address. A simple (relatively of course) or an insider would be able to get said email addresses and pass/sell to the “gang”. This would mean two things:

1, The “gang” would be able to post the malicious scripts to blogs via cloaked email.
2. The “gang” would be able to email the script to the owner of the email address infecting their computer and causing it to pass on the script in the usual virus like manner.

I don’t know about others but I try my hardest to avoid blogs hosted by or running Blogger type software. Yes, I may be missing out on decent content but I just really can’t stand the interface, the spam advertising, the porn and the black templates of death.

My suggestions:

1. Avoid any blogs on blogger.
2. If you want to blog, use a decent service. Yes, it’s very restricted but so far there have been no reports of hacking into the system.
3. Get a Mac.

The Finch Wants A Mac!

Yes, I admit it. I want to turn to the dark side. Yesterday I got to play with my cousin’s (careful! No gay incest here thanks!) Mac Book. Quite simply, it just worked. It was sleek, slick and something else beginning with S (not slimy!) that I can’t think of right now.

I was talking to two guys at work on Friday night and both of them are Mac converts. They gave me the links to a couple of videos on the Apple website, one of them was Steve J’s August 2007 keynote about iLife and iWork ‘08.

So, in a fit, a frenzy and something else beginning with F (not ….) that I can’t think of, the decision was made to purchase a Mac of some description. The question is, which one?

I love the look of the Mac Mini, I already have USB keyboard and mouse and my Gucci (if a little old at 2 years) Acer 19″ widescreen. Getting the Mac Mini will allow me to use the existing gear with a KVM and run the PC and the Mac.

The iMac looks even better but the Mac Mini just makes more sense. I have three monitors on the desk as it is. Do I want another?

But then I think of the Mac Book’s portability. That’s a huge bonus as I have no decent laptop at all.

But then I think of the Mac Book Pro and it’s extra features like the DVD burner and the extra hard disc space.

Aaarrrgh! See my problem? So, I have two tasks for both my loyal readers to undertake should you desire:

1. Help me choose. Mac Mini or Mac Book? I would like to hear your reasoning for choosing one over the other.

2. I would like to see some sites or objective real time reviews of Macs. I know next to nothing about them at the moment and I get the impression that watching a keynote from Steve Jobs is no different to watching Billy G go on about how great Vista is. And we ALL know the truth about that!

If you really want, then please try putting me off my impending purchase (and doom!), god knows how I’m going to afford it…

Broadcasting Security Vulnerabilities

Why do people do it? Over at Blog Security there are regularly reports of people finding and publishing on their blogs security vulnerabilities in WordPress.

Do not get me wrong. I like the fact that there are people working to discover the vulnerabilities. At the end of the day it means that WordPress will become more secure. Obviously, the limited time and resources of the application’s developers means that they can’t test every single element of what is a huge and powerful application.

Hell, Microsoft do it all the time. Look at Windows XP. MS released the OS and within three months Service Pack 1 was released.

The problem with people doing this work is that rather than tell the developers (there are various methods outlined at WordPress.org), they will shout about it on their blogs.

What does this mean? Think about it. There are a hell of a lot of unscrupulous “users”, hackers, spammers and script kiddies out there who are quite happy to hack your blog and use it for nefarious purposes. Be it Google Juice for their own AdSense promotion or inserting spamming scripts into your code. And if the person that finds the vulnerability shouts about it on their blog, gets it linked by other people and then it’s all over the ‘net before developers have a chance to fix it. WordPress gets a reputation as an insecure application and we all lose the best blogging application on the market.

If you DO find a vulnerability, whether it’s in core code, a theme or a plugin, please please please let the developer of that piece of code know. Certainly shout about it, but wait until later, after it’s fixed!

If you are interested at all in the security of your blog then Blog Security is a must read.

As well as alerts to the latest vulnerabilities, they have posts such as Top 11 WordPress Plugins (It’s unfortunate that one of the 11 is the Adsense plugin - That’s a completely separate rant!) and Top 10 Vulnerable WP Themes.

The results of the theme vulnerability shows that out of 1000 blogs tested, 220 had obvious vulnerabilities. Including the default Kubrick theme and Connections!

They also offer an excellent WP Scanner Tool which (with a plugin downloaded from the Site) will scan your blog for vulnerabilities. You can then (with not much effort) figure out what you can do to sort them.

Geek Tattoos

I am a geek. I freely admit that, have no problem with it at all. Why? Because I’m not a nerd. What’s the difference? Well, there’s two versions:

A Geek is a nerd with a social life.

And this version from Wil Wheaton’s son Ryan that I saw this morning:

Nerds don’t know they’re nerds, but geeks know they’re geeks, and they embrace it.

So, when you get a Windows 98 BSOD tattoo you MUST be a geek. There’s no way not to embrace it with a tattoo like this.

Found via ModBlog, this is the exact text from a Blue Screen of Death, circa 1994. I’m really not too sure what it’s supposed to mean. Perhaps Paul was just bored, or maybe he was feeling nostalgic for the death of yet another Windows 98 installation.

Just in case you’re interested, this is the where he got the text. Even the memory address matches:

Update: The first comment here is from Sam Rulz, the tattoist who inked Paul’s arm. She has written about it in her MySpace blog here. Awesome information, thanks Sam.

The Evil Of The Dot Doc Format

Everyone’s heard of Microsoft. Everyone’s heard of MS Word. Some people think that MS Word is the most evil piece of software ever created. I suspect this was written by a Linux geek:

* Proprietary format which can only be read if you’ve got specific software
* Are helping Microsoft take over the world
* Unnecessary
* BLOATWARE

As most people that use Microsoft Word (not corporate users) tend to use a ripped off version, it’s only helping MS take over the world as “everybody” uses it.

Unneccessary? Bullshit. The computer generation needed a decent wordprocessor. Microsoft provided that. Did you ever try using Word Perfect?

Proprietary format? Maybe. But there are many many other applications that can read the .doc format this argument is pretty much moot.

Bloatware? Yes. This fact I can’t disagree with. Write something in MS Word and then copy and paste the full text into a WordPress blog bost “write” window. You won’t see the bloat, but the extra code that gets put in can really screw with the post.

These recommendations are from the original post for freeing yourself of MS Word:

1. For any file that’s plain text with no fancy formatting (italics, bold etc), send as .TXT

2. For text files with fancy bits in, send as HTML (.htm), or as an early form of rich text format which you have reason to expect the other person has something generic to read it with.

3. For photographs, use .JPG (which is surprisingly compact)

4. For images which are solid graphics, use .GIF or .PNG (.PNG is better and is free of the patent/copyright problems associated with .GIF)

All reasonable suggestions with a couple of major problems. Most of it is utter shit. While I agree with all the points given these recommendations do absolutely NOTHING for the person that wants to write a letter and then print it.

1. Plain text will not support the layout formatting that most require for letters.
2. Most people do not know how to write HTML. Who the hell wants to spend a couple of hours writing HTML to format a letter, print it and then delete it. I’m sorry, but Word is just so much better at it.

As for recommendations for 3 and 4, who uses Word for photos in the first place? Nobody with any ounce of sense. If the user is taking photos from their camera then the camera usually comes with some sort of imaging software that does the job. Solid graphics? Not usually created with Word anyway!

My recommendations?

If you want to avoid MS Word altogether (and it’s no bad thing if you do!) use OpenOffice. It’s free and it does 99% of what MS Office does anyway.

Image manipulation? The GIMP. Again, it’s open source and allows you to do most of the things you need to your photos and graphics.

Block IE? Don’t Be Stupid!

This is a direct copy of the post over at my main blog. This is intentional.

Pressing that damned Stumble! button for yet another evening’s inane entertainment brought me to a forum thread for a Linux community called Open Addict. The first post in the thread says:

I’ve blocked Internet Explorer from viewing our front page and will implement that code on the rest of our site as we roll out the new format.

I’m sorry, you’ve done what??? You’ve blocked IE? Ooookay…

The reason, which you can read for yourself if you fire up IE and browse the front page, is that the dynamic menu code and other formatting issues looked like pure crap or didn’t work at all with Internet Explorer. Everything looks and works fine with Firefox, Opera, Konquerer, etc… but not IE and I’m sick and tired of hacking and tweaking things because IE has rendering bugs and doesn’t adhere to web standards like better browsers.

So, rather than make your website cross-browser compatible you’re just going to block one of the major browsers? Actually, your website doesn’t display properly with Firefox. I am running FF 2.0.0.5 (updated automatically today) and your front page has a horizontal scroll bar. Okay, it’s just 20 pixels or so, but it really is a sign of crap design. No website should have a horizontal scroll bar.

What’s the big deal? Well, believe it or not, most people coming to our site are using Windows and IE. This could hurt out traffic potentially, but I’m just fed up with IE rendering issues. So if you’re an IE user, I hope you’re not offended by any of this - it’s nothing against you as a user. Just please install and use Firefox or Opera if you use Windows. Better yet, use Linux and all of your dreams will come true.

The Big Deal? You freely admit that “most people coming to our site are using Windows and IE”. Does that not tell you something? Most Linux people are the advocates of the OS. They believe they “have seen the light” and are bent on converting the unwashed masses away from the evil of Microsoft and IE. And then you block IE visitors from seeing the “Linux Goodness”? That’s the big deal.

I have ranted about this before as it really gets up my nose. I agree that Internet Explorer is the root of browser evil, however, it’s the most used browser. Let’s do some stats:

Since 02 July (when I started running Google Analytics) I have had 2,992 visitors. 2,992 is 100% of my visitors. 2,064 or 68.98% of those visitors are using, yep, Internet Explorer. 771 or 25.77% use Firefox. The other 157 or just 5.25% visits are made up of 7 different browsers. Guess what’s on the bottom. Yep, Konquerer. Just 1 visit.

With almost 70% of my visitors using IE, If I would to block the browser then 70% of my measly 150ish visits per day would disappear. Do I want to risk that? No.

So, want my recommendations? Heres’s two:

1. Put a bloody big banner at the top of the page that simply states “Internet Explorer Sucks” and recommend alternative browsers.

Or (and this is much better)

2. Simply allow “Most People” to visit by fixing the sodding scripts, and menus.

There are millions of websites out there that don’t need funky scripts and shit to make their websites work with IE. All you are doing is re-enforcing the opinion (Wrong I know, but still it’s the consensus) that Linux users are all geeks, nerds, fanboys. or all three. Linux should not be elitist, yet you seem to think it is.

Folks - If you’re here because you got blocked by the Open Addict website, try this Linux Operating System instead.