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!

What The FUCK is this?

4 attempts to get this damned image to post.  And then I forgot to put a ring round it.  Guys - It’s not a TIP.  It’s ADVERTISING.

A tip: Use the “B” button in the write window to make something bold.

An Advert: Be the master of your own domain.

See the difference?  Nice forum thread too.

While I am whining, for gods’ sake PLEASE give us back the ability to edit our posts on the forum.  Even a five minute window would be nice.

I am liking wordpress.com less and less every time I “visit”.  I might just have to stop “visiting”.  I think the only thing that brings me back right now is the morbid curiosity of what people are going to be moaning about in the forum.

And don’t even get me started on the Possibly Related Posts thing.  I think between TGA and the forum threads, the whole subject has been pretty much covered.  As if it needed explained, I have already opted out by ticking the box.

Like Kubrick? Hate The BBH?

Try this:

Big Huge Labs header generator for Kubrick.

I played. Came up with this:

I won’t be using it as I really don’t like Kubrick, but it’s nice to know that these options are out there…

Via WLTC.

Testing Video Uploads

After sucking in my fat belly and eating some humble pie, I am just testing the Movie uploads to see what happens.

I think it’s a problem for the user as he’s using Safari, but I can’t prove it as I am stuck with shitty Windows XP.

The Movie:

Failed miserably. The system offers you the upload option but my guess is that WP is simply using the same interface for video with just the modifications to give the information about inserting from the video server services (youtube, google video etc).

That. Sucks.

Killing Off The Porn

Following some Link Love (this could get confusing!) from Options on one of my previous posts, I glanced at the tags. I noticed that one of them was Porn.

My first thought was “idiot tag gaming spammer”, which I very quickly revised when I realised the plan and then formulated one of my own.

This might get me kicked out of the News Departments, but I don’t care.

Here’s the plan:

1. Write a technical post. Computers, Internet, WordPress - whatever.
2. Tag it “Porn”.

This will eventually have the effect that the Porn tag will be overrun with techy posts and the actual porn tags from WordPress.com blogs not declared mature will disappear. Ok, this will probably piss-off the non-adult bloggers that talk about porn, but that’s a small price to pay. They should get a life and not spend it thinking about titties.

This goes along (somewhat) about my idea for the Forum Tag War…

In case you don’t hear from me again, check Matt’s (lost the plot using IE7!) BBQ for a fat human looking piece of meat on the spit roast…

Give us the Damned URL!

Just a very quick one. If you’re asking for help in the wordpress.com forum then let uss have the URL for your blog (warning if it’s NSFW!). Threads like this one do nothing to help either you or the volunteer trying to help you.

Oh, and read the bloody stickies! If you’re too damned lazy to do that then learn just this:

1. Are you blogging at wordpress.com or do you have your own host?

If you’re at wordpress.com use this forum.

If you’re self-hosted, use this forum.

See, not hard is it!

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.

Your Facebook Status in your WordPress.com Blog

Do you use Facebook? I have done for about a month now and am rather enjoying it. It’s like MySpace without the Emos! My profile is here. If you’re using FB then feel free to add me. Let me know who you are by commenting here so I can tell who’s who though!

One of the facilities is the “Status Update” where you can tell your friends what you are doing/feeling/pondering/whatever you like. Think of it as a Twitter for Facebook. It’s not much use unless you want to let your friends know what you’re doing.

Well, thanks to Adam at Pomomusings there is a way to share your Facebook Status Updates on your blog. He has actually created a small plugin called Facepress Statuspress which, when used with the hosted version of WordPress will allow the blogger to display their Status Updates in the sidebar.

Knowing what WordPress.com bloggers are like for Gucci widgets, I thought I would explore the possibility of displaying Status Updates on wp.com blogs. And it’s easy! It uses the RSS feed for your Status Updates. You can find the RSS feed like this:

1. Go to your Facebook Profile.
2. Click on the Mini-Feed bar so you can see all of your recent activity.
3. Click “See All” on the top right of that box.
4. Under “View” on the right, you’ll see a long list of “Stories” - click on “Status Stories.”
5. Underneath the list, you will now see “Subscribe to these Stories - My Status.”
6. Right click on “My Status” and Choose “Copy Link Location.”

Come back to your wordpress.com blog and follow these steps:

7. Go to Presentation -> Widgets.
8. Scroll down the page and find RSS 1 or RSS 2. If you have already used both of those then scroll down a little further and increase the number of “RSS Feed Widgets” appropriately, save and re-load the page.
9. Drag the selected RSS widget to an appropriate location on the sidebar.
10. Click the configure button on the widget and paste in the URL that you copied in step 6.
11. Click away from the widget and then press “Save Changes”.

When you view your site you should now see your Facebook Status updates in all its glory on your sidebar. You can see mine on the right. I changed the number of items to display to “1″, otherwise it was taking up half the sidebar.

Why The Theme Change?

I was using Redoable Lite, but realised at lunchtime that there’s no method to get to older posts not on the first page. Hence, the sudden theme change. This is Freshy. Still not perfect, but at least readers can get to my older (though not necessarily better!) posts.

I might one day cough the dosh and get the CSS upgrade, switch to Sandbox and design something truly shitty and unique.

Thankyou for your understanding.

Turkey Bans WordPress.com

We know it’s already happened in China, the government banned surfers from getting to wordpress.com (along with many other sites), and now, according to Doctus a judge in Turkey has decided that wordpress.com should be blocked there too.

Just in case you can’t read Turkish (like me!) the text says

Access to this site has been suspended in accordance with decision no 2007/195 of T.C Faith 2.Civil Court of First Instance.

As yet the reason for the decision is unknown. If I hear anything I will post more about it. Thanks to Tansu for the heads up.

There are over one million blogs here at wp.com, think of what the country is missing out on by blocking it. I really hope that Turkey overrules this as it is the minority of wp.com blogs that are opposing Middle Eastern laws and rules.