Dougal Campbell's geek ramblings

WordPress, web development, and world domination.

Monthly Archives: June 2005

WordPress 1.5.1.3

An important security issue was brought to our attention which required an update for our users. You should update your blog as soon as possible to WordPress 1.5.1.3. If you are unable to do the upgrade in the short-term you may protect yourself by deleting the xmlrpc.php file from your WordPress directory.

Yahoo! My Web 2.0

Somehow, I must find time to play with Yahoo! My Web 2.0… I don’t have time to read up on it and comment intelligently right now. For more details, see: Jeremy Zawodny Andy Baio Ross Mayfield Matt Haughey

New Van

Chrysler Town & Country LX Yesterday morning Susan took our 1996 Ford Aerostar van in for an oil change. Last night, we drove home in a 2005 Chrysler Town & Country LX. How do these things happen? The Aerostar had served us well, but at 10 years old, it was getting a bit long in the tooth. Plus, we were able to pay off our Explorer by folding it into the financing for the new … Continue reading

I’m a statistic

I’ve participated in an online blogging survey being conducted by the Media Lab at MIT. Actually, it’s about more than just blogging, as the questions also cover use of email, instant messaging, and texting (cell phone SMS). This is part of a PhD project by Cameron Marlow, so if you’ve got 15 minutes to spare, sign up for the survey and help the guy graduate. There’s only a few days left, so head on over … Continue reading

Top Unwired Cities

Intel has a list of the top 100 Most Unwired Cities. They’re referring to availability of wireless networking. “Unwired” probably wasn’t the best word to choose, since the word “wired” has a long tradition of indicating the acceptance of new technologies. Anyhow, I see that my stomping grounds, Atlanta, comes in at #6. I was pleasantly surprised to see Mobile, Alabama make the list at #72, and Birmingham at #86 (I was also surprised that … Continue reading

More on microformats

There is now a dedicated site for information about microformats: microformats.org I’m working on a movie review using the hReview format. I’m hoping that we’ll see one of the big search engines start correlating microformat data soon. I’d guess that Technorati might be the first, but I’m sure that Google and Yahoo! are looking at it, as well. via: Eric Meyer

Warnings and Promises

Glenn McDonald has written an excellent open letter to the music industry titled Warnings and Promises, explaining what he’s been “stealing” from them, and why. I have been one of the last independent apologists for a moral kernel, elusive now to perhaps the point of imagination, in your corrupt and desperate retreat, but now even I have given up. I still buy, but now I also steal. You have forfeited your right to my loyalty. … Continue reading

Spam on the rise again?

Has anybody else noticed a sharp increase in blog spam activity lately over the past couple of weeks? The number of firewall rules on my system generated by SpamValve was down below 40 not too long ago, but now it’s back up to over 100 again. The worst of the attacks still cause some brief hiccups on my server from time to time, but now that I’ve got a good set of automated countermeasures in … Continue reading

Blogs of the Day

I meant to mention this previously, but Blogs of the Day is the latest link popularity site. It’s rather nifty in that it ranks sites and articles based on actual readership, and in the fact that it’s an opt-in system. It also only keeps statistics for 24 hours, in keeping with the ephemeral nature of popularity on the internet. Various lists are provided, including Top Posts in the last 24 hours, the BuzzList (most popular … Continue reading

Subway ditches stamps

We recently discovered that one local Subway franchise was no longer giving out stamps. So we started frequenting a different Subway location. We had been wondering why the first store had made this change. Now I know why. Ever since the 1980s, Subway customers have received a stamp for every six-inch sandwich purchased (two stamps for a foot-long); filling up a Sub Club card with the requisite number of stamps entitles the customer to a … Continue reading