Archive for 'my private soap box'
Started off with some “URGENT” emails and a equaly urgent call to rush down to the office as one machine was no longer responding. So I have been here most of the day at the office working on projects, tried making some calls, sent off some emails, and have half re-done a server, with another to follow here shortly.
In setting up one server I setup the desktop end of things (aka X11/Gnome) and needed a pretty wallpaper - thus I turned to one of my favorite digital artists David Lanham - I chose the white for the server, and the plum for my laptop - its a mellow, design, I really enjoy it, and may snag the print for the wall here at the office.
Some mixed news, client contacted me today (one of the urgent emails from this AM) and we emailed back and forth, with no issues, no mention of my position, so who knows - maybe they were just having a bad day, and I got the butt end of it as I sometimes do with clients, they are frustrated, I am there - whammo 
Lastly in local news, today was national “Day without an Immigrant.” as the local news outlet refered to it, also heard “National Day of Action” etc. but this is a ag town for the most part, lot of ag in the surrounding areas, almonds, potatoes, grapes, oranges, etc. etc. - and thus we do have a lot of workers from Mexico primarly, but I do know some filipino’s as well who come to work, but the streets were packed, some larger supermarkets closed for the day, and various business closed their doors for the day to show the country that the US relies on both Immigrant Workers for Labor and for the Economy. I can’t say I disagree, I really don’t and I applaud them for standing up for what they believe in, not many Americans legal or not take their rights of free speech that often, these folks though are taking a stand, and wanting a fair shot - and while I think the Media has truly hyped this up far too much as America vs. Mexico, doesn’t change the fact, we are neighbors, our countries are connected - we can say “The process of becoming a citizen is easy! They just need to do it!” well maybe instead of just saying it, help folks get citizenship, in my family we have helped folks before, and it wasn’t the easiest thing to do - but as a Pastor’s family you get to know folks, not only do I enjoy the hispanic culture (food, and I’ll admit it the catchy rythms of mariachi, and the people) but most importantly, it’s part of who I am, coming from a family with hispanic roots.
Anywhoo - thats my rant, thats my day thus far, its almost 7, and I have some mini things to do here for a while, hopefully my brother is on the way soon, and we can get these boxes on new APC backups, and one of the machines upgraded! Woohoo!
Life full circle - twas bound to happen I suppose - got some nice time off in life, sorta, ventured out, had fun, hung with friends, but it seems here I am again, back where I started, 2am mornings, wide awake, and the usual hooplah of work in the sidelines - such a odd life I lead sometimes.
The site I mentioned last night which I may of essientally ended my job, well I had 1 out of 3 people who I hoped would respond, respond at all, and they agreed with my views - however in doing some work tonight for that site I found another programmer had been working on things - just kinda hurts my brain - more and more this site makes itself more and more complicated (hince the title of this post) - I look at it even 6 months back, simple, functional, expandable, accessable, however now its cluttered, high-end, not old skool friendly, and from the looks of this new code from another programmer, its heading towards more complex. Some might call that progressive, but I think a site can be progressive, and still work with low-end users - not everyone can afford a dual-core processor PC or Mac or things like DSL/Cable.
So I may honestly just quit,not sure - but if I do, afterwards once things have calmed down I’ll probably discuss this site a tad more openly, just as an active client, I don’t want to be naming names, and give fuel for the fire should something go horribly horribly south - the joy of working - I mean I can’t complain about all my clients, some have truly blessed me, and taken care of me (heck one feeds me almost weekly!) - but its sad when it’s a long term client like this and their view has changed and no longer do they see me as an asset to the site, but almost more of a liabilty it would seem, I dunno, again - this may just be my sleep deprived anxiety of the whole matter - but I have done the web a long time, and this client is making some fatal flaws in their plan, and not keeping the entire crew informed, left hand has no idea what the right hand is doing.
Well such is life I suppose - nose burried work for over 6 years my life was simple, wake up, work. SMS beeps, wake up, check a server. Client calls, let them rant for hours - simple enough, easy, predictable - but try to throw in a personal life, tad more complicated Should of expected it - but above all this bunk, the one thing that bothers me the most? No one will go to waffles with me at midnight. What kind of world is this?!
Anywhoo - keep me in your prayers, busy busy busy around here, lots getting done, but still lots more to do, lack of sleep, some high stress, but some great rewards amoung it all - God is Good, can’t complain, but I can be overly tired and exhausted! Oh and pray for Rosie too - she has a final this weekend! I’m sure she’d appriciate the prayers. Night all.
Even 6 months ago there wasn’t as many attempts on servers, I mean sure you have your automated SSH attempts, FTP attempts, folks trying to brute force a common list of account names “joeuser” “bob” “administrator” etc. for a common, easy, password - the common rule from olden days (aka the comedy classic Hackers) was words like sex, power, money, god, etc. things that are all too common in the day - but since rollerblades become popular (ie Hackers) - the war has moved elsewhere.
I have some clients which still to this day are HTML only folks, they only use HTML, they don’t want to try a CMS, they don’t want to make a Blog, their photo gallery they do by hand, and to them, I want to give them a hug for being sticks in the mud - less security concerns there (granting their username isnt bob and their password isnt power!) - but things like Message Boards, Blogs, Galleries, CMS systems - all lately have had seemingly an increase in attacks, this morning I got a txt’d from Julie saying they had a site defaced - not the worst of hacks, but still, requires attention, cleanup, audit to ensure files aren’t infected - and in some cases, wiping everything, and starting from a few days old backup.
So my advice to anyone out there who runs their own blog, their own gallery - and mainly any application which you can goto a .com and pickup - check for updates, check for new relases, and stay up on it. One of my customers has 1 semi-dated application, and another which is who knows how far behind in updates - this weekend he has quite a task ahead of him in updating these dated apps - sadly a worry I see if the loss of data or database corruption if a proper upgrade path isn’t taken - if your unsure how to update an app (aka a friend installed it for you, or it “came with my hosting”) - post a comment, ask away - unsure if your version is old? Check the software’s homepage, if it’s not posted all over “NOW VERSION 3.20391!!!!!!” check the downloads page, 99% of the time it’ll be listed next to the download link - but if you have questions, worries, need help in a walk through to backup, post a comment and I’ll be glad to offer help if I can either privately or via IM (and soon IRC) - just don’t think “Oh I’ll never get hit, my site is too small” - I have had personal websites which get less that 50 unique visitors a month get taken down, so no one type of site is targeted.
That’s my rant for the day - go about your business
Is the devil. Each month I randomly get shut off - never invoiced, they offer no auto-draft from card/checking - so this month it’s the 12th, last month it was the 15th, one month I get a call, another I don’t - kinda stupid. I think I may wander around downtown and see if there is anywhere else I can pay to park, as it stands I am parked below - its not marked, but I really didn’t feel like going in and paying the parking lady without the strong desire to slap her - so maybe this afternoon when I meet with Matt sneak in there and do it - but its just silly it’s not run better.
Thus ends my rant.
Got word today that people are being warned that all FlockHosting servers were hacked, or one or something (still not entirely clear on all the details) and people are reccomending that clients download all their files and move to other hosts - wowza.
Needless to say I am trying to combat this a bit, but it’s not easy as I don’t know all the people who were told this, but one client was at least nice enough to ask me how I was doing and had been praying for me since they heard, and backing up their files (just to be on the safe side). Scary thing is she told me that one of the sites was a Jump5 site, however, to the best of my knowledge, I don’t host any Jump5 sites anymore, I did, but that person stopped paying, thus I stopped hosting. Heh.
There have been individual sites damaged by script kiddies hitting up on things like phpBB holes, and such, but nothing like an entire server compromised, so to clarify the servers are safe, online, operational, infact 2 more coming online very shortly, working out some networking things.
Computer Users.
Let me clarify though - DIE HARDS. You know the type, OS touting prohets who claim switching to their all powerful operating system will do great things for your life, your wife and kids will come back, women or men will like your (in some OS cases, both will) and that Peace On Earth will become possible, all because you went to Mac, or wait, was it Linux? No No, your using that one with the multi-colored Window.
I may be biased on this as I do have the 3 major platforms (Linux/Mac/Windows) at my disposal, heck this right now is being written via Firefox using Ubuntu Linux, because it’s better? No, because my Windows box is doing email and allowing me to watch Conan O’Brien - I am just tired of prophets, someone who’s every solution is “You know, if you just used Gentoo, that’s soooo much easier” blah. To any computer user out there, NEVER, I say “NEVER” believe that lie, it is a bad bad thing that for years people have perpetuated to give brand XYZ dominance in the market.
The Truth? If your willing to take the time, money, effort, any OS can really fit any of your needs - For instance, Recording Studio - Linux, Windows, and Mac all offer solutions, granted Windows/Mac are more main stream in their support for devices like the 002 and other products which work on a USB or Firewire bus, if you REALLY REALLY REALLY wanted to take the time to read/configure/compile, it could be accomplished on Linux - My favorite classic rumor “Graphics are so much better on a Mac” - Let’s see, Photoshop is made for Windows and Mac, throw in a free product like GIMP, and ol classic friends of Corel, you have lots of choices for all 3 platforms to choose from - need a high-end graphics card? Buy one.
I just find it more and more silly claims of Mac/Linux/Windows users claiming their OS is the best - you like it, I get it, but say why you like it - not gonna sell me when you say something foolish like “Well Mac’s can’t get viruses” - I could write a bash script that was say 2-3 lines, that if I told people was a “Quick Installer” would do the classic rm “fubar” and adios folders - if that’s not a virus, I am not sure what is - but touting your some super-cool “Virus” and “Vulnerability” free OS - is only asking bad people to do bad things to proove their abilities.
So my rant for this evening as I go into insane land of no-sleep, and too many things to catch up on - I will be using Linux/Windows/Mac through the evening, each has it’s task, each does something while I can’t do it on another,each can pick up the slack while one’s busy - if you want a good computer? Buy something in your budget, not something shiny, or that has a pengiun on it, or because Mr. Gates is standing behind you whispering sweet nothings into your ear - If you know windows? Good job, keep it up, you know Linux? Great, your a pioneer! If your a Mac User - awesome, your in a very calming OS - but flaunt what your OS can do, vs what other’s can’t - it’s a bad arguement, because if you know the OS, there’s a lot you can do with each to overcome any issue.
And with that, I pray sleep becomes me.. here’s to passing out. Night.
It just blows my mind sometimes - got fwd’d a email tonight from a client from a random visitor more or less threatening to turn the customer’s site over to the wolves as a “unsecure website” - while I don’t keep up on all sites this customer manages on their server (as my contract is to keep the server itself safe, I am not contracted to manage and secure each site & application they have - but this email was kind of in my opinion a tad out of line.
While I am all for security, educating web users to do things safely on the internet, going and saying “Do this or I am going to be FORCED to report you to XYZ.COM” is just plain sad. I have done my best to encourage others to use anti-virus, even though I personally do not, Spyware Scanners, Alternative Browsers, Email Clients, smart things like not opening attachments, etc. etc. but never, ever, would I go and say “Do this or your gonna be tattled on” it’s not my place - sites who don’t comply with my desire for security like SSL login’s I am smart enough to swap out non-SSL url’s and add in the S to “http” since most apps simply use a relative URL and do a post to something like:
../application.php
So when you type in say “http://www.coolsite.com” it makes the above code look like this to your browser:
http://www.coolsite.com/application.php
So when you add in s to http making it https - tada - your secure, not in all cases, but in a majority. Just blows that one person who feels the desire to spout off helpful information does it without offering any real solutions, assistance, or even say “For $125 an hour I can help re-work.. blah blah blah” - information is power, and some sites would be more than willing to offer a few bucks to make sure their visitors are safe and secure.
Ah but such is life I suppose - some people just have a different way of trying to protect their own, and ensuring their loved ones are safe and secure online - but badgering businesses, and being forceful vs. helpful is not the way to do it.
ANYWAY - this week some apps to write, one off the bat this week, for HAF reporting of donations, not only for quick review on the web, but also for exporting to a CSV format for using in Excel for review on the desktop - and a few other continual tweaks as we find a few other mini-glitches people report, and some functions I am trying to write to capture errors from their payment processor so it displays how we want vs throwing them to another site which tottally breaks the donation process - and a few other tweaks on CMC things, but my own projects are evening projects for FH for starters, making great headway on the testing new “Support Center” which will offer a support forum, new spot to report tickets, how-to’s, resources, software, etc. going to be a all inclusive area to offer greater support to my clients. If it floats well, same will be done on TN.
Well that’s my rant - my status - my week 
oh and I’m famous - I’m listed on a upcoming album in the thanks. I’ll steal the pic from Linz sooner or later Night.
