Archive for 'they say its news'
So far the press conference has been rather dull - the usual dribble from his Steveness - but below will be my upkeep of things:
Impressed
- Refreshed Nano - Not Wonderful.. but ‘ok’
- iPod Classic - Cheaper 80gb.. nice
Not Impressed
- Ringtones for $0.99
- Shuffle Colors - yay?
- Colors of iPods
- iPod Touch - Storage vs. Price
Final Update
Honestly, the biggest thing I was happy about is the “iPod Classic” refresh, 80GB for cheaper is nice, actually makes my budget happier, but the iPod Touch has a ways to go before it’s on my radar at all, as cool as it’s features are, just not up to par with the cost, and I don’t need widescreen video watching, iPod hooks up to the TV, got the cables, no worries.
So there it is, out of all the things they gave today, really only excited about the cheaper 80GB iPod and it’s enhancements to UI - so there ya have it… and for the record, I like posting blogs from Textmate - pretty simple 
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
In my days of the internet past there was many types of “effects” there was the ever popular “Slashdot” effect, in which if your website/product/crazy post was featured on Slashdot.org, 9/10 the traffic which followed equaled over-quota, server crashing, etc. to a smaller, yet powerful scale there was the “Gnome” effect, LockerGnome.com also had a habbit of this, the newsletter would feature some software one week, and when you checked your email that evening to view the site you were greeted with a note “We’ve been gnomed” lol - one of the many reasons software companies upload now to mirror services, C|net downloads, etc. save them selves.
Well tonight I get to experience a real world example of a “MySpace” effect - Myspace is so viral it’s not funny, 1466 people from Awaken Industries MySpace profile will probably be getting a notice shortly that there favorite friend has finished their website, and thus traffic will increase, increase, and increase. As people fwd. that bulletin to others, and as they go forth to the site - so hopefully my server can stand the test of the modern effect of MySpace, may the Lord have mercy on my soul, and my servers!
p.s.: the site is up at awakenindustries.com
Well twas a good week, got some things done, some I wish I had gotten fully done, but did get a large stack of things done:
- Got Older
- Worked on Datacenter Here in Town (4.5mbps line to follow soon)
- Compiled Apache/PHP on Linux boxen for Datacenter
- Wrote Newsletter that goes out on Monday for FlockHosting (was going to go out last Monday, but got sidetracked)
- Worked on photo projects for Awaken
- Made Tons of Calls
- Setup Courtney’s DSL + Wireless
- Looked at Height Street’s Sound System to search for deals on Wireless Mic’s
- Finalized Bits of New FlockHosting offerings/products
- Setup a new reseller
Those are the only ones fresh in my head, but calls this week seemed to be frequent, I may need to up my minutes if it persists, but T-Mobile has always been good to me, except the Florida Office which cheated me out of referals (long story) - but all in all a busy, but good week, with another to follow - just hafta get my drive back, don’t get me wrong, I love normal sleeping hours again, heck probably the first REAL schedule I have had in years, but I just feel now like there is less hours in the day, and work isn’t always my priority.
But such is the truth of my life at the moment, trying to find a balance of personal life/personal time and business life - for 5 years I focused on my business, neglected a lot of things, but now other things are important, not setting my business aside, by no means, I have an excitement about what this year will bring in my biz, but for now a few things are more exciting, more on my mind than pushing sales - which is a very strange change for my brain, but this next week also does start my least favorite time of the year “Taxes” - which is even odder this last year with a 1099/W2 from a single company (another long story) - but it’ll all work out in the end, may be paying out more this year than expected, but already fixed things with the company to adjust everything so I am no longer an Employee OR Contractor - a service provider thru and thru - nothing more nothing less.
Also exciting news on Awaken’s front, just upgraded to accept credit cards, plus looks like they are getting a Ad put in HM magazine, so some additional coverage above and beyond the local scene, so hopefully time allowing this next week I can get some headway on their site - friend did a lot of the flash work, and that leaves only some edits for me as he got called into other projects.
Anywhoo - I should be getting to bed - a fun day ahead tomorrow hanging with Rosie, and possibly Courtney as well, so we shall see how it goes, if it’s raining, we’ll just do something indoors I’d imagine, we shall see - good thing I saved my free rental coupons for blockbuster Night All.
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.
Tonight one of the local stations was doing their “special” piece which was on lyposuction etc. I left it on waiting for it to be done so I could get the weather and was watching off and on as the article piece aired - well the laid was having a breast lift, and they showed the before with the black bar covering all the parts the FCC won’t allow local news to show, and as it cut to the other video, the black bar disappeared, and whammo - full front nudity. Felt bad for the husband of the lady as he was coming on next to say he supported his wife in this entire process - I don’t think he knew it flashing the entire local community on local TV.
Well back to safe TV, never seen any full frontal nudity on Kim Possible.
I love Engadget, always keeping up on my nerdy / gadget news… one of the ones I read today was on FreeiPods.com - interesting read, I love how people are complaining about getting a HP iPod vs. a Apple iPod - ITS STILL A IPOD PEOPLE! I will make this plea though, if you got a free HP iPod, send it to me, I will gladly take it, and if and when I ever get my Apple one free, I’ll send you mine 
Full Article on Engadget
