cautious optimism

Here’s part two of last Friday’s blog post titled this could be the last time.

“Tip: The WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin can greatly simplify the upgrade process, allowing you to upgrade your blog in about 2 minutes by clicking through a series of on-screen tasks.”

This thing really works. Wish I’d found it sooner. Upgraded to version 2.5.1 without difficulty.

this could be the last time

This blog might not last very long.

A recent series of posts in Ian Kallen’s What’s That Noise? blog are quite an eye-opener.

Blog items such as “WordPress Pandemic Chronicles” and “Fear, Uncertainty and Disinformation About The WordPress Exploits and Spam” and “Stature In The Blogosphere (Or Open Source) Is Not Immunity” and “The WordPress Security Cancer” worry me.

Installed WordPress 2.5 yesterday and spent hours tweaking the templates. WordPress 2.5.1 was released today. On a Friday. Have a nice weekend. Good luck trying to contact support at your ISP.

Here’s what I read in the official WordPress.org blog.

“If you are interested only in the security fixes, you can download these corrected copies of wp-includes/pluggable.php, wp-admin/includes/media.php, and wp-admin/media.php. Replace your existing copies of these files with these new copies.”

After doing this, I got the following notice when I tried to log in to my blog as admin.

Fatal error: Cannot redeclare media_upload_tabs() (previously declared [...]

Fortunately, I’d backed up the old files, which I reinstalled after deleting the new ones. Then I could log on as admin. However, my blog is presumably still vulnerable to exploits.

I’m thinking about switching to dot mac. Lack of support for PHP and MySQL at dot mac is starting to look like a positive feature. Frequent WordPress security fixes have become tiresome.

I recently learned that dot mac can support my sillyblog.net domain name.

heard it through the grapevine

“Charter Communications in Los Angeles says it’s going to sell information it collects about the viewing preferences of the cable TV customers it takes money from. Here we go again. Copyright your life.” – Harry Shearer on Le Show, March 16, 2008

Charter provides both my cable television and high speed internet. I pay an obscene amount of money for the privilege.

So… Charter has been spying on my DVR box to sell info about my viewing habits. Maybe I should get rid of the DVR box. Maybe I should install a digital TV converter. I can get a $40 coupon from the U.S. government. Maybe I should shop for a DSL provider.

WTF… I’ll share my TV viewing habits with the entire world. Or the dozen or so souls who give a crap. Why not?

Right now. Here goes.

News.

1. BBC World (PBS)
2. CNN American Morning
3. Early Today (Live on MSNBC)
4. CBS Up to the Minute
5. KTLA News at Ten (Local)

I actually bothered to schedule the DVR to record CNN International’s Your World Today every weekday. But lately it has been preempted by hour-long reports for consumers about the U.S. economy.

The overall quality of CNN’s programming continues to deteriorate. Their management seems to be headed towards an idiocracy demographic.

Weather and Sports.

1. The Weather Channel
2. ESPN SportsCenter

The highlights of the day on SportsCenter are ideal for those of us with a short attention span.

The Weather Channel is unsurpassed in their live coverage of hurricanes.

Entertainment.

1. Cartoon Network Adult Swim
2. Countdown with Keith Olbermann
3. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
4. Late Night with Conan O’Brien
5. Real Time with Bill Maher

The only TV series that I’ve watched regularly in the past six years is Curb Your Enthusiasm on HBO.

blogcast test

Gear:
Plantronics 470 USB headset with microphone
Logitech Quickcam Pro 4000

I’m YouTube ready. Now all I need is some content.

avatar heroes

This is the funniest Daily Show sketch I’ve seen in a long time. It’s about Second Life.

Rep. Jane Harman said that al-Qaeda is recruiting terrorists there. During a Congressional hearing into the matter, no less.

You can’t make this stuff up.

con itinerary

My itinerary for the upcoming Eaton Conference. I’ll just be a face in the crowd.

Friday, May 16

2:00-5:00 p.m.
Howard Hendrix, Frederik Pohl (among others)

5:00-6:00 p.m.
The Killer Bees
Panelists: Greg Bear, Gregory Benford, David Brin

Saturday, May 17

1:30-3:00 p.m.
David Hartwell (among others)

3:00-3:30 p.m.
Kim Stanley Robinson

4:00-5:00 p.m.
Presentation of the Lifetime Achievement Award to Ray Bradbury

5:00-5:30 p.m.
Book signing by Ray Bradbury (one book per person)

5:30-6:00 p.m.
Panelists: Ray Bradbury, Frederik Pohl
Moderator: George Slusser

6:00-7:00 p.m.
Book signing by conference speakers

Sunday, May 18

11:15-11-30 a.m.
Student Short Story Contest award winners

11:30-12:30 p.m.
Panelists: David Hartwell, Geoffrey Landis, Larry Niven

Sunday, May 25

Phoenix lands on Mars

the Elvis touch

I’m an iBand groupie. I can’t wait until Marina is in town on tour. Her fingers are playing piano on this video at YouTube.

There’s already a parody of iBand at YouTube. And there’s already a parody of the parody. Sophomoric.

The recording studio of the future for Apple’s iPod Touch isn’t here yet. But I predict that it will arrive on the podcasting scene real soon now. Just imagine… Podcasting with an iPod. Droll.

I think that the iPod Touch will be the killer mobile recording studio because its iPhone OS has the same Darwin guts as Mac OS X. The recent release of the iPhone SDK seals the deal.

Belkin’s $250 TuneStudio for classic, nano and some video iPods leaves much to be desired in the mobility department. That’s really what it looks like. I didn’t throw that picture together in Photoshop as an April Fools Day joke.

The Macally iVoiceIII is cheaper at fifty bucks. And it’s a lot smaller. It’s a tiny ode to the Elvis microphone of the Fifties that looks defiantly retro attached to an iPod. For the rebel Elvis in every podcaster. It includes a mini-jack for an external microphone.

While I’m on the subject of the Shure 55SH Series II dynamic Elvis microphone… I’m tempted to plug one of ‘em into an ART Tube MP Project Series USB preamp, and then plug the USB preamp into my Mac mini running GarageBand. The mike costs about $175, the preamp is a hundred bucks.

But I digress.