Dear Diary …
21 May 11
I Don’t *LIKE* to Share
18 May 11
I don’t have, and never will have, a Facebook account. I don’t Twitter. I don’t Digg anything. MySpace is my office here at home where I do my work. I think most of the stuff on YouTube is puerile and the comments are even worse. I don’t want to subscribe to your channel, I don’t ‘like’ you and I don’t want to be your ‘friend’, because I don’t know you yet. I certainly don’t want to be a ‘friend’ of some bloody corporation. I have no interest in telling anyone where I am during the day on Foursquare. I have a Linkedin account because I was told it would help me get work but it just appears to be a the professional equivalent of Facebook—a waste of time.
I do have a blog, obviously…
The world is going nuts over social media, and it bores me to tears. It’s 98% forgettable dross to 2% interesting and worth remembering, and everyone’s all so desperate to be an individual that no one’s an individual anymore (“I’m not!”). The large proportion of human interaction is rapidly becoming analogous to those unfunny ‘joke’ emails that idiots pass on to everyone on their emailing list.
If you do want to sit down, have a beer and talk about something interesting face to face, well then that sounds like a good way to spend some time.
This grumpy rant was inspired by this horrible video that I stumbled across recently. It made me gag. It was was also inspired by the thought that I suppose I should put one of those damn Share buttons on my blog posts.
Garrow’s Law
16 May 11
Just finished Season Two of the excellent BBC drama Garrow’s Law. My girlfriend and I have been obsessed with English history of late, and it has been gratifying to know a bit about the social situations and historical events that have come up in this excellent legal drama inspired by the life of pioneering 18th century barrister William Garrow. Since the trials are based on real cases that were heard at the Old Bailey, everything from Molly houses to criminal conversation has popped up in the eight episodes of the two seasons.
Andrew Buchan as the interestingly flawed William Garrow and Alun Armstrong as the faithful John Southouse do excellent work, and Lyndsey Marshal, who completely unimpressed in the boring second season of Being Human, is far more convincing here as Lady Sarah Hill.
Highly recommended for those who like to learn something as well as enjoy beautifully scripted, produced and acted drama.
Dust Tactics Review
13 May 11
Oh, no, not another miniatures game?! Well, it’s kind of a boardgame with miniatures really. And I couldn’t resist the pre-painted premium edition. My little review of Dust Tactics over at the Games Paradise blog. Grab my rules summary here.
(Fr)Hacking Bastards
11 May 11
A few weeks ago, I started my working day to discover that two of my sites had been blacklisted by Google, and all of them were redirecting to some ’orrible malware site. Some charming person (it could be anyone from a spotty fifteen-year-old script-kiddy to a big organised operation in Eastern Europe or the Philippines) had seen fit to hack into my server in the US and insert malicious code into my html files.
Congratulations boys. The entire audience of some totally obscure, tiny fan sites could be yours!
Why bother? Yes, I must admit the thought went through my head a few times as I laboriously re-uploaded all the files in all my ten websites, changed all my passwords several times, and went through the painful process of uploading two installations of Bulletin Board software. As did a little imaginary bullet through the head of an imaginary hacker.
It’s incredible isn’t it? No matter how much effort you go into building a snowman, some twerp comes along and kicks it down.
Anyway, I missed a couple of files the first time around and had to go through the whole process again a few days ago, at which point my brain began to leak out my ears and the top of my head explode. Thankfully, my host in the States, Dreamhost, were helpful as always, and this time—fingers crossed—all the sneaky code snippets have been removed. Of course both times I had to go yet through another process to get Google to reassess the sites and take down their warning signs.
So, if I you host any websites, allow me to give you a bit of advice. Number one, use SFTP instead of FTP when uploading files to your server. The latter sends unencrypted code (with helpful pointers like ‘username’ and ‘password’ included) across the netwaves, and can be intercepted, as I so annoyingly found out. The former sends it encrypted. It should be as simple as selecting an option from a drop-down in your FTP client.
Number two, update all your software installations—WordPress, phpBB, whatever. Make sure you have the latest versions, which should have the best security. Get rid of outdated plugins and update the ones you do use.
Number three, change all your passwords and make them harder. Mine had got far too simple over the years, and I was repeating myself. You may have to use some kind of ‘one password’ solution, and you may never actually remember any of them again, but don’t use single, actual words, and throw in some numerals and possibly symbols.
While you’re doing all this, backup all your files so you have clean versions in case anything goes wrong. Hopefully, you will now avoid having to go through the tedious time-wasting rigmarole I’ve been subjected to.
Unbelievable isn’t it? Modern life is making code-monkeys of us all.
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