Geek Stuff category archive

When I redesigned this site early last year, I changed the header picture, not because I wanted to, but because I couldn’t find the original and the copy on the server did not fit the space allocated to it by my new theme.

Later, I found out how to change the size of the header image in the theme’s functions.php file, but by then I had lost the original image.

Thanks to my brother, who recently visited the farm, I now have restored a reasonable facsimile of the orginal picture.

My Daddy loved his dogwood trees–you can see them in bloom throughout the yard.

Heh. This will have them playing the blues.

Via Sampler.

Wildflower explains how she cut the cable, cut the cable bill, cut back on TV, and is enjoying it more:

For me, not having cable has made a profound shift in how I spend my evenings. For instance, I am now writing this blog instead of clicking through hundreds of stations – basically lost in space. And, the truth is I really don’t miss having it.

Follow the link for a how-to.

With social networking, you are not the customer, you are the product.

The Denver Post points out that it’s all about the tracking. A nugget:

Since its 2004 inception, Facebook has been stockpiling valuable information about people’s social circles and interests. The volume of insightful data pouring into Facebook has mushroomed along with its service’s popularity. That has provided Facebook with the means to target ads more precisely and deliver content tied to a user’s hobbies and tastes.

Google couldn’t use most of that data to refine its search engine and other products, which is why it developed its own social network.

Since its debut nine months ago, Google Plus has attracted more than 100 million users. Although it lags Facebook’s 845 million, the number is far greater than Facebook’s tally at that stage in its history.

But Google Plus hasn’t proved it can hold users’ attention. Visitors have been spending an average of just a few minutes per month on Google Plus compared with six to seven hours on Facebook, according to the research firm comScore Inc.

El Reg:

Australian Company Annex Products has unveiled* an iPhone case with a sliding compartment designed to store two condoms without revealing the popular prophylactics’ telltale bulge.

El Reg points out the press release was dated April 3, not April 1.

Apple just works. Until it doesn’t:

A serious “drive-by” Java security exploit has been found in the wild which targets Mac OSX users. Exploiting a logical flaw in the way the Java Runtime Environment handles arrays, a malicious web page bypasses the sandbox and injects executable code into existing Mac OSX programs without triggering a prompt for an administrator password. This is a nasty exploit, which unfortunately is already in the wild.

This led to a large-scale spam outbreak, which used pirated logins and passwords to flood the innerwebs with spam yesterday. It was aided and abetted by the complacency of iStuff users who believe that Apple “just works” and therefore do not take the simplest precautions to keep their software updated and to practice safe HEX.

If you believe the hype, the hype will get you. Every time.

Justin Bieber Linux, aka Biebian.

Apparently, it has gotten a better reception than the venerable Hannah Montana Linux.

The San Jose Mercury-News passes on Facebook passwords:

But asking candidates for passwords to sites such as Facebook? No way. That’s just wrong. The newly-surfaced practice is an invasion of privacy and an invitation to all sorts of mischief by employers who have shown, just by asking, that they lack respect for employees.

(snip)

It’s really a case of employment law needing to catch up with the Internet age. Passwords give employers access to information they’re prohibited from asking about, from relationships to political views. The laws also should apply to schools and universities. They’d never demand to open a student’s paper mail.

Writing in my local rag, Mike Gruss sees a practical aspect to resquesting Facebook passwords: What the passwords themselves say about you:

Well, hear me out. My paperwork-infatuated bosses are not really interested in what you’re doing on Facebook. Instead, we view this exercise as an aptitude test.

The best Facebook lesson is the password itself, and I’m going to try to guess yours. If I don’t get it right, we move on to the next part of the interview.

But here’s the catch: If I guess your password, the day’s over. Thanks for playing. Buh-bye. Good luck at your next job because it’s not going to be here. Also, I start spamming all your friends to “like” Justin Bieber. Sorry. The truth hurts.

Facebook is naturally also against the idea. My cynical side says that, if persons started acting like grown-ups on Facebook, it would quickly become Fadebook.

Even if this passes, it’s likely still not a good idea to post that picture of your drunk doobie-smoking half-dressed weekend.

Meticulously setting the privacy controls on your social media accounts could all be for naught if a potential employer invites you to log in during the interview and reviews your Facebook page.

Researching job applicants through their social media use has become a well-known part of the screening process, but asking for total access is something one Illinois lawmaker thinks goes too far.

“It is just violating a person’s right to privacy,” said state Rep. La Shawn Ford, D-Chicago. After hearing from constituents who said they were asked to turn over Facebook access to prospective employers, Ford introduced a bill that would make the request illegal.

Given that I believe employers tend to over-react to this sort of stuff, I suspect that a lot of employers who check Facebook do so not so much for the content of an applicant’s posts as for a measure of stupid.

If you post a picture on the innerwebs of yourself smoking that doobie, you likely aren’t very bright in other areas of endeavor.

Facebook is starting to push ads into its mobile applications (emphasis added):

While Google has drawn criticism over how it collects personal data, it relies on more straightforward advertising than Facebook — running Internet-search ads or graphical commercials within applications, for instance. Facebook’s approach counts in part on its members promoting companies among their friends. Facebook members who “like” brands may not realize their preferences are used as the basis for advertising sent to other people.

(snip)

“Our vision is that interaction on Facebook with a brand is as exciting as it is with family,” Chris Cox, vice president of product at Facebook, said last month at the company’s FMC conference for marketers in New York.

Indeed.

Two US women discovered they were married to the same man when one of them popped up on Facebook’s “People you may know” feature, prosecutors say.

The man’s estranged wife clicked on a link to his new partner’s Facebook page to see them with a wedding cake, court documents in Washington state say.

I always wonder, when I see a story like this: One woman’s enough trouble. Why two?

I imagine Cincinnati-based photographer Mark Byron figured the same. He expressed anger about his pending divorce and child visitation issues in a forum he thought was private and contained.

“If you are an evil, vindictive woman who wants to ruin your husband’s life and take your son’s father away from him completely,” he wrote, “all you need to do is say you’re scared of your husband or domestic partner and they’ll take him away.”

Bad move.

Though Byron had blocked his estranged wife from his Facebook page, she still learned about the post and filed a motion in court accusing him of violating an earlier protection order.

A magistrate agreed with Elizabeth Byron and issued a ruling that free speech experts say is worrisome. It should also concern the bajillions of people who use the networking site as if it were the kitchen table, a place to confess over cafecito.

The article continues with a long discussion of whether the post was a threat or an expression of frustration, but skirts the real point.

The internet is a public place.

Relationship status: Strained.

The FBI hopes to raise awareness about the case of a fugitive security guard charged with killing his partner in a $2.3 million heist by showcasing it on the agency’s Facebook page, the first time a case from the FBI’s Pittsburgh field office has received such attention.

Learn about the wonderful world of free and open source.

What: Monthly TWUUG Meeting.

Who: Everyone in TideWater/Hampton Roads with interest in any/all flavors of Unix/Linux. There are no dues or signup requirements. All are welcome.

Where: Lake Taylor Transitional Care Hospital in Norfolk Training Room. See directions below. (Wireless and wired internet connection available.)

When: 7:30 PM till whenever (usually 9:30ish) on Thursday, March 1.

Directions:
Lake Taylor Hospital
1309 Kempsville Road
Norfolk, Va. 23502 (Map)

Pre-Meeting Dinner at 6:00 PM (separate checks)
Uno Chicago Grill
Virginia Beach Blvd. & Military Highway (Janaf Shopping Center). (Map)

Alyona discusses the proposed consumer privacy “bill of rights.”

For punishment gluttons, I have another podcast up at HPR.

An Android phone is not an ideal device for editing HTML code on a remote site.

Symbolic equality the Facebook way:

KATIE MacTurk and Megan Edwards got the best Valentine’s Day gift they could have asked for yesterday.

Vindication.

St. Joseph’s University’s alumni association announced that the lesbian couple were the winners of its controversial “How I Met My Hawkmate” Facebook contest, based on the number of “likes” their entry received.

Their victory came after the university initially removed their entry from the webpage, only to reverse its decision last week amid a hail of protest.

One more time, the Internet is a public place. If it’s on the web, eventually someone’s going to see it.

Aside:

The sad aspect of these stories is that some the persons who got in trouble were not the ones who made the posts. Instead, their bad judgment was advertised through the bad judgment or sometimes the vindictiveness of others.