Archive for category General Tech
Sharebee.com
Posted by Benny Chew in Tips & Tweaks, Web on June 16th, 2007
Just a site I came across earlier today which (re)uploads the file you uploaded to multiple file upload sites (Megaupload, zSHARE, Sendspace, RapidShare were the ones used when I tried). Sendspace links weren’t working for me then (apparently being fixed) and Megaupload link only worked after some delay. Link to the site: Sharebee.com
I don’t have much use for it, but if you’re into uploading files for multiple users to download from, this site would definitely cut the amount of time spent uploading to each different service. ;)
A very neat WordPress plugin
Posted by Benny Chew in Tips & Tweaks, Web, WordPress on May 17th, 2007
As stated in the WordPress’s Codex, one of the steps in doing a proper upgrade of WordPress is deactivating all plugins beforehand (and reactivating upon successful upgrade). Since I’m managing a number of WordPress sites, and each WordPress install has a fair bit amount of active plugins, doing this is a considerably arduous task and annoying (especially so since updates/upgrades get released often).
I was googling around for a quick fix for this and found this plugin which works a treat. :)
Now if only that can be added to my shell script which currently automatically grabs the latest.tar.gz and rsyncs all the separate installs to promote further efficiency and laziness..
Remove truncation of feed feature after more tag in WordPress 2.1
Posted by Benny Chew in Open Source, RSS, Tips & Tweaks, Web, WordPress on May 13th, 2007
If you have already upgraded to WordPress 2.1 and have the syndication feeds options set to ‘full text’, you might’ve noticed that the RSS feed for your blog post gets truncated after the use of the <!––more––> tag. This is a change in behaviour as compared to previous version of WordPress (2.0 and below) which would show the whole post in an RSS feed if the feed option was set to full text.
Without going into the debate of full vs. partial feeds (I’m on the full feeds side though ;)), there’s a WordPress plugin which does not require any additional configuration apart from just dropping it into your WordPress’s plugins directory and activating it. Get it from here.
Windows XP/2003 Automatic Update restart annoyance
Posted by Benny Chew in Tips & Tweaks, Windows on May 12th, 2007
I got tired of my Windows 2003 automatic installation of security updates (and restart) when they are released, so I decided to go digging around to find a way to stop that. A quick Google search got me this site, whose step 2 did the trick. Here are the steps for my configuration:
- Go to Start->Run, and type ‘gpedit.msc ‘ without the quotes and hit OK.
- Browse down to Local Computer Policy->Computer Configuration->Administrative Templates->Windows Components->Windows Update.
- The settings which I changed are:
- Enabled ‘Configure Automatic Updates‘ and set it to ’3 – Auto download and notify for install’
- Enabled ‘No auto-restart for scheduled Automatic Updates installations‘
- Disabled ‘Allow Automatic Updates immediate installation‘
- Enabled ‘Re-prompt for restart with scheduled installations‘ and set it to 1440 minutes
Screenshot of my Group Policy Object Editor:
As far as I know, Windows XP does not install updates automatically by default, so that might only be a default for Windows Server 2003 which I’m using. However, I believe the restart prompt is defaulted to 10mins for XP and 2003.
Microsoft Update
Posted by Benny Chew in General Tech on May 12th, 2007
Just posted a short write up about Microsoft Update over here.
Subliminal advertising?
Posted by Benny Chew in General Tech on April 18th, 2007
I read this article last week and thought it was quite an impressive piece of advertisement and propaganda by Symantec. This quote especially was sweet:
An antivirus program is not enough, said Symantec. Users need a security solution that combines antivirus, firewall and intrusion detection capabilities.
The proper thing to say would’ve been to have every copy of Windows updated with all the security patches from Microsoft. Or use another operating system of course, but that would be defeatist since I don’t think Symantec products run on any other operating system apart from Windows.
Another reason is the widespread use of pirated software by local PC users, said the Symantec survey.
It said copies of pirated software sometimes contained trojans and other hidden malicious programs, and these are surrepticiously planted into computer systems when users installed the software.
Rest assured, you don’t even need to get to the stage of installing pirated software as a computer with an unpatched Windows can easily get those just by connecting to the internet. However, home routers nowadays do quite a decent job in protecting the computer(s) plugged into it.
As for the part on zombie machines, I might be wrong on this, but I believe it can be greatly reduced if the ISP blocks off the common ports used such as port 25, 80 and allow users to unblock it if they know what they’re doing. This seems to be a common practice among ISPs in Australia.
PC users are also advised not to view, open or execute any e-mail attachment unless it is expected or its purpose known to the recipient.
I’m not going to find fault with that. :D
I’ve stopped using Symantec security software since a few years back as every new version that got released increased the bloat and resource usage to a ridiculous level.
Ah, it’s been awhile since I wrote something..
CNNNN video clip
Posted by Benny Chew in General Tech on April 4th, 2007
My colleague at work sent this video clip titled ‘Americans are not stupid’ a day ago:
Workplace setup
Posted by Benny Chew in Gadgets, General Tech on March 6th, 2007
Been a long time since I posted something, so here’s a post of my setup at work which was recently enriched with a very neat LCD. :D
A relatively dated Acer Aspire Pentium-M laptop, Acer AL2016W 20″ wide screen LCD, Logitech MX400 mouse, Microsoft Comfort Curve 2000 keyboard and a.. kiwi soft toy (a gift from my colleague who went to NZ for a holiday some time back). The LCD’s 1680×1050 is simply awesome. :D Now if only I could replace the 17″ LCD I have in my room with that..
Hopefully I’ll have time soon to write more posts.. have been busy with shifting last week, followed by cleaning and clearing up the apartment to a habitable state. Hopefully ck will stop complaining once I start writing again.. soon. :P
Combating comment spam
Posted by Benny Chew in Open Source, Tips & Tweaks, Web, WordPress on February 4th, 2007
After the major upgrade by my webhost, there was a sudden surge in spam on the blogs on spherebox, with a lot bypassing Akismet‘s filtering. Apparently he did not configure the ModSecurity Apache module (which did an excellent job previously) and was too lazy to do so as the new version he had installed had supposedly different configuration settings. :(
Since I got sick of getting the incessant email notifications of spam held in moderation queue, I decided to go looking around for fixes and came across this at WordPress’s Codex which helped cut down the crazy amount of spam that kept going through by heaps. Basically it adds rules to the .htaccess file which will check that any comments being submitted to wp-comments-post.php come from the comments page of the WordPress installation and not directly injected by spam bots.
Note that this did not stop the spam completely, but managed to reduce the volume enough so that Akismet could block it off appropriately.
If you’re encountering the same issue as I did, try it out. The instructions are fairly simple and requires few modifications. :)
sizeasy
Posted by Benny Chew in Tips & Tweaks, Web on February 4th, 2007
Just got some height/width/depth specifications of a new mobile phone and are unable to compare it visually yourself? sizeasy does an excellent job at this and only requires you to enter the dimensions.
3D view comparison between an iPod nano and a pack of playing cards:
Didn’t grab the screenshots for the other views, so if you want to check out the other views, just try it out yourself. ;)
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