As further proof that whenever you have an idea the Internet is capable of crushing you by showing you that someone has already done it, I’ve been meaning to write an article on this for a while - and now I don’t need to.
Updating a personal website has always been something I’ve known I should do, but never got around to very well, Wordpress lets me easier than any other CMS I’ve used.
Rowan :: Jun.25.2007 :: Reviews, Web Apps :: No Comments »
I’ve been a reader of Bruce Schneier’s CRYPTO-GRAM newsletter for some years now and it always inspires mixed feelings. Schneier writes with authority on security, terrorism and the psychology of both. At the danger of being misrepresentative, here’s a quote
“We worry about airplane crashes and rampaging shooters instead of automobile crashes and domestic violence — both far more common”
Depending on the issue, you might feel safer after reading but generally you come away worrying about people’s ability to be duped over what is and isn’t an actual probable risk to them. You’ll worry about politicians taking advantage of these as easy emotive issues rather than focusing on more likely ones that are harder to “sell” and you’ll worry about the media herding people in the direction of their statistically improbable fears rather than acting as a responsible platform.
“I tell people that if it’s in the news, don’t worry about it. The very definition of “news” is “something that hardly ever happens.” It’s when something isn’t in the news, when it’s so common that it’s no longer news — car crashes, domestic violence — that you should start worrying”
On the good side, it’ll help you be more rational about the security threats that are actually likely to effect you. I’ve scared the crap out of my partner on more than one occasion by arguing that if someone really wants to get to you or the contents of your house, the lock on the door and the burglar alarm are really only a formality. They stop people wandering in but they won’t stop someone breaking in (unless they’re inept…which is another story). So what really determines if you should be scared of burglary is the amount of attractive swag you have in your home and how many people know you’ve got it.
It’ll also remind you that security theatre like a burglar alarm is still worth it so you don’t have to get up every time the freezer clunks in the hall, one thing I really like about Schneier’s writing is he doesn’t belittle people for being people (and that must be oh so tempting when you’ve been working in the field as long as he has).
The newsletter is perhaps over long for the “average” reader, but for every single intelligent person I’d advise having a read, it just might help you feel more rational and clear headed about what you ought to be spending your valuable time worrying about 
Rowan :: Jun.18.2007 :: Personal Entries, Security :: No Comments »
It has been such a very long time since there was a record that really mattered, a record that can get under your skin. Something that tries to take on the world, chew it up and spit it out, snarling and cool all at the same time.
Rowan :: May.30.2007 :: Personal Entries, Reviews :: 2 Comments »
Spent an enjoyable evening yesterday playing the Viking Game with Jen and family (yes yours truly really knows how to live it up of an evening). It’s a Tafl game or basically one where the teams are not equal. The King (who has a small guard of pieces) has to escape and the attacking team have to prevent the king escaping and ideally surround him with four pieces in order to run him through.
Thinking ahead is actually harder than something like draughts, because the pieces are not constrained to only move once square at a time, they can move any distance as long as their path is not blocked.
I haven’t found a computer equivalent that reproduces the board game we played exactly - only one that runs in a DOS box where the king can win by reaching the edge of the board, which makes it fairly easy for him compared to the version we had where he has to escape to one of the four corners (which are more easily blocked). I suspect this is balancing on the part of the producers of the boxed version because it does seem a bit easier to be the king at least going from the first couple of plays. Also that old DOS game seems a wee bit hard… 
If anyone knows of a more recent Linux variant of this game, do please let me know.
Rowan :: May.29.2007 :: Games, Personal Entries :: No Comments »
MU allows you to limit the amount of disk quota the blogs can use out of the box. However many site admins may want to be able to change this value per blog and for this an extra plugin is needed.
The plugin that seems to do the job is z-space (WPMUDev page) by Dylan Reeve, based on earlier work by some other developers with which it is backwards compatible. It’s an MU plugin meaning it is auto executed for every blog rather than appearing in the normal plugin dialog. The plugin adds a nice readout to the dashboard giving an indication of space used. It appears to have been fixed by another developer for WPMU 1.2.1 according to the WMPUDev page.
When testing, a word of warning. Make sure you’re doing so as a user rather than the site admin, or the quotas won’t necessarily take effect.
The one drawback to the plugin I can see is that if you upload a file that takes you over the limit, this will be stored even if it takes you significantly over the assigned quota, this also makes the status bar look a bit odd. It would be nice perhaps to be able to disable this or have a maximum threshold over quota that is allowed. Further uploads will be prevented once over quota (the file will not be saved after it has been uploaded). It would be good if the upload button was disabled if the blog was over quota.
It looks like Dylan is also working on a Premium blogs plugin which despite being in the early stages looks really promising. I can personally envisage wanting to have different levels of premium blogs with different levels of disk space / plugins etc.
Rowan :: May.27.2007 :: Web Apps, Wordpress MU :: No Comments »
I’ll confess something, for a while I got sick of thrillers. Slowly discovering plot detail from impossibly dangerous situation to impossibly dangerous situation whilst enduring the odd quiet bit just got… old. Perhaps absence makes the heart grow fonder however, because I really enjoyed Panic.
Rowan :: May.15.2007 :: Books, Reviews :: No Comments »
I’m currently fiddling around with Lyceum and Wordpress MU in an attempt to decide which is most suitable for a little community site I want to get going.
Installing MU is as simple as uploading the file base to the web root (or other location of your choice) and then visiting the site. Pop in your database details and off you go. You must choose at installation time whether to use subdomains or directories for your site - the language implies this cannot be changed later.
Cosmetically, MU looks an awful lot like Wordpress (yes I know it IS Wordpress but I’m sure you know what I mean!) both on the front page and in the admin area, whereas Lyceum has a customised front page and admin area. Given that you’ll probably customise a fair bit this doesn’t matter overmuch, but there is a certain logic to the MU setup of having the admin bits and bobs within a tab in the familiar Wordpress admin area.
Whereas at the Lyceum site I found things easy to locate at a glance the MU site doesn’t seem to link very visibly to http://wpmudev.org/ which seems to be quite an indispensable resource for plugins and themes, even if a lot of contributors seem to have difficulty updating their contribution pages with the new releases. After ten minutes of browsing I’d already added the per user upload quota plugin which is an absolute must have for my site. I’m sure there is a good reason there isn’t a flipping great link on the main site of course The site may even have been superseded for all I know.
It’s going to be quite interesting working out which of the systems will do what I want with the least work - a hard bit is definitely going to be deciding which database setup is better. I’ll blog along as I come up against interesting differences and issues.
Rowan :: May.02.2007 :: Lyceum, Web Apps, Wordpress MU :: No Comments »
After adding a PCI soundcard to my machine for the purposes of having a gameport my Kubuntu 7.04 install wasn’t always choosing to use the on-board Intel chip for sound meaning I could near nothing. The solution seems to be the following
sudo asoundconf list
Names of available sound cards:
au8830
Intelsudo asoundconf set-default-card Intel
sudo /etc/init.d/alsa-utils restart
* Shutting down ALSA… [ OK ]
* Setting up ALSA … [ OK ]
You’ll also need to restart any apps to get sound, there is no need to reboot to get Amarok working
Rowan :: May.02.2007 :: Linux, Quick Solutions :: 1 Comment »
I tried installing Lyceum a few months back but couldn’t get it working right. Decided this evening to give the latest version (0.34) a whirl and I’m pleased to report it installs smoothly. Simply point the webroot at src/lyceum, pop the database info in the config file and go through the installation wizard and you’re done.
Now that’s complete you have a working system that lets you easily run a blogging community. Creating a new blog is as simple as filling in a registration form and checking your email for the password. There is also a plugin to hook up with LDAP - which must be very exciting if you’re into that sort of thing
It’s interesting that whilst Wordpress has it’s own multi user version in Wordpress MU (used on wordpress.org) that even has a supported Enterprise version someone has felt it necessary to provide an alternative solution with a substantially altered structure. Lyceum has a FAQ entry on the differences.
I’ll be giving installing MU a go tomorrow and then fiddling with er… appraising each system to see which is best for my purposes.
Rowan :: Apr.30.2007 :: Lyceum, Web Apps :: 1 Comment »
Anyone who hasn’t yet go check out Nine Inch Nail’s new release Year Zero (go on you can listen to the whole thing online I’ll wait). You also NEED to swing by NINWiki and read at least some of the back story.
Most importantly it’s the first album I’ve heard to actually mean something since 1994’s The Holy Bible Rather than harp on about it I’ll let you discover for yourself.
lefsetz get much more excited much more effectively that I ever could, go have a read - however the one thing I’ll really disagree with about their entry is the stuff about Mac owners. Creativity or even participating in cool online goings on is not determined by the brand of your hardware!
I’ve considered Macs multiple times but at the end of the day having to pay a premium for the fact that it’s a Mac is as bad as having to pay a “Microsoft tax” on a new PC. Yes Garageband is great but Audacity is a good first stop for anyone who wants to play on a Windows or Linux machine and LMMS is also worth checking out. Or if we’re talking about Reznor’s source files and you have another fave editor / sequencer just convert the files to WAV and away you go if it won’t open GarageBand files.
The money I saved by buying a non Mac Laptop (even with a three year onsite warranty) will let me go to about six NIN gigs and with a decent Linux distro installed it can more or less do everything the cool people on Macs can do.
As for the tracks being available to listen via steaming on the band’s website it’s clearly the way of the future. It didn’t stop me buying the CD, it made me pre-order it. It helps that the Year Zero digipack feels worth having (lyrics book, cool artwork, colour changing CD).
RIAA dinosaurs take note, change or die.
Rowan :: Apr.26.2007 :: Music, Personal Entries :: No Comments »