Things have been quiet around here in terms of entries so to keep things rolling here are a few interesting links I've discovered over the past few days . . .
Florian posted a comment over on the
msn contact grab entry highlighting a warning error if you use the script in a PHP environment configured with safe_mode enabled. It's a good reminder to switch off error reporting (and switch to logging instead) in a production environment.
Blogsecurity posted a short article were they looked at the wordpress version being used on 50 blogs. They found that all but one of them were using vulnerable outdated versions. Personally I would have liked to see a larger sample size and some discussion about how the samples were picked but I highlight it here because of the followup posted by
Vidyut Luther at phpcult.com. I've
previously suggested that developers should be more aggressive in attempting to get users signed up to a mailing list highlighting critical updates but Vidyut takes it further and suggests that an application should go into "read only mode.. no new posts, no comments, until the user acknowledges the threat, and does something about it." I like it.
Compete recently opened their API meaning we now have an alternative to paying for Alexa data which is more than a little questionable (
Yet another post showing inconsistencies in the data).
Dave Thomas (via
Travis Swicegood) highlighted the charity fund-raising efforts of RailsConf which apparently rasied $33k and suggests that we "see if we can make all industry conferences into fund raising events." Now I give monthly to several charities whose work I support (so don't think the worst of me) but I'm not a particular fan of this idea. Granted I would much rather receive
a pile of crap than another burlap bag but I don't like the idea of being 'encouraged' to support the work of a charity I know nothing about.
Dave asks us to, "Imagine what could happen if a conference with 5,000 attendees raised just $20 per attendee. Then imagine $50, or $100. It starts to get serious." I'll ask you to imagine what these charities would be able to do with a regular stream of income they could rely on over the long term. Having said that
I'll be wandering through the streets of Edinburgh wearing a bra in June in support of breast cancer support charities. If you think the cause is important then
sponsorship would be welcome via justgiving. It's conceivable that this makes me something of a hypocrite.
There were going to be more links but as I've already written a small essay I'll stop for now. Incidentally, the reason for the lack of posts is that I've been working to move the js/css file compression/compaction tool I set up on the old domain over to this site as well as creating a totally new tool. Should be ready to go live soon.
