Brain Enema of a Savage Mind » blog life

Random banner musings.

Alex — Tue, 10 May 2011 00:26:07 +0000

I’ve played musical chairs with the layout and themes of this blog almost more than I’ve actually made posts to it. For awhile I’ve settled on this one, and still have no real plans to make major changes to it. I’ve really enjoyed it’s minalmist look. However when I first switched to it I meant to put some type of banner graphic or picture up top, but kept neglecting it as I hadn’t been sure of what I wanted there.

I was asking myself this again the other day when I realized that not only had I grown used to there being no image, I’ve actually come to like the large empty space. To me it is somehow oddly compelling. While this might change at some point, for now I think I’m enjoying things just the way they are.

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Where did the time go?

Alex — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 00:51:57 +0000

Has it really been over two months since I posted? It certainly doesn’t seem like it; normally I’ve not let posting slip that far behind. It would be easy to blame it on having to take care of Gabriel along with the lack of sleep these days, but there wouldn’t be too much truth to that excuse. As with many things I have to chalk this one up to laziness.

So, once again, I’m going to attempt to do a post a day. These might end up being a lot more like microblogging type of posts rather than a lot of long form posts, but hopefully it’s going to jump start things. I’ve really fallen behind in writing of any kind these days. No excuses sounds like a good mantra, but really, can I make it work for the next 30 days (March 4th being Gabriel’s birthday)? I guess we’re about to find out.

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This is just a test.

Alex — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 15:20:39 +0000

This is just a quick test to see if the WordPress app for the iPad has fixed the date and time issue that was forcing posts to be delayed, or sometimes to just be plain wrong when feeding to other sites.

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WordPress App Update

Alex — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 02:40:35 +0000

I’m not sure why I didn’t try ita while ago, but deleting the WordPress app and the reinstalling it has allowed me to once again access my site from my iPod Touch. It’s annoying that I had to do that (and then reposition all my apps), and it seems like I’m not alone with the problem. It seems their are scores of problems surrounding the most recent release, and it is starting to feel like a lot of us who can’t upgrade to iOS 4 are being left out in the cold not only by Apple, but by WordPress as well.

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WordPress App on the iPod Touch.

Alex — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 16:09:15 +0000

I’ve only ever once used the official wordpress app on my iPod touch, and this post makes it twice. I really do want to like this app but I can’t help but feel there are some things lacking about it.

One thing I pick up on right away is the fact it doesn’t list all the tags I’ve used in the past, allowing me to select ones I want from a list. It makes it a touch inconvenient having to remember the different tags that I use as I don’t want to always keep adding new ones, or having to go bag and fix the tags later.
The other problems I have with it are things that are lacking in the writing of a post. Seemingly I can’t use the more tag or split something in to multiple pages. Also missing is an easy way to add links, and especially to shorten them. These are small things, but things that really should be part of a mobile app.

I know the app is a work in progress and it’s not as if WordPress has massive developer resources that they can throw at the problem. Still I’ve seen some well thought out and feature-filled apps released by just a couple of developers so I don’t think it’s much to as to see a WordPress app with a little more usability.

I’ve got some high hopes for version 2.6. Hopefully I’ll be blown away.

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Taking Control of Your Online Identity

Alex — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 19:11:23 +0000

Recently on Lifehacker and a couple of other sites that I read regularly they have been talking about your online identity. Who you are when someone types your name in to a search engine. I’m sure you’ve tried it, most people have done what has been referred to as “vanity Googling”. While vanity, or some level of curiosity may be the motivating factor behind people searching their own name online, it actually is something everyone should try. Why? Simple, so that you can be aware of how you are being presented should someone search your name. That someone could be a potential employer, client, date, or any number of other people you’ve come in contact with. If you don’t know what the search engines reveal about you, you could be in for a nasty surprise.

To be prepared for writing this I went ahead and Googled myself. It had been awhile and I was curious as to what I might find. Under “Alex Schwartz” it took until page 22 to reach a reference that was actually to me and that was a link to Dan’s florn.net podcast. Under Alexander Schwartz the first reference I hit was after a few pages, and that was a link to my Amazon profile and wish lists. Nothing terribly damning there other than learning which X-Box games I long to play, and what books I want to get next. Trust me, it’s not that interesting, take a look if you don’t believe me. Googling me doesn’t reveal much of anything about me(yahoo and Bing both turn up next to nothing while searching my name). In some ways it’s a good thing because I don’t have to worry about people finding out things about me that could be damaging. I’ve been pretty good about avoiding putting anything online that could be taken the wrong way. By the same token sometimes not finding anything speaks volumes. Are people going to wonder if I’m secretive? Not very interesting? Haven’t done anything with my life? A luddite (well, okay, checking my Amazon wish list, or the fact that I run my own domain, disprove that theory in a hurry)? Not even real? It leaves a lot of room for people to speculate and just plain wonder. Paranoid? Maybe a touch, but let’s face it, online life has been, in many ways, merging with our real world lives. People have lost a shot at a dream job simply due to a dumb comment, or inopportune picture posted to the web. Just like at a face to face meeting, you want the first impression of your online identity to be a positive one.

So assume rather than my meager innocuous findings, I discovered several things during my search that I’d rather other people, especially potential employers, not see. Not everything is lost. Many sites allow you to easily remove the comment or photo in question. Even when they don’t have a mechanism in place for you to do it yourself, writing the maintainers of the site a polite e-mail will often yield great results. People who manage web pages understand these sorts of predicament and will often be more than willing to help out so long as you’re polite about it. If they aren’t willing to remove the offending material your list of options becomes quite short. I’m not sure if there are legal methodologies that can come in to play, you’d have to consult with a lawyer about how to handle that situation. If the situation can’t be remedied before someone might be inclined to run a search on you, then you can either keep your fingers crossed, or you can be upfront about it, let them know what they might find if they search for you, and explain it, put it in to context to help disarm the situation.

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Damn, I Got Pwn’d!

Alex — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 04:24:03 +0000

It appears I fell victim to an SQL injection hack on this website. From the looks of it, it either happened late last night or early this morning. I actually only caught it as quick as I did because my page was loading so slowly I checked to see what the hang up was and found it was attempting to connect to some weird ass site. Looking that site up online I found that many WordPress sites hosted by my provided had fallen victim. An improperly patched version of SQL perhaps? They have a notice on their site about it, though they don’t go in to much detail, though it’s pretty obvious it was something on their end. Fortunately they gave very good instructions on how to quickly remove the attack. Then I went through the tedious nature of changing every password associated with my webhost and this blog. Nothing like 16 character completely random generated passwords. Password managers are a wonderful thing.

All seems to be right. Looking through this page and back posts reveal the malicious site in question is no longer linked anywhere. Anyone can screw up, but if it happens again I might be looking about for a new web host. For now, however, it seems no harm, no foul.

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My Blog, Now with More Minimalism.

Alex — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 16:23:14 +0000

My old theme had a couple minor glitches with the newest incarnation of WordPress. Nothing major, but enough for me to decide I had used it for awhile and was ready for a change. I’ve had a bit of a minimalism kick lately and decided to aim for a more clean layout. Find one I liked and have been doing a couple extra nip and tucks to it in order to really call it my own. Once I create a new banner graphic for it everything will be full steam ahead!

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Qualifying Life Event

Alex — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 21:34:48 +0000

I can’t believe that its been as long as it has since I last updated here. I had been on quite a roll, but in my defense life got a little bit topsy turvy. Â Gabriel was born on March 4th and since then life has pretty much been in chaos. It’s been the good kind of chaos though. Â Still its left this blog a little bit in the lurch.

I found in the past month I’ve used Twitter (meh) and Facebook (blah) quite a bit more. Â In some ways they are a little bit interesting for instant gratification. Â Well now it’s about time to start tying the different parts of my online life together. Â First off I’ve started out with a bit of Twitter and LiveJournal integration. Â In theory this post will get put on both my LiveJournal and referenced in a tweet automagically.

My next step is to work on Facebook integration, and after that I’ll start working on some Flickr integration. Â That might mean I’m in for another theme change, and if so, then so be it. Â Still, it’ll be nice to get back in to the habit of playing with WordPress while also adding a little bit of organization of my online persona.

In the meantime, for those looking for some pictures, check out my Flickr photostream.

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A Little Bit of Focus.

Alex — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 01:11:14 +0000

This blog has been a little bit personal, a little bit political, a lot of hockey, some technobable, and a lot of other things. That’s just the way my mind has always rolled. It jumps from one place to the next, seemingly at random. While I certainly don’t consider this to be a bad thing, it certainly isn’t the most helpful thing if you’re trying to give your website a little bit of focus.

This main page is something I’m going to give some focus to. I’ll go back to other more general posts in LiveJournal (though it’s possible I’ll start a second, more personal blog here on this website – a page off of this one or some such).

While there may be thousands of other tech focused blogs out there, I think that’s the path I’m going to go down with this one. Even after leaving the professional IT field, I’ve always kept myself up to date on the technology, the issues, and all sorts of related things. A lot of which I played with, but never really have had the chance to put in to practice. As such I want to use this blog to help me get back in touch with my tech roots. From time to time I’m sure I’ll post some things that aren’t exactly technology related, but hey, that’ll just be my slant, right?

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