Zero / Love

 

I've been using Twitter for a while now, and I know when it is something that I believe is going to be useful when I tell my wife about it and sign her up. So if you are not using Twitter yet, let me tell you what it is.

Well it isn't IM, and yet it is. It isn't a blog and yet it is. And it isn't a way to keep up with someone and find friends, and yet it is.

It is a way to chat with friends, meet new friends, keep up with people and read about what others are doing.

You can use Twitter via their web site, its real easy to sign up and get an account. I'm not going to go into that part of it here. Trust me it is simple. Once you have it then you can just use it to post your messages on the website. Then there is chat, using your favorite IM client (Pidgin) and your Google Talk account you can add a friend, twitter@twitter.com. Once you have done this, then you can chat your status/messages directly to Twitter. This doesn't stop here either. I can only speak as to what I have, but I have an T-Mobile Wing. Using it I can also SMS to Twitter, and I run ceTwit on the phone so when I have a network connection I can also send and receive twits. Twits are by the way messages from other people. We'll get into that in a minute. So I can send my updates and messages from web, chat, and phone while mobile.

Now when you add a friend, you can easily choose how you want to get updates. You can get them to any of the ways you can send, same as above web, chat, or phone. Just because you have a friend added you do not have to receive their chats via your phone for instance. You can set where you want to receive updates.  I have several people I follow, and some are really chatty or I just really don't want to know what they are talking about all the time. So I make sure not to follow them on chat and my phone. You can always check your Twitter site to see what people you are following have been saying.

A Blog you say? Yes it is a social blog. Remember what ever you chat on Twitter others will see. If you have clicked any of the Twitter links in this post you will see mine. It is NOT private, but then neither is IM unless you use a private server with encryption and we won't get into that.

It ends up being either a I love it! or an I don't get it? You will have to check it out for yourself to make that call. I also hear people saying it is a fad. I agree with that, but I see it leveling off in growth. I think it will stay around for a while. I can see a large company "Google" buying them. We will just have to wait and see.

Links for more information:

If you are a Birmingham Alabama Twitter user you can Follow Bhampulse (http://bhampulse.zerosource.org).

Twitters website is at http://www.twitter.com

Twitter Fan Wiki is at http://twitter.pbwiki.com/

 

Upcoming:

 Brightkite review, so far not looking good!

AndLinux nice... run Linux (Ubuntu) in windows

Sun VirtualBox good... acquired VM system

Announcing System Center Operations Manager 2007 Cross Platform Extensions and Connectors

Of course not a lot of details but in essence Microsoft wants to manage your Linux Servers. Has someone lost their mind? I run Linux servers so that I don't have to deal with Microsoft servers? The most I want to use a windows machine to manage my Linux Servers is to be able to run SSH.

I believe Microsoft Servers have their place, don't get me wrong. I do not believe that place is however managing a Linux Server or having anything else to do with Linux except running SSH client.

Of course they could be making something where it will be easy for anyone to be able to run Linux. So we use something easy to install like Ubuntu, then run something that allows a windows server to connect and manage it from a MMC. No more knowing what is really happening, and or knowing how to run say vim. No more beating away at a config file. Just point and click! No more cli! Everyone will be able to run a Linux Server. So what would we put in front now to protect the MS Linux Servers?!? Will it make it reboot at least once a month now?

YOU HAVE UPDATED YOUR LINUX SERVER WINDOWS MANAGED! YOU MUST REBOOT TO HAVE CHANGES TAKE EFFECT!

Coming up I just got invite for Bright Kite, more information as I get a chance to use it. Thanks Mojo!

 

So today we completed the March for Babies. It was very interesting mix of people. I was surprised on the number of people that showed up. You would have thought it would be more "organized" but it really wasn't. There was some items they took care of "Who raised the most money", "Who designed the best shirts", etc.. but other then that it was a free for all 5 mile walk. Some people cheated and cut across streets to get done faster and others just quit and had to be picked up by the bus. I am proud to say our whole team kids, wife, and friend all made it the whole way.  Here is a shot of the start.

 

 

It was fun, but will we do it again. I'm not sure got some things to think about before we do.

 

Today was also my beautiful wife's birthday! She is great, seriously not just posting it here for point. She really is a great woman. I couldn't have asked for better.

 

Tomorrow Art Fest!

 

To all those that donated, Thanks. I appreciate it much. I hope the March of Dimes does great things with the money. We raised a good amount for a "Family Team".

So if you run ClamAV (and you should) to scan incoming email, the current release had some issue or did on several of my servers. The errors put out where:

cdiff.o(.text+0x190a): In function `cdiff_apply':
 ../shared/cdiff.c:984: undefined reference to `gzdopen'

cdiff.o(.text+0x1950):../shared/cdiff.c:994: undefined reference to `gzgets'

cdiff.o(.text+0x19a5):../shared/cdiff.c:1016: undefined reference to `gzclose'

cdiff.o(.text+0x19f5):../shared/cdiff.c:1010: undefined reference to `gzclose'

tar.o(.text+0xd4): In function `tar_addfile':
../shared/tar.c:82: undefined reference to `gzwrite'

tar.o(.text+0x109):../shared/tar.c:95: undefined reference to `gzwrite'

tar.o(.text+0x1a3):../shared/tar.c:111: undefined reference to `gzwrite'

etc..... then   

collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
make[2]: *** [freshclam] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory `/usr/local/src/clamav0.93/freshclam'
make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/local/src/clamav-0.93'
make: *** [all] Error 2

To fix recompile Zlib with --shared 

Don't forget to sponsor me for March of Babies use the Badge at the right to sponsor me. The walk is this weekend. 

The Birmingham Pulse is available and kicking online http://bhampulse.zerosource.org check it out!

 

So now that earth day is over, where to start. Spamassassin update, we are seeing a ton of emails with URL's that end in .exe such as

http://stalmix02.nazwa.pl/video.exe

So this one isn't a tough one and I don't know who wrote this originally but here is the rule to catch this:

uri EXE_FILE /\w\.exe/i
score EXE_FILE 10.0
describe EXE_FILE Potential link to executable

I've also had a ton of backscatter hitting the servers. I was also having trouble getting it to go away, not even sure it is gone yet. These are the things I've done. Of course I recommend running the latest and greatest Spamassassin currently 3.2.4. First edit your v320.pre should be located in /etc/mail/spamassassin and make sure this is on:

# VBounce - anti-bounce-message rules, see rules/20_vbounce.cf # loadplugin Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::VBounce

Then in your local.cf again located in /etc/mail/spamassassin and place:

whitelist_bounce_relays yourdomain.com

So I hope you had a great Earth Day, I know I did. I made my contributions today. Last night I had 15 Bean Soup and tonight I had bean burrito's. Sometimes I contribute silently and then sometimes the world knows of my contributions.

 

This is great, I love it! Now when will we see this on TV? Oh wait never... that is when.

 

BBC NEWS | Technology | Paypal to block 'unsafe browsers'

 

When I first read this headline, I'm thinking finally IE is going to be blocked by a major web site since it is unsafe.  Then I read further.

 

Paypal said it supported the use of Extended Validation SSL Certificates. Browsers which support the technology highlight the address bar in green when users are on a site that has been deemed legitimate

So now we are calling a green highlighted address bar secure? I mean come on how long till someone writes a simple virus that infects a browser to make key words in a url light up the address bar. How many people are going to say "Well the address bar is highlighted green, guess it safe to put in my personal information".

 

After thinking about it do people actually care if the site has a secure certificate that is valid? I know I've gone to many sites that the certificate was expired or invalid and I still went to the site.  Different browsers let you know different ways if the site is secure or not. Most of the time if I see the https I feel pretty safe. Guess that is dumb too. So how do you think we should verify or know that a web site is trully safe and secure? What standard would you use to determine a web site is safe?