Month: September 2007

WordPress 2.3 Plugin Compatibility

As everyone might have realized by now, WordPress 2.3 has been released. WordPress 2.3 contains many improvements mentioned in the release page, and one of the most critical change is to the database structure where several database has been removed and added. Relations are all different now, so plugin authors: check your plugins!

What I like is the Plugins/Plugin Compatibility/2.3 page in WordPress Codex. The list is by no means complete, but it’s a good start for you to see if the plugins you are using are effected by changes in 2.3.

My two plugins (Random Posts Widget and Collapsible Archive Widget) were also affected by the change, since I couldn’t find the suitable WordPress function to use for some of the things I needed to do. However I’ve fixed them to be compatible with 2.3 while maintaining backward compatibility to the 2.2.x series.

Please be careful when you download a plugin next time, and see the “Requires WordPress Version” and “Compatible up to” fields.

As for me, since I use a lot of custom plugins and also homemade ones, I’ll need to find the right time to upgrade 😉

Stuck Dog

Behind my house there are currently 3 dogs, owned by my neighbors. There used to be only one, but the other 2 have just been added to the family. I think they are renovating their fence or something, because the fences are torn open at the wall side behind the house.

Every now and then there seems to be a massive commotion going on and I have always thought that the dogs are fighting with each other. But today I realized that it was actually because one of the dog is stuck in between the fence. It’s funny but I feel sorry for the little guy at the same time.

This video was taken after it got tired trying to get loose. I wished I thought of taking a video before that and you can really see how the poor thing struggled.

Why I Set Up VPN On DD-WRT On My Router

Everyday I receive a massive number of emails from many sources and half of them are valid (i.e. not spams). And at certain times I receive huge attachments from friends with pictures or other things. With a normal Streamyx ADSL connection this is fine, but when it gets hiccups my email retrieval process normally gets interrupted in the middle (timed out). 90% of the time my Thunderbird go nuts and corrupted its own “state” database. This means that it “forgets” which message it has downloaded and which has not.

This will not be a big problem if I set my email client to “delete from server” each time but I set it to “leave on server” as an online backup. I know I know I am a freak. Because of this, the next time it retrieves, my email client will download every message from my Inbox (which is in the thousands because I still keep my emails since 1997). This is insane.

I needed a more robust solution and as a Linux geek I used fetchmail to download my emails to a local server and set it to “leave on server”. From my observation, it does not have the same corrupting effect as Thunderbird when a timeout occurs. Good, one problem solved. Next, I set my Thunderbird to retrieve email from the local server which is faster than a speeding bullet. OK, I exaggerated. I set it to “delete from server” where the server is the local server. Good, another problem solved.

Now I have my emails intact regardless of what the connection condition is.

But… when I am on the road I have a problem to retrieve my emails. I heard someone is shouting, “why the hell don’t you just use the webmail?”. When it comes to email, I think I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Except for GMail, I will need my Thunderbird to compose my emails.

This is when I realized that I can do something about it. I enabled a simple VPN server on my Linksys WRT54G router which I have flashed with DD-WRT. Here’s a complete guide that I followed: http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/PPTP_Server_Configuration.

I have never regretted since, but I do have to make sure that the connection to my home is stable enough. But please be warned that this will only work if the connection you are using allows PPTP pass through.

There you go, a story of someone having email OCD. What’s your excuse?

Oh BTW I also have a PAC (Proxy Auto Configuration) setting on my browsers so when there is a connection to the Squid box at home (the VPN is connected), it’ll utilize the cache. 😛

Do You Own An MP3 Player?

MP3 players today are as common as a discman or walkman used to be. Back then we have to carry a bigger pouch to pack in our CDs or cassettes, and each of them usually can carry only about 17 songs – and that was already considered many.

Today, with a device the size of a cigarette lighter and sometimes smaller you can pack hundreds of song and you can barely feel the weight. It’s the miraculous mp3 player. They come in all sort of shapes and colors a confused toddler just might think it is candy 😉

I have been toying with the idea of owning a good one (maybe an iPod?), with gigabytes of space to store my songs but until today even after spending much more on other devices I still never bought one myself. I only own a 512MB Creative Zen Neeon that I got for free last year.

What about you, what mp3 player do you currently use and what’s your dream device?

Four Months Later

Right, I have been occupied with so many things lately that I neglected this blog. September 2007 is one of the months this year with very low post count 🙁

Being subscribed to the Got Heroes forum, I received an exciting reminder this morning: Heroes Season 2 is going to start today! Chapter 1 of Season 2 is going to be aired tonight in the US, and that means I shall be able to watch it tomorrow! Chapter 1 is titled “Four Months Later”.

I am really looking forward to it, are you?

Potret Mistik

Tonight while doing some coding work, I turned on the TV and the satellite decoder was tuned to Astro Kirana. Since it is an old movie that I have never watched before, I decided to go along just to see what it is all about. As a matter of fact, I started writing this post at the last moment of the movie.

The movie is titled “Potret Mistik”, a production by Metrowealth Movies production and directed by A. Razak Mohaideen.

It is one of the dumbest movie that I have ever watched, and I am thankful I didn’t go watch it at the cinemas when it was released in 2005. The movie is filled with dumb and repetitive dialogs, and the chasing scenes are really dull and not exciting. What I am looking for is the thrill and suspense on what will appear in the next screen, not an old schizophrenic maid who chases people with a butcher knife. I mean, come on… the artist who were chased is a strong guy and he can at any time run faster than the old lady. It’s a different thing if you can really feel his fear, though. Most of the time in the movie, I was laughing and didn’t really see the point. I didn’t know what the director wanted me to feel – sorry? scared? amused?

I am one of the supporters of the Malaysian movie industry but these type of movie really make me think twice before booking another ticket for a Malaysian movie. Of course, I like all of the movies made by Yasmin Ahmad. I am starting to feel that my better half is right for not wanting to go along with me when I wanted to watch a Malaysian movie.

Among other movies that I still haven’t watch:

  • Waris Jari Hantu
  • Jangan Pandang Belakang

What about you? What do you think of Malaysian movies in general?

Google AdSense Allowed Sites

Have your publisher ID ever been used in other sites than yours, without your knowledge? I have never experienced the same problem but I guess some prominent publishers must’ve experienced this.

AdSense now have an Allowed Sites feature where you can specify on which sites your publisher ID will be considered active.

This is indeed a very useful feature, especially if someone decides to use your publisher ID with bad intentions such as to get your account suspended!

Read more about it in Inside AdSense: Allowed and clear.

Quote:

To create your Allowed Sites list today, visit your AdSense Setup tab, click the Allowed Sites sub-tab, and choose the radio button for Only allow certain sites to show ads for my account. You’ll then be able to enter allowed URLs for all your sites. Make sure to keep your list up to date when you add your code to new sites, too.

So if you decide not to use it, no change is necessary!

Spam or Not Spam

While monitoring some of the servers I am maintaining today, a user forwarded me an amusing email message:

Received: from [218.111.170.31] by web38606.mail.mud.yahoo.com via HTTP; Mon, 03 Sep 2007 07:01:19 BST
Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2007 07:01:19 +0100 (BST)
From: hairiehasnie <[email protected]>
Subject: Dear XXXX,
To: XXXX XXXX <[email protected]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=”0-1107947314-1188799279=:79252″
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Message-ID: <[email protected]>

–0-1107947314-1188799279=:79252
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

I use a good spam filter, and you probably do the same.
I have whitelisted you and that means that I will receive all the emails you send to me.
I would appreciate it if you would whitelist my email address: [email protected] in your spam filter.

If you don’t have a spam filter, I can recommend SPAMfighter. It is a highly effective free spam filter for Outlook and Outlook Express.

You can get the free SPAMfighter here:
http://www.LINKREMOVED.com/Pro

I hope that you will whitelist me, so we can continue to communicate safely via email in the future.

Best regards

hairie

This email is amusing because:

  1. It promotes a spam filter for Outlook, but this email is sent from Yahoo! Webmail
  2. The URL inside the email is neither phishing nor a referral URL

So I guess this hairiehasnie guy has nothing better to do. Who else has received this message? I am pretty sure it was not sent only to my user! 😉 And yes, I put his email clearly here on purpose. Let there be SPAM in his email. After all he has SPAMfighter! 😀