BurningDogBlog

Optaros has some excellent white papers on open source. The list is: Content Management Problems and Open Source Solutions Delivering Service Oriented Architecture The Growth of Open Source Software in Organizations Free and Open Source Licenses, Software Development, and Distribution Service Oriented Architecture and Open Source Solutions

Technorati Tags: open source

EmergentAfrica.com is getting some hectic trackback spam. And deleting it manually is just sooooo.....boooooorrrrring. Enter the spam module by Jeremy. I'm hoping it works!

Technorati Tags: drupal, spam, trackback

I've been tasked with exporting the 150 or so articles at TomorrowToday.biz into the blog. No problem, right?! Yes, I could copy them by hand. Or go into the database and write a script to export/import them. Or I could use Wordpress's feed import function and import them from a TomorrowToday news feed.

The problem is the default news feed for Mambo only lists front page items. Luckily there's a component which makes news feeds of categories. It's called RSS XT (you'll need to install the component AND the module). To get it working you'll also need to create a folder with write permissions on the site root folder called "rss" and also put some configuration data into the parameters of the RSS XT module. My parameters I used are:

show=2.0
cat = Bright Young Things|Innovation UnManagement

A quick search on the Wordpress Codex revealed this: a script to import into Wordpress from Mambo. Maybe a better idea! But running it doesn't yield the results I need. It doesn't do author names or date created/modified or post slugs and doesn't deal with intro/extended text well. It also doesn't import comments from Ako Comment. But otherwise it's a pretty good script - it just requires some tweaking. So I'm going to tweak it and post the results (hooray for GPL'd software!).

Technorati Tags: mambo, export, wordpress

Matt wants something called a "Lifeposter." He wants to have private interactions with individual clients, so each client must have a section on his website where they can log in and then see a history of their last communications, see pictures and post comments. He doesn't care how it works, as long as it works.

My task is making it work. I want to use Wordpress 2.0 as the base content manager and then flash as the user interface. And I have 45 minutes till I see Matt...

Luckily I've already done the base Wordpress install and am now looking at sites for how this is going to work. The best advice seems to use the xml-rpc interface to communicate with Wordpress and then format the returned content nicely in flash. I'm also going to have to play around with user permissions as the blog is essentially private.

The links I found which detail a flash frontend to wordpress are:

http://similitude.sim-designs.net/2005/8/31/how-it-works/ Only works on Wordpress 1.0 ("very, very beta"). After installation only the flash interface works - it messed up your usual wordpress install.

Compl33t has a working version, but it uses php to access the database and generate a text file which flash then reads. Not what I want.

SS Design has the best one available - a full working preview of flash on top of Wordpress. However, the source code doesn't seem to be available.

So I'm left to building my own...

All I need to do is figure out how to communicate between flash and the wordpress xmlrpc. Luckily mattism.com shows how to do that using actionscript and XMP-RPC client for Actionscript 2:
import XMLRPC.Connection;
var rpc:Connection = Connection('http://www.myserver.com/rpc');
rpc.onLoad = function( menu:Array ){
trace(”My menu has “ + menu.length + ” items.“);
}
rpc.getMenu();

For interests sake, check out flash remoting. They have defined their own low-level protocol to exchange database between a flash client and a server - much quicker than xml but not what I need right now.

Technorati Tags: flash, wordpress, xmlrpc, actionscript

On another occasion when Master Foo gave public instruction, an end user, having heard tales of the Master's wisdom, came to him for guidance.

He bowed three times to Master Foo. “I wish to learn the Great Way of Unix,” he said “but the command line confuses me.”

Some of the onlooking neophytes began to mock the end user, calling him “clueless” and saying that the Way of Unix is only for those of discipline and intelligence.

The Master held up a hand for silence, and called the most obstreperous of the neophytes who had mocked forward, to where he and the end user sat.

“Tell me,” he asked the neophyte, “of the code you have written and the works of design you have uttered.”

The neophyte began to stammer out a reply, but fell silent.

Master Foo turned to the end-user. “Tell me,” he inquired, “why do you seek the Way?”

“I am discontent with the software I see around me,” the end user replied. “It neither performs reliably nor pleases the eye and hand. Having heard that the Unix way, though difficult, is superior, I seek to cast aside all snares and delusions.”

“And what do you do in the world,” asked Master Foo, “that you must strive with software?”

“I am a builder,” the end user replied, “Many of the houses of this town were made under my chop.”

Master Foo turned back to the neophyte. “The housecat may mock the tiger,” said the master, “but doing so will not make his purr into a roar.”

Upon hearing this, the neophyte was enlightened.

[Source]

It's not as simple as it seems. Check out what Mike Evangelist says about preparing a keynote presentation alongside Steve Jobs. The Joy of Tech bring us this cartoon:

A Firefox extension to view html tags on a site without having to view the source. He's also posted a link for how to create Firefox extensions.

Technorati Tags: firefox, extension

Google Earth for MacOS X Tiger was officially released yesterday. Read the small announcement on Google Blog. You can download Google Earth here. Source: macslash

Technorati Tags: apple, google

I've been looking for Joomla! templates all over the place - there's plenty of sites where you can buy templates but where are the free ones?! Luckily I've found the templates section at JoomlaHacks.com - 155 templates. Hooray! There are another 10 at JoomlaArt. Plus I think I'll customise the JA Capella II for TomorrowToday.biz.

Technorati Tags: joomla, templates

*Sigh* I'm going to have to reboot my Mac today. Its uptime is: 13 days 11:58. Depressing.

Source: MacRumours.

Technorati Tags: Intel

My cellphone isn't taking messages when it's on. I think my diverts are wrong, But thanks to this page at Vodacom I can use the following settings to divert calls to voicemail:

Divert calls to voicemail when you expect to receive high volumes of calls. Unconditional divert: **21*082131 [last seven digits of your cellphone number] # If no reply: **61*082131 [last seven digits of your cellphone number] # If cellphone is not reachable: **62*082131 [last seven digits of your cellphone number] # If busy on a call: **67*082131 [last seven digits of your cellphone number] # Cancel all diverts: # # 002 # If your cellphone number has a prefix of 072 and not 082, replace the 082 in the above examples with the 072 prefix.

Technorati Tags: voicemail, South Africa, vodacom

The Challenge: On August 10, 2003 a Linux Red Hat 7.2 system was compromised. Your mission is to analyze the compromised system. What makes this challenge unique is you are to analyze a live system. The image in question was ran within VMware. Once compromised, we suspended the image. The challenge to you is to download the suspended image, run it within VMware (you will get a console to the system with root access), and respond to the incident. When responding to the incident, you may do a live analysis of the system or you can first verify that the system has been compromised and then take it down for a dead analysis (or a combination of both). In either case, you will be expected to explain the impact you had on the evidence. Fortunately, this system was prepared for an incident and MD5 hashes were calculated for all files before the system was deployed. This challenge was posted at http://www.honeynet.org/scans/scan29/ Here is a solution by Christophe Grenier

Technorati Tags: hacking, linux, rootkit

Yes, a whole website devoted to a song that can be downloaded from iTunes.

there's never a need, to think about security, trojan horses and viruses they don't stand a chance, they are such a rarity it's just working fine I have such peace of mind and there's a bond of a special kind I love my Mac cuz it's so dependable, so sensible so beautiful oh it's the only one for me repeat

Technorati Tags: good design

The object of the game is fairly straight forward:

Welcome to Simbabwe, where the property is already owned and the houses built and you compete to burn and dispossess them. Bounce around the map plundering farms, denying grain silos to opposition supporters and robbing the community chest. Rig elections, gaol opponents and taunt the Commonwealth as you use intimidation and stooges to create a mugaboly on power. Compete with Robert Mugabe, Canaan Banana, Cecil Rhodes and Sir Godfrey Huggins to earn a place on the all-time EU travel ban list!

Get it here (Mac users only - sorry!). Thanks to Rich..! for the link.

For sending manual trackbacks - http://www.aylwardfamily.com/content/tbping.asp

Yip, I currently have 1500 emails in my inbox. Merlin Mann has a quick tip to empty that inbox. Of course, you need to think about how to keep it empty...

Technorati Tags: email, productivity

John Gruber from daringfireball upgraded to a new 15" Powerbook and loves it. I'd very much like to follow in his footsteps...I get to play with Tiger, have a quicker system, do some wicked video editing, play with Reason, use my Mac for live audio band stuff and maybe even some VJing. I still feel somewhat guilty laying out 15 G's for a piece of hardware, but I also know I'm a user who isn't just going to use it for email and word processing, I'm going to squeeze everything out of it that I can (like installing Fink and running X11 apps - like OpenOffice). Or maybe I'll wait to hear what Steve Jobs has to say in his upcoming keynote address...I'm hoping to hear that Intel Powerbooks will start shipping in mid-January.

Technorati Tags: apple, Intel, powerbook

Hey, let's be honest - Borat is cool! Anyone who gets sued by Khazakstan is cool! http://www.boratonline.co.uk/

Technorati Tags: Ali G, Borat

Great design, driven by Wordpress and some high quality downloads: check out the Tiger admin interface for Wordpress as well as the feedburner plugin. I've just installed the Tiger admin interface at my stuffaround blog (recently moved from Blogger to Wordpress, hosted on one of my servers) and am about to do the feedburner one too.

Technorati Tags: blog, good design, wordpress