Where Am I? September 5, 2008
Posted by Kelson in Uncategorized.add a comment
Okay, so it’s been a year and a half since I posted here. The fact is that I’ve never really done much with this blog. Mostly, I use the account for plugins that need a WordPress API key.
Where can you find me blogging these days? Mainly, at:
- Speed Force. This is what I’ve been focusing on the last few months. It’s a comics blog for news and commentary about DC’s character, the Flash.
- K-Squared Ramblings. I still consider this my “main” blog, and I put stuff that I expect might be interesting to a general audience here. Interesting/funny photos, tech, TV/Movies, books, comics, etc.
- My LiveJournal, where I post things that I figure only my friends are likely to be interested in.
I also contribute to Opera Watch from time to time.
Update: I’m also on Twitter as KelsonV.
Firefox and IE Users: Time to Upgrade April 24, 2007
Posted by Kelson in Browser, Firefox.add a comment
Are you still using Firefox 1.5 or Internet Explorer 6? If so, it’s time to start seriously thinking about an upgrade.
Firefox 1.5 reached the end of its life today. That means that security and other fixes will only be available for Firefox 2 and later. Firefox 2 will run on all the same systems as the version you have right now, plus it gives you enhancements like spell check, phishing protection, and improvements to the features you already use.
Internet Explorer 6 is outmoded. It has limited support for the languages that make up the web (particularly CSS), and often disagrees with every other browser out there, forcing developers to write complicated code so that it will work on IE6. If you’re running Windows XP, you can upgrade to Internet Explorer 7. If you’re running an older version of Windows, you can benefit by switching to an alternative browser such as Firefox or Opera. Whether you switch or upgrade, I highly recommend moving away from Internet Explorer 6.
My condolences to those whose systems are locked by the IT department.
(Reposted from my blog at K-Squared Ramblings)
Update: Mozilla has extended Firefox 1.5 support through mid-May, giving people a few extra weeks to upgrade.
Promoting Opera or Firefox on WordPress January 29, 2007
Posted by Kelson in Browser, Firefox, Opera, WordPress.add a comment
Promoting your favorite web browser on WordPress is easy, if you’re using a widget-capable theme.
- Go to the Presentation tab on your blog’s dashboard, then click on Sidebar Widgets.
- Drag a Text widget to the sidebar, then click on Configure.
- Load another tab or window and open the Choose Opera: Banners and Buttons or Spread Firefox: Affiliates page. (If you have an account, be sure to log in first.)
- Copy the code from the banner you want, then paste it into the text widget box.
- Close the widget configuration box, then hit Save changes.
The same steps should work for any other banner that provides copy+paste-ready HTML code.
Note for Firefox: At this time, the SpreadFirefox banners are designed for XHTML, but do not leave a space before the closing / in the <img> tag. WordPress will see the slash as part of the image source and remive the entire source. You will have to add a space right between the ” and the />.
You can see some examples on the sidebar here.
Another flocking blog post June 14, 2006
Posted by Kelson in Browser, Flock.add a comment
Trying out the new Flock beta… let’s see how to tell it things like… which blog to use, categories/tags, etc…
Flock’s built-in editor, a snippets feature to collect web content, and a photobar to manage photos gets it all done in one place.
Update: When you hit “Publish,” it lets you choose from a drop-down list of the blog accounts you’ve set up. Below that it fills in a list of categories if applicable. Below that is a space to write in tags.
Unfortunately, it looks like it only knows how to add tags inline. On my main blog, I use Bunny’s Technorati Tags to store tag data in custom fields. Not only is it easier to manage, but it allows you to show them in the post metadata (usually in a footer) instead of the body of the post.
Blogged with Flock
Flock and self-hosted WordPress February 22, 2006
Posted by Kelson in Browser, Flock, WordPress.5 comments
I reinstalled Flock today and figured out what was preventing it from talking to my self-hosted blog, K-Squared Ramblings. The site is running on a stand-alone WordPress install, and I kept getting 403 Forbidden errors. (Not that I could tell. Flock hid the error and just told me something went wrong setting up the account.)
It turned out to be a setting in mod_security, an Apache module designed to limit attacks on web applications. Part of the sample filter—one that I kept because it seemed a reasonable precaution—was to block POST requests with content types other than application/x-www-form-urlencoded or multipart/form-data. However, XMLRPC uses text/xml, which was getting blocked.
There weren’t any problems reported, and none of the false positives I saw in the logs were related to the request content-type. So by the time I tried setting up Flock, it didn’t occur to me to check the mod_security log. I just figured it was a problem with my version of WordPress and left it at that.
This time, with a newer version of Flock, I decided to investigate. I found the 403 error in the server logs, checked the error log for detail, and saw the mod_security reference. A quick check of the audit logs, and there it was.
For now, I’ve loosened the content-type requirement slightly. I’ll have to decide whether it’s worth keeping XMLRPC enabled, or whether I’m better off restoring the original rule.
SecFilterSelective REQUEST_METHOD "!^(GET|HEAD)$" chain
SecFilterSelective HTTP_Content-Type "!(^application/x-www-form-urlencoded$|^multipart/form-data;|^text/xml$)"
So, the moral of the story is: If you use Flock, and you can’t get it to tie into your self/third-party-hosted WordPress blog… check the ModSecurity settings.
technorati tags: flock, wordpress, apache, modsecurity
Workaround October 21, 2005
Posted by Kelson in Browser, Flock.1 comment so far
Or, yet another blog.
Back when WordPress.com was announced—well, pre-announced, really—I signed up for info. Eventually I discovered it was going to be a blog hosting service. At that point it seemed kind of silly, since I already had too many blogs, so I didn’t immediately jump on the invite when I finally received it. I decided to pick it up after about two weeks, at which point I tried to log in and was told that the invitation expired in a week. Not that the email had said anything about an expiration.
So now, I’m trying out Flock, mainly to see what value it adds on top of Firefox. It picked up my Del.icio.us bookmarks fine, but for some reason the blogging tool just won’t connect to K-Squared Ramblings. It should work. It’s WordPress-based, after all. Maybe it only works with the 1.6 series (I’m waiting for a stable release before I upgrade), or maybe there’s some obscure setting—or maybe it’s just a bug in Flock. (Time to sign up for yet another Bugzilla account, too)
Well, WordPress.com and Flock have teamed up, so Flock users don’t need to wait for an invite or wait for the site to leave beta. And, miracle of miracles, not only did the invite expiration free up my reserved username, but no one else had taken it!
I honestly don’t know what, if anything, I’ll be doing with this blog, since I’ve got so much over at K²R and all my social stuff is at LiveJournal (when you’re extending a real-life circle of friends into cyberspace, you go where your friends go). I’m sure I’ll think of something to do here.
