A new architecture related blog is now available called utf-ate.com which aims to “provide a place to aggregate conversations, articles and information about Architecture, Technology and the Enterprise”.
Not quite sure I like the minimalistic theme (at first I thought maybe I wasn’t pulling the CSS), but its the content that counts …
According to the WordPress Development Blog, the 1.5.1.3 release is now available.
From the announcement:
Development has moved on to some exciting new features for the next major release, but an important security issue was brought to our attention which required an update for our users. The problem is not yet public but you should update your blog as soon as possible to 1.5.1.3. If you are unable to do upgrade in the short-term you may protect yourself by deleting the xmlrpc.php file from your WordPress directory.
This is a security release. I suggest you apply it or you might be the next to suffer the consequences. Don’t be a lazy ass like I was.
Photo by Kelsi
HPIM0932.JPG
Not quite sure what’s going on here, but this is some good photoshopping by the Kelsi-meister.
A friend shot me a reference to this article this morning.
Sunday night we watched The Boy Whose Skin Fell Off, on TLC. This is a documentary that originally aired in England, I believe.
It is the story of Jonny Kennedy, a man who was born with a genetic skin condition called Epidermolysis Bullosa, which causes the skin to essentially blister and fall off at the slightest touch. Jonny was 36 years old at the time of his death, and agreed to do this documentary to help raise awareness of the condition and help get funding for research for its cure.
The documentary gives you a look at Jonny’s life and the constant pain he was in as a result of the condition. The most amazing thing about the documentary however, is the look at Jonny and the great outlook on life and wonderful sense of humor this guy had in the face of a horrible affliction.
The show was touching, as you watch Jonny prepare for his death after being diagnosed with skin cancer, apparently a pretty common outcome for people with EB.
The only complaint I have is the extreme amount of advertising that stations air during this type of show. It was completely out of control, I’m assuming due to the visibility of the show. Its sad that everything turns into an advertising blitz these days, especially since finding something that is actually worth watching on TV is such a chore these days.
Just a clue to the networks: a commercial break every five minutes is unnacceptable, m’kay?
On Sunday I had said that I would post something up about Land of the Dead, the latest George Romero zombie movie. To be honest, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what to write about it and I’m kind of at a loss.
This is the first movie I’ve seen where I just felt flat about the whole thing. I wasn’t interested, but I wasn’t exactly disinterested either. I wasn’t necessarily bored, but I wasn’t engaged in the movie either. As a matter of fact, after sitting through it I’m still not sure I know what it was about.
This was a weird experience. I have absolutely no reaction to the movie at all, good or bad. It’s definitely something that you can wait for video to see.
Photo by rbieber
A picture of the boats in Lake Michigan off of the edge of the pier.
Jonna and I spent yesterday at Navy Pier just walking around, listening to music, and enjoying the occasional cocktail — along with our regular stop at Bubba Gumps for lunch.
Even with the Taste of Chicago going on and all the people around, you really can’t get a more relaxing day than hanging out at Navy Pier.
Included in the pictures taken during our time there is our homage to a picture Tom the Architect took of his Diet Coke w/ Lemon. The picture is of an excellent Margarita complements of Chango Loco Mexican Cantina.
I have named the picture "Margarita w/ Lime".
The agenda today includes a viewing of George Romero’s new movie Land of the Dead which is getting a 73% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I’ll post a review later today (or maybe later this week).
Another Fathers Day present I received last weekend was the movie Hitch, a comedy starring Will Smith. We had seen it in the theaters when it came out and I thought it was probably one of the funniest comedies I had seen released in a while. Watching the movie again on DVD confirmed my original impression of the film.
I haven’t laughed this hard at a movie in a long time.
Will Smith plays Alex Hitchens, the “date doctor”. He is a consultant for men wanting to make women fall in love with them. His business comes from word of mouth. He doesn’t advertise, because he wants to remain anonymous.
His newest client is Albert, played by Kevin James. Hitch’s assignment is to help Albert get socialite Allegra Cole to fall in love with him.
During this time, Hitch also meets Sara, a gossip reporter with the local newspaper. He falls for her and nuttiness ensues as Hitch tries to land the girl of his dreams while nothing goes right for him.
This movie was absolutely hilarious. It is rare that I laugh this hard at a movie and even rarer that it happens twice. Watching this one on video was just as funny as watching it at the theater. Kevin James was absolutely brilliant as Albert, as was Smith in his role. In my opinion they could have found a better Sara, as Eva Mendes turned out just to be annoying to me through the movie.
If you’ve been looking for a really good comedy and want to spend the good part of 118 minutes laughing, pick it up.
From Slashdot:
SCO updates Unix product, open-source attitude | CNET News.com
For some reason I just have a problem with these guys filing lawsuits regarding Open Source software and then using it in their own product.
But that’s just me.
The site was hacked defaced last night at around 4:45pm due to my laziness in not installing a simple one line fix to the WordPress software outlined on the WordPress Development Blog. After exploiting the SQL injection vulnerability that the fix closed, the person was able to log in to WordPress, create a new user, promote themselves to admin level and replace the index page. I found out about it this morning when I hit the site when I woke up.
This should be a lesson to you. Keep an eye on security updates for your software, and apply them as soon as they become available. The WordPress team posted this update 26 days ago (according to the blog entry, 40 minutes after hearing about the exploit) and I blew it off, thinking that this site was too insignificant to actually hit.
I was wrong. It’s insignificant, but apparently not so much so that someone won’t take the small amount of time it takes to use a Perl script to compromise a known hole when they found it by doing a Google search on the term “powered by WordPress 1.5”.
I’m usually pretty good about installing security updates … not sure what I was thinking when I blew this off.
For the record, the WordPress Team has performed a security audit of the code for similar vulnerabilities and found none. Thanks guys. I’ll pay more attention next time around.
Bieber Labs 