Some time during Christmas, I noticed something late, late at night. I thought, is this an earthquake? Then I thought, no, it’s not that marked.

But I wonder? Was that what the scientists have been talking about, that the earth wobbled on its axis?

Here’s one story on Aljazeera about that.

Remember, I’m in Norway, clear on the other side of the earth…

Eh, shouldn’t really call it a NEW design.

It’s actually really simple:

Just find the CSS file and exchange one line for another. Hey presto, different look!

Cool, now I can change images on the background whenever I feel the urge! Right now it’s my Christmas tree from 2002. Close up.

EDIT: What? When I put up another post, my changes to the CSS file was changed back? Weird. Grounds for an investigation.

2nd EDIT: Seems I have to change the CSS file inside the MT admin panel, and then it’ll take.

I’ve bought several toys for Pusur, thinking I’ll give it to him for Christmas. But every time, I end up giving it to him right away. I just can’t wait!

So, this Christmas, I’d figured it out!

We had this big family production at a cousin’s house. And Pusur couldn’t come, since he has an anxiety problem when travelling.

Poor Pusur was alone all of Christmas Eve, until we came back around midnight.

But I’d planned ahead. I’d told everybody about the cat waiting at home, and how I’d planned on giving him a treat. So my uncle kept balling up the paper and putting it in a plastic bag each time somebody’d opened a present. A big black trash bag that ended up pretty full!

So when I got home, I took out all that paper (the pile of presents was pretty huge this year, and many LAARGE ones too). It ended up this gigantic mound of paper. And then the project was to get Pusur to understand how fun this was. I’m not sure he remembered much from last year, but it didn’t take him long to get in the swing of things.

I started up putting him on the outskirts of the mound and piling some paper on top of him and rustling is a bit. Not much of a reaction. Then, as he started moving around, I started pulling paper away that was UNDERNEATH him! My, that was might strange. Istant kitten behavior. I kept going with a DV camera in one hand and pulling paper with the other. Pusur got more and more agitated.

But I had this gigantic mound sitting there, and I wanted Pusur to DIVE into that thing. Soooo….

I brought out the cat nip spray…

Pusur knows what that is, and I found some green silky tissue paper in the middle of the mound and sprayed it. After some initial confusion, he started getting in there, rolling around intoxicated.

And then we started playing again. The green paper resurfaced a few times, and each time he got more agitated, rolling around on that green stuff.

Then finally, he wondered off to get some food.

And me, thinking he was tired of playing, but the stuff away and went on to talk to the folks. Then I hear some prancing out in the hallway. I’d left a few strands of bows and a few scraps of paper, and Pusur, still strung out, is trying to make his own fun with that stuff. So I go out there and find a little piece of paper, and put it on top of his back.

Would you believe he managed to keep that thing on him for at least 10 minutes? All the while hoping I’d bring out the paper and play with him again? Putting it away had been quite a chore, so he’ll have to wait until tonight until I bring it out again, but Pusur was still hoping.

Eventually I tired of the photographing, and went into the living room, keeping an occasional eye on Pusur. After a while I hear him rustle. He’s on his hind legs, nosing into the plastic bag. When I look back at him, he loses his courage… If I hadn’t? I’m sure he would have tipped it over and started getting the paper out.

Moral?

Not a thing, except, a cat or two and lots of present paper and a human to help out? Extremely fun for most cats!

Someone posted on the phpBB forums, reporting that he’d had his forum defaced by a new version of the Santy.A worm.

The text this time is:

This site is defaced
::–:: NeverEverNoSanity WebWorm 2 generation 2.3 ::–::
- This time its worse, Don’t fucking try making google block us -
- The bestDeception hackers are here, and here to stay -

Source

Until someone knowledgeable gets a sample of the code, we of course don’t know if this is a real virus that will spread.

When searching Google, I find lots of weirdness here. The site has many different flavors of forums on it, and this particular link held useBB in Google’s cache. So if it now had phpBB, it was a new installation quite recently.

I found something else on this particular site that I found funny. It’s actually a 404 page, but the 404 isn’t visible on the page. You’ll only realize it’s a 404 page if you access with the right tool. Any regular visitor with a regular browser might think the site was hacked? Weirdest 404 page I’ve ever seen. See this sample.

EDIT: They’ve found other worms, exploiting the same hole. Both in phpBB and other software:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1745693,00.asp

I removed some posts about the Santy.A worm after the fact. Now I realize that the post numbers on those posts have been reused. Which means that any trackbacks now points to for instance my little essay about Digital cameras!

I guess I need to think twice before removing posts…. Not goood…

I was very surprised the first time I came across a guy with a digital camera and no home computer.

An elderly man was standing at the counter in a photo store, and had just bought a memory card for his camera. For this particular photo store, this was not problematic. Most likely the owner will help the man burn CD’s with his photos. The bigger chains will usually charge a set fee for that service, though.

A growing trend in Norway, is that people who don’t have a computer still buy digital cameras.

They save on buying film, and can choose which photos they want to print, so it makes some sense. Home printing is less common these days. Real photographic prints are cheaper than inkjet printouts, and virtually every photo store provide that service.

And for those who still want to keep the negatives so to speak - all it takes is a neighbor or friend with a computer and a CD burner, and the digital files can be archived.

Some DVD players have a JPEG viewer function, so it’s possible to use those CD’s at home even without a computer.

Who said guestbook spam is dead?

My guestbook was left alone for quite a while, but I contracted a few one timers. Then a while ago I got a persistent one. Left over 10 similar ones in a row.

I leave my guestbook moderated now, because of the spam, so I only had to clean it up inside the admin panel. And then I blocked the spammer’s IP in the .htaccess file of that directory for good measure.

Smirks.

I just caught a good number of 403’s in my error log…

I just had a talk with a friend who’s allergic to Parabens (actually, it’s a friend of my mother, she’s over 60 years old).

What that means, is that she will look like she has the measles after using a facial cream with methylparaben, butylparaben or any other paraben. Not the first time she puts it on, maybe not the second, but the third time she’ll have a problem.

She’s found something that works for her by now, after a lengthy and expensive testing phase (let’s just say her husband has very nice, well moisturized skin for his age…).

But you never know when you’ll need to change your facial cream, so I’ve been on the lookout for stuff for her, unconsciously.

I found a booklet at a store chain called Panduro here in Norway. It’s got Scandinavian language facial cream recipes. Stuff you can make yourself. It’s possible to order that booklet via mail or web
Norwegian version
It’s also available in Swedish and Danish.

They sell parabens in a jar by itself, so it should be possible to find recipes without them. They also sell everything else you might need.

OK, for those of you who don’t read Norwegian, it’s possible to find a lot of recipes online. Here are some places:
Eaudrey, care2, Pioneerthinking

Fact sheet on Paraben Allergy.

EDIT: For those of you with paraben allergy, you don’t have to forego makeup:

There are many different companies selling Mineral Makeup, and most of them do not have parabens. This kind of makuep contains only or mostly minerals, and foundation is generally in powder form (no talc). Most of them sell their lines through the internet, and if you decide to try out mineral makeup, go for a company that lets you buy inexpensive samples. Read the ingredient lists, and read up on what they mean. Most of the companies have different ingredients, and different “feel” to their makeup. Check the Mineral Makeup Mania forum for lots of information and a list of companies.

I park my car on the street in Oslo, and it’s usually parked there for at least 4 days, sometimes more. It’s a pretty nice neighborhood, but there are some hostels within easy walking range. So… there’s a risk of car theft and car break ins.

My car has been broken into three or four times. All times it’s been ransacked, but this last time they went further.

I could see the headlights were on way before I reached the car, and there was some kind of panel on the ice beside the driver side door. I assumed it was mine and threw it into the car, and got the lights off. I checked the car a bit more, and noticed they’d really ransacked it, including throwing stuff around.

So I tried to start the car, and realize my key won’t go into the ignition! So I assume they’ve broken a key off in the lock and given up.

Coming home, a long phone marathon starts. Because if I can’t get the car started, I’ll have to tow it or transport it on a hanger. I arrange for transport, but the guy can’t do it until the next day and I want to go to the country TODAY. So I tell him I’ll try fishing out whatever’s in the lock and get back to him.

I think to myself that maybe I can use a few paper clips, and find two to take with me. As I’m about to turn the computer off and head out again, I hear a voice saying: “Don’t you usually go on the net?”

It’s my own voice, inside my head. Which usually means God is reminding me of something. Sort of dry humor, in my opinion.

But it’s correct, I usually go on the web if I’ve got a problem. I go on Google, refine my search terms until I’ve got the right ones, and find out if others have had the same problem I do before me, and find out how they’ve solved the problem.

This time I find that pliers and forceps are useful, along with glue and a long piece of metal to glue the errant piece onto. Some have even used magnets.

But I bring out all my different pliers and forceps and throw them in a bag along with a camera.

Coming to the car I photograph everything. And find out that they ripped the covering off the top of the steering wheel, exposing the bolt that fastens the wheel to the car. Don’t know what for. I also discover that they’ve left keys somewhere they’re easy to spot, and somewhere I knew there were no keys before. I photograph and bag them. They might be possible to identify. Imagine that… A thief leaving an identifying key at the scene of the crime. Shakes head…

So, time to see if I can get home today. I bring out my tools, and discover that one of them is thin enough to fit deeply into the ignition. And I fish out the outermost piece of a really long needle nose pliers! They must have tried to start my car using that thing!

Really wild stuff!

But you know, even though it’s second nature to go on the web to research stuff, when something dramatic happens, it’s way too easy to stop thinking and just fall back on calling for help.

The damsel in distress…

Ugh, not my scene. I impressed the mechanic by fixing that ignition, I can tell you. He told me straight out he didn’t think I could do it. Same with another mechanic friend. He also wouldn’t have thought I could do it. And he knows me, knows what I’m capable of.

I probably wouldn’t have made it without the net, though. THANK YOU!

Update: Update your MT to 3.14, to fix some of the issues described here

Many webhosts have had whole servers go down recently, because of comment spam. This has been especially evident for those hosts with popular Movable Type blogs (same software I’m using).

The reason this happens (if I’ve understood correctly), is that the archives rebuild automatically, once a comment is posting. Add a new comment every other second for a long time, maybe even with TWO spammers going full blast at the same time, and that becomes a problem. If you’ve got several popular blogs (read: lots of attempted comment spam), and it brings the whole box down.

Moderating doesn’t help, because a new comment still triggers the rebuild. This is a flaw in the software, one I’m sure they will fix soon.

As far as I know, this particular webhost has not had any problems, but my other webhost has been hit pretty hard. They’ve installed server wide word filters on some of their boxes as a stop gap measure.

So, what did I do? Well, I don’t get that much blog spam, but it’s irritating enough when I wake up to at least 87 new comment spams, so I started thinking about ways to stem the tide a long time ago.

My first action was to get rid of B2. That software is no longer developed, and you had to either go into each post manually and remove each comment. Or you could also go into PhpMyAdmin and remove them there, which I did for a long time.

But get this: I still get many 404’s in my log from attempted blogspam from the B2 comment script!

I left the Movable Type installation alone until I contracted my old spammer - the Texas Holdem crowd.

I then tried installing James Seng’s Scode. For some strange reason it didn’t work. I’ve given up on it for now, and will try other things. But while I tried to get it to work, my comment script simply didn’t work for quite a while. And what do you know? The Texas Holdem crew got tired of it and went away! For now…

So, when I enabled the comment script again, I renamed it for good measure. Still no spam after a few days. But that could change at any moment.

So some more measures: Moderation
This only works cosmetically, in that my visitors won’t see the spam. But it’ll still tax the server.

So I changed to dynamic templates, at least for the archives. It’s easy enough to do in this version of the software, but those on an older version should upgrade.

Still no comment spam yet, but I’ve found one hack that supposedly should help:
http://jayseae.cxliv.org/2004/12/17/mt-approval_0.1.1.html

It’s built on the idea of adding something to the forms that will be very hard for the spammers to figure out and add to their scripts. I haven’t tried it yet, but I’ll keep it on my shortlist of things to do. You should see a lot of people in the comments and trackback section soon.