It looks as though someone has hacked my wordpress installation. I’ve found some javascript in the footer template and removed it. I hope that fixes it. Looks like I need to update my installation, and maybe check some other things.

I’ve also upgraded to wordpress 3.0.1. Things should be safe now – we’ll see if google agrees.

I’m testing out Google’s Friend Connect – you’ll notice it over there in the right hand column. I’m really not sure what it does, or how it rates on the Good vs. Evil scale, but we’ll see. I does seem to increase page load times, though.

Update: Too Slow, and I have no Friends. So I shut it off.

My reasons are pretty simple. I want to own my content. I don’t want my social network monetized for corporate benefit, or at least I don’t want to contribute to that effort. A proprietary walled garden is bad for the internet as a means of free expression and communication.

I’ve been on e-mail since 1988, and run this site and been on IM since 1999. All that will continue.

The Internet has always been about social networks. Take control!

Really, just testing my changes to use WordPress for image hosting since my gallery is gone (sniff).

I’ve taken my photo gallery offline. It’s seeing constant comment spam attacks, and there appears to be no easy way to stop them. I’ll probably move the content elsewhere, either on a platform that allows disabling comments effectively, or move to the “cloud” via flickr or some such crappy site.

To give you an idea of the magnitude of this attack – the legitimate traffic on my gallery is between 10-20 hits a day – almost nothing. The comment spam bots hit it with 2000 hits a day. What’s worse, is that this loads the mysql server at media temple such that they’re requiring that I pay an additional $20/mo for a mysql “container” – some sort of extra virtual machine. I run a Captcha, and I’ve turned off access to comments. There must be some
hole in Gallery 2, as I’m still getting spam.

This is all because of spammers attempts to get page ranking on their scam sites by inserting links in comments on my gallery. The fact that Google is onto this gaming, and the comment spam has no effect doesn’t matter.

So, I’m annoyed at having to take time out of my day to address this, and ultimately lose the ability for independent participation on the Internet via my photo gallery. The Internet as an open, independent, non-commercial medium is at risk without regulation and enforcement to stop these chilling effects. Without regulation, all the internet will be is Google, flicker, Facebook, and MSN, soon to be mega-merged into a single AOL-like “service” .

As much as I like the look of red courier font on a black background, I finally had to admit it was impossible to read, particularly stretched across the whole screen. I’ve switched to “deep-silent” by MIF Design. I hacked in my logo, made a few other minor changes, and here it is. I really would like to design my own theme. I’ll add it to the list.

I’ve changed things so that this blog is the new front door for Atomic Spatula. Atomic Spatula users will note the “Web Mail” link in the left column. Let me know if anything is hard to find.

I added this nifty plug-in/theme from iWPhone. So this blog should be a lot easier to read
via those fun little Apple gadgets.

All I need is to re-color it retro-hacker red and black.

We’ve got e-mail problems here again. Media Temple is working on it.

Edit: It seems fixed.

I’ve updated wordpress to 2.3. Let me know if there’s any funny business