Securing Our Blogging

Ever since Matt blogged about secure blogging on wordpress.com I have really had it in the back of my mind that maybe I should entertain thinking about doing something myself.   That article linked to some work that Ryan had done on securing wordpress using ssl.    There were some mixed results on that plugin, but it was a big step forward for those that required more security with ssl on Wordpress.

Personally, I spend a great deal of time on the road and find myself using public internet.    Without refraining from blogging, there was no real way to protect myself from password scrapers and packet sniffers.   It generally isn’t a large issue for people and there are many ways to secure your wordpress, but it seemed like a pretty good idea to look at ssl for logging in and the admin area.

There were quite a few things to look at when thinking about why I would setup ssl and how to do it.   First off, running WPMU would require wildcard ssl so that all domains would be covered.   As well, it would require some changes to plugins and such, but that went well.    Another thing I needed to cover as installing the ssl certification, but google is always your friend and installing on PLESK was actually extremely simple.

The plugin I decided on was from Haris.tv and it was as simple as putting into the mu-plugins folder and it works.   It is based off the work I referenced earlier from Ryan and is a way to protect the login, the admin and some other goodies.    The entire process required some thinking and I just wanted to share what I was doing in case you think about this process for yourself.

Big Shag In Provost

A buddy of mine, Trevor Schneider, has a pretty good band called Big Shag. They specialize in covering mainly Top 40 song, but still manage to fire off a few of their own original songs. I hear through the facebook grapevine that they are doing a show in Provost, Alberta at the PMI (The Flying Iguana) on March 21st, 2008 starting at 9pm! Hopefully if you are around Provost you can make it! The following is one of their original songs called “Everything”

Download - Big Shag - “Everything” (original)

I hope Rooster and the boys don’t mind that I uploaded it to my server since it was a little too slow to stream off the Big Shag server. Also, don’t forget to fix the download URL’s boys on your site

Canon PowerShot TX1

After doing some looking around and playing around with a few of the “mid range” flash high definition video recorders, I have settled on the Canon PowerShot TX1. It is a small little unit that fits inside my pocket and shoots some pretty decent HD video clips. I already have a Nikon D40 SLR for my “real” photos even though this particular camera boasts a decent 7.1 MP rating. Frankly, the 8 Gig flash card I have is enough for the small amount of videos that I put out and I am happy with that. When it really boils down to it, it was the tiny size of the camera that got my attention.

CNET didn’t give it the best rating, but mainly because they didn’t like how it was to operate. Personally, that isn’t my issue with this camera and playing around with it was similar to using other Canon cameras that I have used. It is still small enough that it is a little “difficult” I suppose. That being said, it was given pretty good reviews from readers in that same CNET article. I am happy to finally have a small flash high definition video camera!

Feedburner Entrance

I was some what surprised to find out that google had purchased feedburner, but that wasn’t the reason I was joining My entrance to feedburner was because of some issues that I was having with my feeds that were being produced off my WPMU install. For whatever reason, it wasn’t validating and wouldn’t work for a project I was doing. That led me to Feedburner.

What feedburner does is create a “burn” of your RSS feed from your web application and keeps track of the stats on that feed. It also is a place to get all your RSS feeds in one place for administration as well! I did a couple others I needed as well.

It is a great thing and I am happy to be testing it out and will report back once I get more information.

My New Feedburner RSS Feed

Ok, revolution is maybe a little strong term, but it is new to me and I know loads of people that have already burned their site feeds to feedburner.   For me, it was a logical choice because I keep putting in multimedia into my posts that seems to break my feed validation.   Regardless, feedburner manages to strip the feed down to the basics and make it validate.

My New Feedburner Feed URL 

http://feeds.feedburner.com/lifebywayofmedia

It is up to my readers if you plan on using the new feed RSS address or just stick with the old feed.   Whatever works for you!

It was a little surprising to find out on the day that I signed up that it was recently bought by google.   I am starting to wonder what else is going on with the consolidation of the larger internet service companies……

We Aren’t Really Married?

Oh boy!   Were you married in a the past year in the Dominican Republic or know someone who was?    Better start asking some questions as an inquiry is showing that there have been a “bogus” weddings” scam uncovered: (from CTV)

CTV.ca News Staff

Dozens of Canadian couples who were married in the Dominican Republic are waiting to learn whether their unions were legitimate.

Investigators have uncovered an alleged wedding scam where more than 200 Canadian and British couples’ ceremonies may have been performed by bogus officials.

The Dominican Republic has promised to issue real wedding certificates to those who were scammed, but in the meantime a number of Canadian would-be newlyweds, are waiting to learn their status.

I am sure they will issue real wedding certificates because tourism is big business.    The real question in my mind is what my religious readers will think!    If you were not “officially” married in front of your maker, did it really happen?    Most might argue that if you are getting married around the world and not in a local church you don’t seem to care anyways.    That might be the case, but that is up for debate as well.    Personally, I would be upset and my wife would most likely be very upset if this happened to us.   Not only about not “officially” being married, but just taken advantage of is enough to get me going.

Yes, I was married in the Caribbean, but no it was awhile ago

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