The Code Cave

Watch my livecast:
Brian Layman Live (Aug 17 15:36 AST)

Watch my livecast:
Brian Layman Live (Aug 17 15:36 AST)

Watch my livecast:
Brian Layman Live (Aug 15 19:46 AST)

Do you remember all the fuss made about Ralph Nader during the last election? Did you know that he hadn’t even make it onto the ballot in all 50 states?!?! 34 isn’t even close, and it’s no wonder people think the two party spiral can’t be broken when someone as gung ho and well known as Nader can’t even make the ballots. ( Read more about ballot access laws )

This year, the landscape is already different. So many people are voting for their candidate because he’s NOT the other one. That the 50 ballot hurdle has already been conquered.

On Aug 1, former Congressman Bob Barr turned in one thousand pages of signatures to the government of the state of West Virginia, to get state #50. (And yes they are still counting and verifying, but even more signatures have been collected since then, making it a pretty sure bet that WV has been won.) That means that he has already collected over 867,134 signatures from backers across the country.

So, now, people like me, who don’t think Obama has the experience required to be a strong independant president or that don’t believe McCain represents the core republican principals he’s asking to represent, now have a real choice.

If you are one of the people that count the cost of a third party vote, as we all should, consider this: what is the cost of continuing in this two party quagmire. If you vote for EITHER Democrat or Republican, you are voting against fixing the ingrown Federal system. How many times have you heard people say “There’s no difference between them. They’re all crooks.” Well, then maybe it is time for those people to do something about it. The two parties are already working to eliminate our choice. For example the debate rules have been changed so that for a candidate to be included in even the first debates, they must have enough ballot access to win and be at 15% or higher in the current polls. So your vote, if nothing else, is buying access.

Here is what I am suggesting. Reserve judgement. Find out what Bob Barr represents. Find out if there are any positions at all of his that you disagree with. This is a good place start: http://www.bobbarr2008.com/issues/ And when asked in polls and surveys, mark that you are considering Bob Barr. It doesn’t mark that as your choice in November. It only says, “I am think this person is a valid candidate and I want to hear what he has to say and I want to be informed of what he has to offer.”

Those are my words on the subject. I recommend you stop hear and go to his site to find out more. http://www.bobbarr2008.com/about/
But if now is all the time you have, here is a 1 paragraph quote from his staff:
“Bob Barr spent eight years in Congress as a Representative from Georgia. His intellect and leadership skills were quickly recognized. He rose to prominence as a result of his courageous commitment to principle. Bob Barr was and is a strong defender of your civil rights. He will fight to protect our privacy against “big brother” and he’ll defend our right to keep and use firearms. Bob will cut government spending, and taxes. And, he’ll balance our budget. Bob’s plan to tackle our national energy crisis includes embracing new technologies and conservation - but also, more domestic production and refining. ” http://www.bobbarr2008.com

It went something like this:

Be sure to join me live tonight at 9pm Eastern at http://www.RhettAndLink.com/live

This is one of the must usful features when using skype for business. Especially with an organization the size of b5media. I use shared groups to deploy blogger skype contacts to all of the b5media bloggers, the b5media Toronto Office and b5media Tech Team amoungst others. The blogger group is great becase when a new blogger comes on they instantly have access to dozens of other b5bloggers through skype.

I have personal Skype groups for b5 Third Party Contacts, for Rhett and Link, and others. The third party group is great because it contains both normal phone numbers and skype contacts. Since I have skype out, my laptop is my work phone.

This screencast demonstrates some of the features and asks some questions I don’t have the answers to:

Previous in series

Ok everyone loves to bash Vista. It’s the in thing. I get it. I run vista with the User Access Control (UAC) turned off. Once that is done, it is modern version of Windows XP with some nice features built in. Now some of these have been made available in a limited fashion in XP service packs, like this first example: the integration of the internet into the Open Dialog box.

This is one of my favorite Vista features.
I’ll demonstrate in this video:

I have been here.  I know  what both of them are feeling.

“I forgot all about the air hockey table….  ***aaaaaaahhhhhhhh***â€

(It would have been so easy to drive overtop of my friend’s little Saturn when she was lead the moving van I was driving through the old brick streets of Pittsburgh’s south hills… It was sooo tempting…)

This is actually my second time co-hosting the WordPress Podcast.  Episode 42 had unexpected delays in post production and much to my own chagrin, I suggested that it was perhaps a but too dated and should be re-recorded.  It saddens be because 42 was such a perfect number to join the podcast on…

But now with Jonathon away for the week, I’ve had another chance to join my friend Charles Stricklin online.  Please join us and give the show a listen.  Here’s a link to share if you like it:  http://is.gd/GFG

WordPress 2.6 has been been trouble.  There’s been confusion about whether it would be out in July or August.  There was one date in the road map, and one in Trac.  On Sunday night, Charles Stricklin and I recorded episode 43 of The WordPress Podcast and I stuck with the August date that was in the Trac tool used for development. 

Then the next day Ryan Boren sent this reply to the WP Testers mailing list the next day:

Ah, well you win some you lose some.  At least I wasn’t the only one who thought it would be August.

Since then a much more controversial debate has arisen.  Westi made the announcement that WordPress 2.6 would have the XMLRPC feature turned off.  XMLRPC is the technology that allows programs like Windows Live Writer, MarsEdit, ecto and other external blog editors use to communicate with your WordPress blog.  Here is what Westi had to say about it in his announcement:

Mac software developer and MarsEdit creator Daniel Jalkut believes this to be a fundamentally wrong choice.  He’s said so on the wp-hackers list and on his website:

I think that’s somewhat misleading.  It makes people think that the switch has to be set  over and over again.  It is much more like, when you open a savings account, checking either the box that says you want an ATM Debit card and/or the box saying you want to access the account through the online site. Eliminating either of those options would make your money more secure.

I agree that there is an issue with people upgrading and finding that MarsEdit, Livewriter or whatever doesn’t work. That is easily solved by keeping the XML interface off by default on new blogs, but not changing the behaviour for upgrades.

But why not just “fix†the security issues?  Well the truth of the matter is that you can no more "fix" all security risk in xmlrpc than you can "fix" it in any software program.  It is a moving target.  New methods are thought of and software improvements introduce new avenues never thought of, even if there is a layer between the final interface and the database.  So even if WordPress was completely clean in 2.6, how can you prove that it is secure in 2.8 or 3.0.

Is xmlRPC secure in WordPress 3.0?  I don’t know it doesn’t exist yet.  But I do know if it is disabled for new blogs, that the new WordPress 3.0 blogs won’t face an XMLRPC security risk.