Category: Just Saying …

I have several web sites that sometimes get attacked by form spammers. You know, those automated form submissions that have a bunch of links in them, usually to undesirable sites.

So a good technique to frustrate (and block) them is always a good thing. And I found one, which I wrote up in my “Security Dawg” site. It takes a bit of PHP programming skill (mostly typing), but it seems to be working well on those sites that have gotten it.

You’ll find the details here: Defeating Form Spammers. Try it out (make backups, first).

In other news. Hot. Not Mohave Desert hot, and not as hot as Rocklin (CA), and not humid. But hot for here (in the 90’s). (Those of you in hotter or humid-er climates can complain all you want in your own blogs.)

But I have AC at the office, at home, and in the car. And the car (although black in color) is in a shaded parking garage at work, and the garage at home.

So my plan is to avoid the outside. So far, so good.

I’ve been fighting a malware attack on a WordPress-based site I manage. Many hours of investigation and recovery.

And my conclusion?

Don’t use FileZilla (an FTP client program).

Not at all.

The reason? Take a look at my SecurityDawg site (www.securitydawg.com ) for the details.

This just in: the volcano that may have inspired the legend of Atalantis is rumbling again. In related news, the Mayans are saying “I warned you!”.

You heard it all here first. (Yes, both of you.)

Last night, I did the final tweaks to a new web site I built for my friend Larry Gaian, the master BBQ’r. You can see his delicious efforts at TheBBQGrail web site (which I also do the programming for) at http://www.thebbqgrail.com . It’s a great site for all things BBQ.

The new site is a place to find all things BBQ, from rubs and sauces to blogs and message forums. It’s called “BBQ Grails List”, and can be found at http://www.grailslist.com .

I kind of like the design of the place. The letters in the logo are built to evoke the burning coals of a BBQ. The boxes for each category are built with a “masonry” add-in I found. I like how the boxes flow together like a rock fireplace automatically. If you refresh the page, the category boxes are displayed in a different order each time, but the masonry effect keeps them together.

The site has some advertising, using scripts from Amazon and Google Adsense. The ad content is supposed to be mostly BBQ-related items. So the site is ‘live’ and you will find some good items in most of the categories, along with links to the item’s web sites.

There’s been a bit of tweaking to some of the other sites, including putting some historical family pictures on the family web site. I found a great PHP-based program that automatically displays pictures in a folder. The style of the gallery pages is somewhat customizable, but the code is nice because it is all one file, so easy to implement in a web site. If you are interested, you will find the web site for that code here Single File PHP Gallery 4.1.1 .

I’ve also been working on the new version of CellarWeb Ads , which is a program I built to easily display ads on a web site. It’s been around for over a year, and I have had almost-daily downloads of the code, but nobody has bothered to use the “Donate” button. That’s OK, I suppose, since I learned a lot about PHP programming as I wrote it.

In fact, most of my web sites are learning experiences. There is very minimal revenue received as a result of my efforts, but they are interesting to create.

As for the weekend, the weather is starting to get nice here in the high desert of Utah. So some lawnmowing, and perhaps a bit of vegetable planting in my small garden. The grandkids like to pick peas, so those are on the list. And the strawberry plants are starting to blossom.

Saturday. Not quite Spring around here. Cloudy, chances of rain and thunderboomers, and perhaps a bit of snow in the mountains. Which means that no lawn mowing today. Not that the lawn needs mowing. It’s just starting to turn green. The lawn was planted via sod from Idaho, and the grass is just starting to think about greening up.

Working on an update to CellarWebAds (my free ad placement program). In the finals on this one; working on tweaking the docs, and some minor interface changes to some of the data screens. Plus some final testing of the whole process.

Along with that, final tweaks on a new site for the BBQ Grail. It needs to have CellarWebAds to help with the rotation of ads, so both are on today’s to-do list.

And, some work on the family historical site, uploading some ancestral pictures and implementing them into the family wiki. So I do have enough to keep me busy.

If I can drag myself away from the “Joe Pickett” book series (by C. J. Box). I have enjoyed reading those stories on my Nook. I am at the 10th in the series, and quite enjoy them.

An important part of information security is making your data available, and keeping that data available. Loss of data can be a minor inconvenience, or it can kill your business. And it is not just businesses that need to worry about data loss.

Think of your personal data. All of those pictures on your camera, your phone, your laptop, or your computer. Or even the non-electronic data like printed pictures, slides, important papers, journals — the list is almost endless. Protecting that data from different kinds of loss is important to a business, and to individuals.

And there are lots of ways to back up that data, no matter what it is. On a personal level, you can copy files to CD/DVDs, or to an external hard drive (USB thumb drive, external hard disk). Those are valid solutions. But only if you remember to do them. And then there is the storage issue. Where do you keep these backup copies? Keeping them in the same physical location protects the data — until there is a flood, or a fire, or tornado, or a theft, or … well, the possibilities for data loss have not been fully mitigated.

One of the solutions I have used for a couple of years is an on-line backup service. The service I use is from Carbonite (www.carbonite.com), and costs $59/year for unlimited, automatic on-line backup. Tree important words in that statement. Unlimited backup takes care of all of my files at the same basic cost. Automatic means that I don’t have to worry about doing it. And the third important part is “on-line” — the data is stored off-site in ‘the cloud’.

With Carbonite, everything is automatic. I install the software on one computer at home (they have a multiple-computer plan also). I designate the folders to back up. The Carbonite software automatically copies my files to their servers, over my Interwebs connection, and does it with a minimal impact on my other on-line activities. If I make a change to a file, that changed file is added to the backup list.

And it is all done automatically. It meets the requirements for keeping my backups current; the files are available if I need them; and I don’t have to remember to do anything.

But what about the multiple computers around your house? You may have a couple of laptops or  desktops at your house. How do you keep all of your computers backed up?

With Carbonite,  you have to pay for one yearly subscription ($59) for every computer you back up. If you have multiple computers at home, that can start getting expensive. A bit of adjustment on your end will fix that.

In my case, the desktop computer downstairs is Carbonited. That computer, plus our two laptops, are all networked together. So a process of copying data from laptops to desktop gets our laptop files as part of the Carbonite backup. That’s done with the free Microsoft SyncToy, which syncs the files from laptop to desktop.  It’s pretty fast (much faster than a straight copy command), since it only works on files that have changed.

So my important personal data is backed up with Carbonite. There are other services that perform similar functions; some have better pricing for multiple computers. But my data is safe from a local (home) disaster, and it is mostly hands-free.

Got this in my email today:

Hi,

Just writing to let you know our trip to Madrid, Spain has been a mess. We were having a great time until last night when we got mugged and lost all my cash,credit card cellphone It has been a scary experience, I was hit at the back of my neck with a club. Anyway, I’m still alive and that’s whats important. I’m financially strapped right now and need your help. I need you to loan me some $$, I’ll refund it to you as soon as i arrive home.Write me back so i can tell you how to get it to me.

Regards, Kenneth

This is quite sad. Poor Kenneth. Stuck in a foreign country, no cash, no credit cards, so he can’t get home. I should send him some money to help out.

Except I don’t know a Kenneth. Even if I did (and this scam sometimes is from a name you recognize), not a good practice to send money to someone without verification. Unless you don’t care if you ever see that money again.

These types of messages might come to you from you “cousin” or “granddaughter”, and might include information that seems valid. But it is a scam.

Be careful out there!