This one is quick and to the point.

Time to disable Java in your browser. Switch to Firefox if you can. Check out these articles: http://krebsonsecurity.com/2013/01/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-java-exploit/ . also, see what I wrote and was published on Jerry Pournelle’s blog : http://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/?p=11417 .

Do it now.

In my never-ending quest to write silly web sites, I just finished another one.

This one will help you survive the coming Zombie Apocalypse with the rules that are needed to survive.

The site is www.RulesForZombies.com . You can enter new rules, vote on existing ones, subscribe to the Twitter feed, and generally waste some time.

Now that that site is done, it’s on to the next. I am looking into the best way to make a WordPress site ‘responsive’, so that it looks good on any size screens. There are many WordPress themes that have that capability, but many don’t allow for customization of the ‘look and feel’ of the site. I need to add widgets in various places, and even sub-widgets (for lack of a better term), plus change just about any component of the page with CSS style changes.

There are a few possibilities. What I would really like is a ‘drag-and-drop’ theme designer. I’ve been playing with one called “ThemeFrame” (from the folks at www.bytesforall.com who make the Atahualpa theme I have used for the last couple of years), but not sure if it will do fully responsive themes. And although it has been in beta for over a year (and I paid for the ‘early release’ because it showed promise’), I am not sure that it has all of the capabilities I need. Plus it has some rough spots that require some manual CSS tweaks.

The next project will be a highly customized WP theme, with ‘responsive’ capabilities. I’ve started the basic design, but it’s not quite there yet. Needs more work to make sure that I can get all of the elements in the theme that I need.

So there is that to keep me busy, plus the usual weekend projects: lawn, patio cleaning, and the various “honey-do” items.

Back again…

New things around here. We changed from CenturyLink/Qwest (CLQ) to Comcast for Internet and TV. Last week, CLQ had some equipment problems, resulting in web pages loading very slowly (if at all). Since both Pam and I use the Interwebs a lot (in the evenings, we site side-by-side in our respective recliners, each with our own laptop, as we both surf the web and watch TV). Pam does a lot of scrapbook (and other) shopping on the Webs, and I do my web site programming and maintenance. So a disruption in the Interwebs is not appreciated around here.

I did the support call to CLQ, after doing all of the usual things to ensure it wasn’t my home network. I told the support person all of the things I did, but (as usual), they have a script they must go through, and they don’t know how to deviate from it. After at least 30 minutes, they said that there must be a problem in their servers (!?) that would get fixed in a few days.

The next day, the Interwebs are still slow. And we both are not happy campers. The next day, no change. We were able to grab onto the neighbors’ wireless (with their permission  — they were rewarded with giant chocolate chip cookies), but by Saturday (3 days later), still no improvement.

It was then that we decided that CLQ has failed, so we started the process to change over to Comcast. That got done today (one week after ordering), with the Comcast guy taking about 90 minutes to set up everything – cable from the street (right now on top of the grass, the cable-burying team is coming next weekend), the full HD channel package, three cable boxes, HD-DVR (watchable from any room). Although we’ve been DirecTV customers for years, there are some advantages to Comcast. We’re getting more channels, and saving about $40/month.

So, today was the cable installation day, and the cable guy got everything working quickly. Then some rearrangement of the wireless routers (and the wireless repeaters) got our internal network going. There are some new channel numbers to get used to, and setting up the collections of programs to record, but it’s mostly been just fine. TV looks great, and Internet speed (according to the tests at www.dslreports.com ) are much faster, even on my laptop.

I do need to get some network wiring finished off so that not all of the systems around here are on wireless. The house has CAT5 wiring on all of the phone wiring, so that’s good – no digging into walls. But that can wait a bit.

In the meantime, I am keeping busy in the evenings with the new web sites I am working on. There are three of them (at the moment), with one in very final testing, the second in ‘almost-final’ testing, and the third in the design phase. Nothing ready to announce yet, but the work does keep me entertained.

So, that’s the way it is. For now.

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.