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Category: The Paper

  • Fun With WordPress Login Security!

    Fun With WordPress Login Security!

    And by “kinda important”, I mean “really important”. Like, security important.

    I normally trust Ars as far as authenticity is concerned, but when I first read the article, I thought ‘well…I haven’t had anything happen to my site. It might not be THAT big.’

    (But still, I added the Limit Login Attempts plugin and Google Authenticator plugin, as stated in the article to a site belonging to a client, since they use WordPress, and added the LLA plugin to GPORG–already had the GA plugin installed.)

    screenshot of an email from the Limit Login Attempts plugin

    And then, today, I got ^that^. If a random no-name site like GPORG got hit 16 times, it is probably a bit more severe than I expected. I will never doubt you again, Ars! ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)

    (See above linked article for more details, including security tips. Also check the comments for others’ inputs.)

  • Feature phones get no love

    Feature phones are AWESOME.

    • The battery on mine can last for about 2-3 weeks before it needs to be charged up. I almost never turn it off (unless if I’m in a movie theater or somewhere similar). I rarely need to worry about conserving battery life in case if I need to make an emergency call.
    • Many of them are small enough to fit into your pocket, so you won’t have to worry about breaking the screen if you were to sit down.
    • There aren’t many cool apps like Yelp or Fandango that can tell you restaurants that are open nearby or showtimes (that I know of), but SMS has a fix for that!
    • No tiny keys on touchscreen keyboards. щ(ಠ益ಠщ) (I actually kinda like touchscreens, but only when the keys are big.)

  • Great googly Twitter, WHYYYYYYYY? ;o;

    Okokok. This is a little late, but I only found out about it a few days ago. Luckily, despite their recent(ish) Facebook-level of noisyness:

    • They actually let you go by an alias. (Facebook tends to get in your face if you try to sign up with a name they think is fake. “But what if my name is Tweedledee?”)
    • Modern browsers have a setting called Do Not Track. When you check it, it tells sites to not track you (instead of actually trying to block tracking cookies or anything). It’s up to the sites to honor that request. Supposedly Twitter honors that request. Supposedly.

    In addition to Adblock (which lets you block tracking cookies), in Opera, you can go to Settings > Preferences > Content. You can either set up a profile for Twitter under Manage Site Preferences to have it block cookies (if you will never use it, but visit it occasionally), and have it not send referral info. ORRR under Block Sites, you can just block it entirely if you don’t ever plan on visiting it. Ever.

    Disclaimer: I actually have a Twitter account. But I almost never use it, since the 140 character limit is kinda useless to me. ><;; Heck, I would prefer not to have any character limit, which is why I’m wondering if there will be an option to have longer posts in App.net.

  • Dream social network, I have found you! <3

    Once upon a time, I raged about Facebook and their hilariously bad decisions in regards to users and their privacy. I then mentioned Diaspora, a decentralized social network that works by having a bunch of “pods” connect to each other, and each pod having user profiles. Each pod stores the user info, instead of on a central site.

    But ;w; there were so very few people on it.

    (more…)