Category Archives: Web Hosting

Adventures in web hosting.

Blake Ross is an inspiration

As a Firefox Campus Rep, I get a box of Firefox goodies to use while promoting Firefox on the USC campus. A few days ago, I received a box for this year. It contains a book called Firefox for Dummies, by Blake Ross.

I have to be honest. I’ve always been a little hesitant to pick up “for Dummies” books because they’re a huge series, which reeks of mass media and brainless fluff. With a title including the word “Dummies”, who can take it seriously? As usual, I was wrong. These books are often full of good stuff.

Firefox for Dummies is no exception. It’s written by the main man himself, Blake Ross, co-creator of Firefox. There’s no better person to write a book on this topic, and he’s fully equipped and a heck of a lot more knowledgeable than me.

Despite his stunning credentials, he comes across as humble and down-to-earth, at least in my opinion. Here’s an excerpt from the introduction: Continue reading

Unintentionally distributed badware “may harm your computer”

Here’s an interesting blog post about a website which was hacked to distribute malware. This has also happened to me on my sites, and it’s a really insidious problem. More and more websites on the internet are dynamic. This typically means that they’re user collaborative. Social sites like Facebook and others are quickly expanding and becoming huge, open platforms. While this can be good, it also means a lot of potential attack points and a lot of serious risks, especially when personal information is involved. In the case of Facebook, there’s actually little protection for the users regarding what application developers can do. This is great because this gives developers a lot of flexibility to do truly innovative things. But the downside is pretty bad. Facebook has already taken steps against this by instituting spamminess filters, though these are not perfectly accurate. And as we try to protect users more and more, developers are going to lose the freedoms they once had.

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Spammers are crafty, but silly too

I’ve been struck by the stupidity of the spam I’m seeing. I see tons and tons of spam everyday, from comments on my blog, to posts on Google Community, to your typical email spam. The spam that’s hitting forums today includes plenty of your typical trashy, obvious spam. But buried deeply I find lots of other tricks spammers are trying to pull, especially ones who try to pass off as real users. Yes, they’re not using an automated bot, but they are posting self-promotional topics where it’s not allowed. Here are a few examples for your amusement. I’ve seen better and worse. Continue reading