Recently there has been a large security vulnerability in TimThumb,  a WordPress plugin used throughout many many standard themes in the WordPress community. See more information about that here: http://markmaunder.com/2011/08/01/zero-day-vulnerability-in-many-wordpress-themes/

Sadly to say, I am not updating content on my own website and have many other things to think about as I’m sure most Web Administrators do. I had read the articles and thought about the latest threat to WordPress installations. However, I never actually made the connection to check my own website! There is so much happening all the time, it is almost impossible to stay up to date on all the smaller projects which are not a primary focus.

Enter google. As always.

Dear site owner or webmaster of http://seanmeadows.com/, As of the last crawl of your website, you appear to be running WordPress 3.x.x. Google recommends that you update to the latest release. Older or unpatched software may be vulnerable to hacking or malware that can hurt your users. To download the latest release, visit the WordPress download page. If you have already updated to the latest version of WordPress, please disregard this message. If you have any additional questions about why you are receiving this message, Google has provided more background information in a blog post about this subject. Best wishes, Google Search Quality Team

Because Google is constantly rescanning websites they have a unique ability to watch these sites for security vulnerabilities and provide a service for the greater good of the web user. I was unable to spend the time and effort to scan my website, but google was already doing it for search results anyway. What probably started out as a Googlers’ 20% project has now become a great benefit for all who use the web and those who run it. It helps lift some of the burden of remembering the many different place web administrators must check, scan, update, and watch as each new threat comes about. This will be an invaluable tool as the speed of vulnerabilities continues to pick up on web applications.

It makes me wonder what else a service like this could be used for? Scanning for all common attack vectors such as XSS and SQL Injection? Links to dangerous or malicious sites on your webpage?

Many possibilities.

Jumping in to my Comm180 class, we as active students and part-time employees, were asked to block out all telecommunication for our lives for a full forty-eight hours. Two days without any kind of technology. Internet, television, radio, cell phones, credit cards. A student’s life in our current society.

Personally, I was not feeling too overwhelmed with giving up technology for this assignment as I regularly go backpacking fully disconnected without cell phone service. However, I was not as ready for remaining immersed in the community without technology.

Communication with friends is completely intertwined with technology and telecommunications now. It is no longer commonly acceptable to simply show up at your friend’s place unannounced: *Knock* “Hey! Lets hang out…Oh you already have plans…Um…”. Everyone expects a quick text or a pop of a facebook chat. Plans are made as a group through instant text messages. If you are without technology and therefore do not know of the text messages for dinner tonight, you are just assumed to be sleeping. No one is going to come knock on your door. Planning ahead is required – things become less spontaneous with the lack of instant communication.

School work and classes are a whole other story. My classes are a bit biased since I am an Information Science and Technology major, however, most people I know have similar experience. Almost all classes are managed through an online course system. Assignments, attendance, lectures, slides, email from teachers. Everything related to that class is on the system. Including tests and quizzes. There is no way to avoid the online system without failing the course at the same time. This is not to say Angel (the appropriately names course management system) is bad or a problem. It is just invasive and dominates the class sometimes more than the material itself.

Telecommunication and mass media are a major part of downtime or free time. When not busy with anything else, or even when busy, Facebook and other media sites are the go to thing. Many students check sites like these many times per day as a way to stay in touch with their friends or to keep from being bored when they have nothing to do.
A NY Times article on the Effect of Tech Devices on our Brains pointed out during class opens the question of what this constant connection to technology is doing to our brains.

It is impossible to maintain work and social relationships without technology today.

Side Note: While writing this post in the library I witnessed a student working on a paper on the right half of his screen. Youtube was playing on the left half. When he got up to leave, he unplugged the headphones from the computer and plugged them directly into an ipod.

Conveniently look for the original of this post written on a papyrus scroll stored away in my basement.

This spring semester here at Penn State I am taking an exploratory course in Electronic Media and Telecommunications – Comm 180. The course is designed to explore electronic forms of communication and media in society through the past to today.

To extend the reach of the class, I will be continuing thoughts on topics from class or research ideas related on here. Find all the posts about the comm 180 experience in the category Comm 180 built weekly as the semester continues.

This summer I have made it a goal to get back to film – basically my only goal. Coupled with the ironically timed failure of my digital SLR, my beloved Nikon D70s, it was actually easy to get back to the film based Nikon N75 I had begun shooting with long ago.

Out of boredom and intrigued by the analog styles I began exploring Lomography.com daily. I love looking at all the different photographs on the site taken by other people like me – or I hope they are like me. There is such color, and freedom. It seemed as if the typical rules didn’t exist for these photos. Things were very lose and free flowing. Photos flowed into each other in the same frame or were overlaid on each other with many many double exposures. The high contrast, bright color shots were the ones that held my attention though. Such as some of these: http://www.lomography.com/photos/films/871915019-lomography-x-pro-slide-35mm-200iso/popular Without much more hesitation, I bought a pack of Lomography Color X-Pro 200 120mm film for a camera I have only used once, my Holga. I also threw in a random selection of Kodak Ektar 100 35mm just in case I couldn’t get the Holga to work. From my two films, it seems that I have a inclination to bright contrasty photos.

The film arrives in the mail a few days later and I rush to jam it into both of my cameras – almost at the same time. I manage to remember how to load the Holga from back in high school photography classes and timidly take a first photo with it. Then I remember why I switched to digital – I can feel the cost of each shutter press. Yet at the same time, the building suspense and anticipation to see the outcome of each frame makes up for that feeling of losing money.

With digital, you take countless photos of the same thing, later searching for the one that shows something artistic. With film you spend countless hours searching for that perfect scene full of artistic perspective then you capture it one moment.

Taking photos with the Holga brought back that sense of wonder. A combination of my desires to actually learn something and show that on film; and the complete unknown result of pressing the shutter. At times I found myself over-thinking compositions before snapping a photo. While other times, it was the compete opposite – I felt the freedom to just point and shoot. I thought, well I don’t know what’s going to happen anyway. Then the roll was gone. I sealed it tight and sent it off to California to be developed.

I won’t be sending my 120 film that far again as I am still dying in anticipation to get it back.

At the same time, I used the Ektar film in my first camera, a Nikon N75. I mentally reserved using this film on subjects with lots of color. I had read about this film before buying it and saw that it was recognized for vivid color. I focused on that and tried to find a style for myself. Feeling a bit more free with 24 frames as apposed to the Holga’s 16ish, I used this roll quickly. I sent it off to my favorite place: Snapfish.  I didn’t have to wait dying as long, I could see the prints online before they arrived in the mail. (The postal service must love torturing me because I am still waiting for those actual prints to arrive.)

Now I am hooked on film.

Ektar 100 low-res scans from snapfish
The results of those explorations so far:

If you’d like to comment on any of these photos, I’d love to have it over at Flickr thanks!

As a T-Mobile G1 owner, I have attempted multiple times to connect to Penn State’s campus-wide wifi. The benefits are easy to see; having high-speed internet is always a plus and it saves trouble connecting to a less stable 3G cell phone network. Finally, after a few different attempts (and some exactly the same), I found a working configuration to connect my G1 to Penn State’s wireless.

Here are the detailed steps to connect to Wireless 2.0 at Penn State. I’m unsure if the builtin VPN on the Android system supports connection to Penn State’s VPN based wireless. As of right now, Wireless 2.0 works great on the phone.

1. Enable Wifi
2. Select the psu network
3. EAP method: TTLS
4. Phase 2 authentication: PAP
5. CA certificate: Leave on N/A
6. Client certificate: Leave on N/A
7. Private key password: enter access account password
8. Identity: access account id
9. Anonymous Identity: access account id
10. Wireless password: access account password
11. Click Connect

Enjoy!
If anyone can test this at different campuses or with different Android based phones, leave your feedback in the comments. I greatly appreciate it.

I’ve overheard talk about Subversion and the similar systems for code revision history. Since I have never had a major project of my own or been part of a team coding one, I have not needed nor spent the time setting up subversion. I acknowledge its benefits – I wish I actually had a project worthy of needing a subversion system. Tracking changes, creating branches, and working in parallel with another developer all peak my interests.

Today I found myself in a situation that needed revision history. Recently, I have been doing a lot of project management work specifically with the Merlin program. After a few days working with the software, you realize how easy it is to make cascading and drastic changes with one click. String a few of these clicks together and you are trapped in a complex labyrinth with no way out in sight. That is when I felt there should be a revision system tracking changes on the project files for Merlin. Then if I cause any damage that I can’t get out of, I can roll the file back to a previous version and the clouds lift!

Makes sense right? So off I run to research Subversion and other revision systems. But wait, these are only a few files. I can’t  compare diff’s of the files because it is not code – the projects are actually saved as XML but that is just not fun to read. Do I really need to go through the trouble of setting up a repository and then using all the commands on the terminal? All I need is to track changes in a file every time it is saved. I thought, at first, subversion would be good for this. But, on second thought, it requires too much overhead to actually be useful for this task.

I also thought about using Dropbox to accomplish my goal. Dropbox is an amazing, behind-the-scenes program that I already use to backup all my documents. It also keeps all of the computers I use in sync with any files I need – I no longer carry a flash drive because of it. But the project files really need to stay local and not travel around the internet. Also, they should not be tied to my account and username. Local is key here.

As it stands, I have not found a solution. I know there must be some way to accomplish a simple task of tracking and backing up changes with an equally simple solution that works behind the scenes. Any suggestions or techniques someone has used before?

So here is the basics of my new website after my old server disappeared. I should have this completed soon and updated with new content. Check back soon!