Published on Saturday 31st December 2005 in Uncategorized
.
The WP Tiger Administration plugin, about which I had previously posted, has been updated to work with WordPress 2.0. The installation is just as simple as before: download the ZIP file, upload the extracted folder to the /wp-content/plugins/ folder, and activate the plugin. Modification of the the core WordPress files is not necessary. It is currently still compatible with only Firefox and Safari, but it reverts back to the original administration design in other browsers. So there are no worries of having an inaccessible admin page.
For those of you who have blogs hosted here on ask-mark.com, I will be upgrading your WordPress installations over the next several weeks. I will add the WP Tiger Administration plugin, which you can activate if you want.
Published on Friday 30th December 2005 .
Back in September I wrote a short post about the then new iPod nano. Since then, Apple has also released the new iPod capable of playing videos on a slightly larger screen, in addition to the previously supported photo capabilities. My post in September has recently been barraged with comments from readers asking how to put photos on the iPod. My guess is that this sudden spike in traffic is due to the popularity of the iPod as a Christmas gift. I made an attempt at answering this question in what I thought was a clear and concise manner:
The first thing you need is a version of iTunes that supports photos and the nano. Your best bet is to grab the latest version at Apple’s website.
After you install iTunes you can connect your iPod nano to your computer. Windows and Mac should both recognize the iPod without any extra drivers. If iTunes is not open, open it. Your iPod should appear in the source list on the left of the window. If it does not, eject your iPod (Mac) or stop your iPod (Windows) and disconnect it from your computer. Wait a few seconds and reconnect the iPod with iTunes open.
When iTunes recognizes your iPod, you can edit iTunes preferences. At this point, I only know for sure what the Windows version of iTunes will do. Select the iPod tab. There should be a tab within the iPod tab that is labeled Photos. Select that tab.
In the Photos tab, you can select folders where iTunes should search for photos. You can also let iTunes automatically synchronize all of your photos or manually select which photos should get synchronized, just like how you can setup the music synchronization. Once you update your iPod, you should have photos on it.
Apparently, I wasn’t as clear and concise as I thought I was, because I received no less than a dozen other comments from readers who were unable to follow my directions for one reason or another. I just found on Google that Apple already has a quick tutorial. So, I hope linking to this tutorial will make it easier for people to answer their own question.
I am still wondering how my simple post on the nano has received as much traffic as it has when the Apple tutorial is a first page hit on Google when asking the same question. And for those who have not read it yet, Jacqui and Clint wrote up a review for Ars shortly after the nano was released.
Updated: I updated the link to Apple’s tutorial iPod 101. Apple changed the URL slightly since I originally posted this. Thanks to WordPress stats, I was able to see the bad link and fix it.
Published on Wednesday 28th December 2005 .
Ars has a post about CBS’s try at webcasting shows. Their first attempt is being called CBS Comedy Bowl. I am particularly interested in this try at new media distribution because two of my favorite CBS shows are being webcasted without commercials: How I Met Your Mother and Two and a Half Men. I am excited that television networks are finally starting to embrace alternative distribution methods, with season DVDs and iTunes Music Store.
I hope this takes off, because sometimes our DVR doesn’t record a show because of timeslot changes (I know, I’ve gotta start using the TiVo more). I would like to be able to see these shows at a later time without having to find torrents and waiting for downloads. So, watch the webcasts so that they become a new wave of television viewing.
Published on Wednesday 28th December 2005 .
I just updated my WordPress installation to 2.0. You can get it from the WordPress Download page. Clint’s post on WP 2.0 alerted me to the release this morning. Before I upgraded, I backed up my site and databases, de-activated my plugins (important!), switched to the default theme and deleted my unmodified WP files (I kept plugins and themes). After uploading the new installation, I went to the upgrade page on my site and clicked on the button to continue with the upgrade. Then I was done 
I have taken a quick look around the new installation, and it’s impressive. The use of AJAX for the new editor is nice, although it may be a bit much for simple posting. For example, to insert a link into a post, I usually just type in the <a> tags myself. I just tried the new link button and it had to load a page into a new window! It wasn’t exactly speedy, especially when I had to type in the URL just as if I inserted my own tags.
I’ll get a chance to play with it more later, I suppose. For now, it’s lunch time.
Published on Tuesday 27th December 2005 .
This is going to be a short review, because I spent far too long checking on things and fixing other things here and there on the blog. Memoirs of a Geisha was a good movie. From a technical standpoint, the costuming, makeup, sets, music and cinematography were excellent. The greatness of the costumes and makeup were emphasized by the "metamorphosis" interlude in the middle of the movie, showing the transformation of Sayuri from slave to geisha. I would definitely recommend this movie to someone looking for a movie that tells a great story. It is definitely a movie that is shooting for some awards next year, but doing so without the flashy computer explosions or wire fighting. It is an entertaining movie done very well.
Published on Friday 23rd December 2005 in Uncategorized
.
Apparently, people don’t understand mirrors, or so say researchers as reported on PhysOrg.com:
Dr Marco Bertamini, from the University’s School of Psychology, conducted a number of experiments by covering a mirror on a wall and inviting participants to walk along a line parallel to the mirror.
He asked them to guess the point at which they would be able to see their reflection. Results showed that people believe they can see themselves even before they are level with the near edge of the mirror.
It’s amazing how little the average person knows about mirrors. You would think that a technology used by billions of people on a daily basis would be easy to understand. There is a lot to know about mirrors, but even the simple things are escaping people. How does someone not eventually realize that if he is looking in a mirror, his reflection is twice as far away from him as he is from the mirror?
There is a lot of interesting science behind mirrors and light. It’s a shame most people don’t get the appropriate exposure to it.
Published on Monday 19th December 2005 .
BlackBoxVoting.org reports that Diebold voting machines were susceptible to changes in voting results without detection. Harri Hursti has shown that plus and minus votes can be pre-loaded onto memory cards used in an election. These pre-loaded cards report zero votes when scanned before an election, but when totals are tabulated, they show the expected altered results:
This videotaped testing session was witnessed by Black Box Voting investigators Bev Harris and Kathleen Wynne, Florida Fair Elections Coalition Director Susan Pynchon, security expert Dr. Herbert Thompson, and Susan Bernecker, a former candidate for New Orleans city council who videotaped Sequoia-brand touch-screen voting machines in her district recording vote after vote for the wrong candidate.
The Hursti Hack requires a moderate level of inside access. It is, however, accomplished without being given any password and with the same level of access given thousands of poll workers across the USA. It is a particularly dangerous exploit, because it changes votes in a one-step process that will not be detected in any normal canvassing procedure, it requires only a single a credit-card sized memory card, any single individual with access to the memory cards can do it, and it requires only a small piece of equipment which can be purchased off the Internet for a few hundred dollars.
After seeing the results of a mock election to demonstrate the vulnerability, both Volusia and Leon Counties in Florida have decided to drop Diebold as a voting machine supplier. Unfortunately, there are still 1,200 locations in the US and Canada that will still use the Diebold machines. In each of these locations, there are plenty of employees with enough access to the memory cards to alter election results without detection. Physical security of the memory cards is also not high enough. The compartments that hold memory cards are protected by a plastic seal. Hursti has discovered evidence that memory cards can be reprogrammed by accessing a modem port on the back of a voting machine, without disturbing the seal.
I don’t know how Cook County handles elections. I had a punch card in the 2004 election, and it was counted by some sort of optical scanner. I do not know who manufactures those machines, but I am glad that my punch card remained as physical evidence of a vote. At least those can be counted by hand in the event of a contested electronic count. The same is not true for the Diebold machines, which do not leave a paper trail.
Latest Comments
RSSRudradev, ReinoutS, Scott, Joe, Scott, Bob, Brad, Rich, Mark, Scott
Giancola, jessi, Joe, Brad
Scott, Brad
Scott, Giancola, Scott, jessi
charles binns, Scott
Zed451 is a feast at ask-mark.com