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July 31, 2007

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Written by James Opiko · Filed Under General Updates | Leave a Comment 

Daylight Savings Time - Action Required!

March 12, 2007

Daylight Savings Time was pushed forward three weeks ahead of the “normal switching” time — meaning you must patch your computer in order for it to display the correct time. This might not be critical for most systems, but is definitely so for computer systems that process information in real-time.

Daniel Pentecost, Director of Enterprise Services - Telarus, Inc. & ShopforT1.com, examines the implications, and offers tips:

In case you haven’t updated [Sunday Morning (2am) -- March 11, 2007] your computer yet, here is what you need to do:

As you have probably heard on the news or radio, Daylight Savings Time (DST) changes this year. The changes, signed into law a couple years ago, mean that DST starts this weekend.

If you are running on Microsoft or Apple software, there are a couple things you need to do - unless you want to be an hour late for all your appointments for the next 3 weeks.

1) Update your operating w/ the latest patches.

Windows XP must be upgraded to Service Pack 2 prior to installing the DST fixes. Free updates are not available from Microsoft for anything older than WinXP SP2. OSX 10.3 users and higher can get updates from Software Update.

For XP users, go here: http://update.microsoft.com . You might want to turn Automatic Updates on while you’re at it.

For 2000/ME/98 users, you will need a 3rd party utility. I personally recommend the one from IntelliAdmin: http://www.intelliadmin.com/ . Click on “Downloads” and scroll down to the Freeware section. Download and run the one called “Windows NT/2000/XP/2003 Daylight Saving Time Fix” or “Windows 98/ME Daylight Saving Time Fix” depending on which system you have.

OSX users, run Software Update - if it has not already run automatically - and you should see the DST update show in the list.

2) Update your calendar applications. Yep, that means you have to update Outlook.

If you are running Outlook 2003, Outlook 2002, or Outlook 2000, you will need to run the Outlook Time Zone Data Update tool. If you’re running on Outlook 98 or older, you’ll have to upgrade to something created in this century.

First, read this Knowledge Base article so you know what you’re getting into: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931667/en-us

Next, update your Office installation. Click on “Check for Updates” here: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/downloads/FX101321101033.aspx

Then, download the patcher: http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/e/9/6e9c86d7-9215-44d9-8b77-b91e95fac778/tzmove.exe

Note: If you don’t run the patcher, any events that occur during the weeks that were not previously covered by DST will be off by an hour.

For more information, see: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA102086071033.aspx

3) Any other application you are running which uses dates and times probably needs an update or will need to be changed manually. Examples include:

  • - Windows Mobile devices (i.e. SmartPhones & PDAs)
  • - Palm Devices
  • - Palm Desktop
  • - Entourage
  • - Phone systems
  • - Voicemail systems
  • - VCRs
  • - TVs
  • - Anything with a clock in it.

Have a great weekend! And don’t forget to set your non-Atomic synced clocks up an hour before going to bed on Saturday.

Warm regards,
Daniel Pentecost
Director of Enterprise Services
Telarus, Inc. & ShopforT1.com

Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time Seize the Daylight: The Curious and Contentious Story of Daylight Saving Time

Written by James Opiko · Filed Under General Updates | Leave a Comment 

The 50 Most Important People on the Web

March 6, 2007

Here’s who’s shaping what you read, watch, hear, write, buy, sell, befriend, flame, and otherwise do online.

Writes: Christopher Null — PC World

Despite what Time magazine would have you believe, you are not the most powerful or influential person on the Web. At PC World we love online personals, social networks, and videos of people falling on their keisters as much as the next person, but without the folks who create the Craigslists, MySpaces, and YouTubes of the world, much of the Web’s potential would be lost among spam sites and other online detritus.

So who’s making the biggest impact online? We considered hundreds of the Web’s most noteworthy power brokers, bloggers, brainiacs, and entrepreneurs to figure out whose contributions are shaping the way we use the Web. We whittled the list down to the top 50–well, actually the top 62–people, but as you’ll see, there are some you just can’t separate. And don’t despair: Get a little more traffic on your Web site, and you may show up on the list next year.

– Continue Reading

Written by James Opiko · Filed Under General Updates | Leave a Comment 

Combating BookMark Site Spam - Scuttle BookMarking Script

November 21, 2006

Over the last few weeks a spammer utilizing an automated spambot has been posting bookmarks at the rate of 800 a day, in our bookmarking sub-domain: mybookmarks.afroarticles.com — mostly bookmarks leading to Finance and Debt Management sites. Our bookmark utility utilizes a script by scuttle - a web-based social bookmarking system that allows multiple users to store, share and tag their favorite links online.

Scuttle which is based on an open-source project does not have a built in admin system, therefore to get rid of spam/spammer — you must delete the user and spam tags directly from your mySQL database — which in most cases is accessible using a utility like phpMyAdmin — available via your website control panel.

phpMyAdmin allows you to administrate all of your mySQL databases. To learn more about this tool, please look at the phpMyAdmin help page and/or refer to your web hosting company’s tutorials.

It’s needless to mention that you must BACKUP your database before chopping off anything from you database.

Using phpMyAdmin, locate the offending users ID as follows: Under the TABLE field look for “sc_users” where “sc” is the table prefix you chose when installing Scuttle — Click on the BROWSE icon and delete the offending user. Next browse “sc_bookmarks”, “sc_tags” and “sc_watched” and delete everything referencing the unwanted bookmarks/tags.

Remember to record the “offending” IP addresses. You may have to do a lot of deleting: We had to delete close to 10,000 tags generated by this spammer.

Someone has come up with an SQL query that you can run on the database – Click here for details (Proceed Carefully!) OR just delete them manually as outlined above.

Other measures you should take include:

  • Renaming the registration file from the default “register.php” to “somethingelse.php” — just make sure that you make adjustments on all pages where “register.php” is referenced.

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  • Track the IP address of the offender and block it in your .htaccess file or firewall if you are hosting your website on your own server. In our case we blocked the following IPs: 65.11.90.236 [Host Name adsl-11-90-236.mia.bellsouth.net], [5.11.90.236] [70.86.181.226] [72.153.248.224] [72.249.16.14] [207.58.144.162] | You may block a partial IP address, for example: 65.11. — but be careful because you will be blocking a whole lot of people who’s first two IP octets match 65.11. Note: The IP address - 70.86.181.226 reverses to gator50.hostgator.com - Implying that the automated script might running on a HostGator Server (installed by a “spammer client”)  - the same hosting company we use for this website - We reported this spammer to Hostgator accordingly.

It would be nice if Scuttle released the next version of their script with some admin tools — not everyone is a programmer! — and/or someone should come up with a MOD with admin functions to help make users “toe the line.”

Note: With Scuttle you don’t have to start from scratch: the application allows you to import your browser and del.icio.us bookmarks. To import bookmarks from your del.icio.us account, go to http://del.icio.us/api/posts/all, log in using your del.icio.us username and password, and save the XML file to your computer — then log into your scuttle account, click on “add a bookmark” followed by — “Import Bookmarks from del.icio.us.” For good measure you can also import your bookmarks(favorites) from your browser — Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Netscape.

As social bookmarking roots itself in Web 2.0, spammers, hackers and vandals will attempt to exploit every weakness in it’s defenses. Email is ruined, in my opinion. Is social bookmarking next?.

Written by James Opiko · Filed Under General Updates, Marketing, Web-Dev-Design | Leave a Comment 

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