Monthly Archives: August 2008

Victoria’s Better Web Posse Disbanded?

Posted on by
1

Gels Saby Demoing at DemoCamp Victoria

While at An Event Apart SF, I went to look up something on the Victoria Better Web Posse’s site, and was saddened to find that it’s offline, “Address Not Found”. I’ve emailed Gels Saby hoping to find out the status, but haven’t heard back from her yet.

Joan McIlmoyl Cleghorn on the Victoria Linux User Group (VLUG) wrote

As I understand it from someone who was a member of Web Posse, it has folded. OTOH, WEAV amalgamated with Big Blue & Cousins about a year and a half ago. Currently, a former WEAV member is running a Web Tools Special Interest Group monthly.

If this is the case, this is a big bummer. I found the Better Web Posse to have a refreshing design focus lacking from WEAV before it and Big Blue & Cousins still today. The Better Web Posse brought together many talented designers, developers and other workers of the web.

It seemed like Gels and a few other people did a lot of work to bring the posse together. Thank you!

WordCamp Kicking Ass Passionate Video

Posted on by
3

Any way I put together the title it was this long monstrosity, so I just removed the filler words and then some.

So, one of the WordCamp SF sessions that I was eagerly awaiting the video being available to share is Kathy Seirra’s “Kicking Ass and Creating Passionate Users”:

Kathy Seirra is one of my favorite speakers, because she makes me feel like I can kick fleshy parts you sit on too!

Quebec’s Anti- Open Source Policy

Posted on by
1

Peter Nowak wrote a CBC article yesterday about Quebec being sued for not accepting software contract bids:

“Government buyers are using an exception in provincial law that allows them to buy directly from a proprietary vendor when there are no options available, but Facil said that loophole is being abused…”

The article has the tantalizing title of “Quebec government sued for buying Microsoft software“, but the heart of the matter is that Quebec is being sued for not accepting other bids. This policy is an anti-competitive business practice, and by effect anti- open source.

Continue reading →

Drupal Camp Victoria next Weekend

Posted on by
Reply

Drupal Camp Victoria LogoDrupal Camp Victoria is happening all day Friday and Saturday Sept 5th and 6th. It’s hosted by North Studio at their training center, 301-771 Vernon Ave (plaza just coming into Victoria, near Save-On-Foods, Walmart).

It’s a free event, and if your work is any way related to the web, you will be missing out if you don’t attend. Register now before the event is full.

Besides, we need to support the grass roots Victoria tech scene — stop the Vancouver tech drain ;-)

Dave Olson points out that it’s “strategically scheduled for the same weekend as The Great Canadian Beer Festival”. So it seems safe to expect a good turnout from Drucouver. I know Boris Mann will be in attendance, and participating.

I hope to at least make an appearance. I’ll be looking for opportunies for WordPress collaboration. But me making it there is based on the whim of my baby son — and I won’t have it any other way.

Broken WordPress Plugin or Theme, Blame Me

Posted on by
35

WordPress community superstar and regular web tools collection contributor Jeff Chandler (jeffr0) recently published a passionate article, “Stop Blaming The WordPress Team“. The article is about plugin developers blaming WordPress for too frequent updates without testing of popular plugins. His conclusion ends “So the next time you upgrade WordPress and realize your favorite plugin is broke, don’t blame the WordPress team, blame the source.” There are almost 200 comments on the article, and reading through them I imagine almost all perspectives are represented.

My hope is you don’t blame anyone. Maybe, it’s the core WordPress developers fault, maybe it’s the plugin or theme’s author, but that matters much less than everyone involved staying positively pumped.

The worse possible outcome is plugin developer and theme designer exhaustion. These people are as much the WordPress team as anyone is!

Thank contributors. For many that is all the compensation they are looking for, but don’t berate the contributor that is looking for more.

The blame game doesn’t help. Instead, if the plugins or themes you use are a gift to you (free), blog about, comment on forums, write the authors directly thanking them for the work that you miss because it isn’t working with the newest version of WordPress. Why wait till there is a problem, thank them today.

If you really need to blame someone, blame me. I can take it.

Canadian Moose Spotted in Beijing

Posted on by
2

For years when people ask if I have any siblings, I’ve said, “Yes, I have a brother. He looks like me, but is a taller, strong version. A real Canadian Moose.” And I’d raise my shoulders and pretend to flex.

My brother living in Beijing was described in a Metro News article as “[sporting] a tall frame and sandy brown hair.” The article quotes his advice of tolerance:

“People yelling “hello” at you, asking to take their picture with you, staring, or commenting on the sharpness of your nose — they don’t mean any harm by it,” he said good naturedly.

Movable Type and TypePad Passwords in Plain Text

Posted on by
Reply

“If Movable Type was as popular, and under the same amount of scrutiny, I can’t imagine they would still be storing passwords as plain text.” upset at least one reader of “Movable Type Pro, Setting Social Networking Free, Vaporware, WordPress, BuddyPress“. His comment wasn’t polite, so I’ll answer without here without publishing it or calling attention to the comment author.

While working on the TypePad and Movable Type AtomPub Exporters (still in progress), programmer Ronald Heft Jr had a problem interacting with the WSSE authentication both use. The problem ended up being in his own code, but it also led to some interesting observations about how the authentication works.

TypePad doesn’t require as secure code.

  • TypePad can handle the WSSE nonce either base64 encoded or plain text. Movable Type requires the nonce to be base64 encoded. Ronald had been using base64 on the nonce from the beginning, and TypePad accepted it. The APE does not encoding the nonce, so it works with TP but not MT.
  • TypePad allows the same nonce to be used multiple times, while Movable Type requires a new nonce for each request. The AtomPub library Ronald had been using did not regenerate the nonce as it was centered around TypePad. Once he started giving a new nonce for each request, MT started authenticating.

This is a good reminder that allowing programmers a less secure option, and they will likely take it because they trust you, and have other deadlines.

WSSE authentication is inheritantly insecure.

When Ronald looked in his Movable Type database he found that the passwords were stored in plain text. WordPress remote access development lead Joseph Scott explains that the only way to support WSSE is to store the passwords in plain text on the server, which is one of the reasons why WordPress won’t be supporting WSSE.

Movable Type Pro, Setting Social Networking Free, Vaporware, WordPress, BuddyPress

Posted on by
7

Six Apart VP Anil’s response today on the official Six Apart blog to my Movable Type Pro Introduction video parody doesn’t surprise me, but where is the link love?

Continue reading →

Movable Type Pro with Comments

Posted on by
13

I’m sure Movable Type Pro is a fantastic product, but when I watched the introduction video in the announcement article I wasn’t feeling the “profoundly powerful new set of capabilities that shows the web where blogging is going next.”

I thought it was ripe for parody, and so here is my voice-over:

Update: Six Apart shared my video with all of their customers, but gave no link love or attribution to me (no Lloyd Budd anywhere in sight), see my response “Movable Type Pro, Setting Social Networking Free, Vaporware, WordPress, BuddyPress“