Category Archives: Linkery

Ottopress – A New Blog

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Joseph Ducreux, original pimp.

Joseph Ducreux laughs at your nonsense.

For those of you who read this site for my WordPress knowledge, code, rants, or what have you, I’m writing this to point you in a new direction. I’ve started a new site just for that sort of thing: Otto on WordPress. Despite the name, I plan on putting other things there too, including code and other geekery.

Partially I’m doing it because I feel that I want to post more personal information type stuff here. More stuff about Memphis and what I’m up to and photo libraries and such, and my friends aren’t much into that sort of thing. Partially I’m doing it because I’d like to build more of a personal brand.

But, mostly I’m doing it because the ottopress.com domain name was available and I liked it. :)

I won’t be eliminating all geekery from this site, but it will be significantly toned down. Maybe. Dunno yet.

So, I’d suggest going over there if you like my technical rantings and ravings, since those won’t be here anymore. Also, this site may not be busy for a while. It’ll take a while to get into the swing of things, and I may start pulling more smaller microblog type posts in here. So if you want to switch your subscription around, now would be the time, while I make the changes.

For those people subscribing only to my WordPress tagged posts feed (I know there’s a few), I’ve redirected that feed now. You don’t have to switch, though you may want to. And if you suddenly got a bunch of repeat posts, that’s why. I moved a few of them over there when setting up.

So there you go.

BTW, if you’re not subscribing to my feeds, but prefer to use Facebook or Twitter, then I’ve separated some of that all out now too.

You can follow Otto on WordPress on Facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=334947428931

You can follow this blog, Nothing to See Here, on Facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=116002660893

And you can follow both of them on Twitter here: http://twitter.com/ottodestruct (Still working on this one, it’s not 100% reliable yet).

Twitter Geolocation

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Heard of geotagged tweets yet? Not surprised, a lot of my friends seem to have not caught on to it, so I’m writing this in a possibly futile attempt to get them to try it out.

How to add your location to your tweets

1. Turn on Geotagging. To do this, go to your Twitter settings page. Down under the “Location” section is an option to enable geotagging. Turn it on.

Twitter Settings

2. Get a Twitter client that supports Geotagging. These are generally mobile applications. Tweetie 2 for the iPhone added support for it in 2.1. Several other clients support it as well. Find one.

3. Turn it on in your client. How you do this depends on the client, but it can usually be enabled on a per-tweet basis.

Here’s an example of how it works and looks in Tweetie 2 for the iPhone.

First, you type in a new tweet, and pull open the drop down.

Next, you enable the geotag feature, and you'll see a little red pin appear.

You'll see little maps on tweets with locations attached to them.

Click on the map icon for greater detail.

You can do more with your Twitter location too. For example, this website will read your twitter feed and get your latest location, then send it over to Fire Eagle, which is Yahoo’s location service. Fire Eagle can do all sorts of things, but basically it’s just a service that stores your location for other programs to use. So if you want to display your location on your blog, or on Facebook for your friends to see, or anything else you can think of, you can do that, using nothing more than your already existing tweets.

Why I won't give you my phone number on Facebook

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Why won’t I give you my phone number on Facebook?

Because if you knew what you were doing, you wouldn’t need to ask me for it.

I was reading through my normal morning selection when I ran across this article on TechCrunch detailing how they tricked a bunch of people into giving up their phone number openly.

People, this is unnecessary. Why are you falling for this kind of nonsense?

If you lose your phone, here’s how to get those numbers back. More to the point, here’s how you can get your number to your friends *without* having them ask for it and without it being public knowledge.

Continue reading →

How to find a backdoor in a hacked WordPress

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Edit: This post has moved to here: http://ottopress.com/2009/hacked-wordpress-backdoors/. Take your comments there.

Over here, Jorge Escobar is writing about how he got hacked with the latest version of WordPress. After some minor back and forth on FriendFeed, I got him to do a search which found a malicious backdoor he might not otherwise have found.

In so doing, it occurred to me that most people don’t keep up with the world of WordPress in the way I do, and so have not seen nearly as many hack attempts. So I figured I’d post my little contribution, and show people how to find hidden backdoors when cleaning up their hacked sites.

Non-technical users can safely ignore this post. :)
Continue reading →

Bob Dylan to be new voice of GPS system

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According to the Telegraph, Bob Dylan has been approached by multiple GPS manufacturers to be the voice of their GPS system.

While this is ludicrous on the face of it (having listened to Bob for many years, let’s face it, clarity ain’t his strong suit), I find that the best part of the whole story is what people have to say about it. Some of the comments on Digg about this development are truly the greatest remarks I’ve ever seen.

There’s the predictable ones about his clarity, or lack thereof:

“tuhhhhh lef at the lighhhhh”

What?

The natural comparisons to other celebrities doing GPS directions (such as Arnold Schwarzenegger in this case)

“Dis Twaffic sucks. GET TO DAH CHOPPA!”

Or Alan Rickman, which had this as my own contribution:

Hello.

This is

Alan Rickman.

You need to take

a left

in

two hundred

yards.

Do not disappoint me.

And this one:

BILLY MAYS HERE. TURN RIGHT AHEAD POINT 1 MILES.

Or an R. Lee Ermey one:

“I SAID RIGHT YOU WORTHLESS WASTE OF SHIT, I HAVEN’T SEEN DRIVING THIS BAD SINCE I LET MY WIFE DRIVE”

“IF GOD WANTED YOU ON THE TURNPIKE HE WOULD HAVE MIRACLED YOUR ASS ON THERE BY NOW.”

Of course, reworked song lyrics:

Come gather round people wherever you are,
And thank you kindly for using on-star,
And I will help you to maneuver your car,
For the trip you are arranging!
So don’t miss that turn,
And don’t go too far!
Oooh, your destination is a-changing!

Even a pretty decent meta reference comment:

Well, in these modern times, I’m not sure this would be street legal. I mean, when you’re going down highway 61, I’d imagine you’d be fine. You and John Wesley Harding can gaze at the Nashville skyline all you want while using the GPS. But when you’re on those back roads, the system might miss some railroad tracks, leaving you stranded with a slow train coming. If you don’t know to move, oh mercy, there’s going to be blood on the tracks. I can see why one would desire such a GPS, though, as they’ve saved many people from having to drive in circles until the new morning before finding their destination. Well, I guess the times, they are a-changin’, and when you’re out on the road, under a blood red sky and trying to bring it all back home, a GPS will definitely keep you from freewheelin’ for too long.

Digg comments are often a wasteland of human misery and suffering (not as bad as YouTube comments, but close), however this one is pretty good and worth checking out.