by anna on July 26, 2010
in of note
Look, I’ve already kind of started with a conference theme for today, so why not go all out? I know those of you who aren’t going to BlogHer next week are getting annoyed but what’s more post on the pile of the eleventy billion that are already in your reader at this point? Besides, these should work for any tech conference you might attend in the future so even if you don’t go this year, you might find that these tips come in handy some other time.
1. Powerstrip And/Or Extension Cord
Hotels never have enough outlets for tech people, particularly if you have roommates. And even if you don’t have a roommate, they never have the outlet in the right place in the room to be easily used. Do yourself a favor and throw an extra power strip in your bag and save yourself a headache later.
2. Wireless Laptop Mobile Card If You Have One
Hotels usually are not equipped to handle the wireless internet demands of tech conferences, even when they say they will be. That’s why it’s great to bring a wireless card that gives you access to a mobile network if you have one, or if you are able to tether your iPhone to your laptop, that will work as well. It’s always possible that this won’t be the case, but it’s good to have a backup ready in case there’s congestion on the network when you get there.
3. Grid-It Tech Organizer Thingy.
You might even need more than one of these Grid-It things. I have one for my smaller things like headphones, iPhone and camera batteries in my small carry-on, and then a bigger one for my laptop cord, powerstrip, Kindle charger, chargers, and any other stuff that I’m not going to need during the actual flight but that I want to keep organized and easy to find once I get to the hotel.
4. A Notebook And Pen.
Tech stuff is cool, but the only thing about using a laptop in front of a bunch of people in a banquet hall is that everyone can read everything you’re writing as you’re writing it. I don’t know about you, but this makes me supremely uncomfortable. There might be times when you want to just be able to keep your thoughts to yourself. Keep some old fashioned technology on hand just in case.
by anna on July 12, 2010
in of note
In recent months, I’ve had more and more trouble with spammers and malicious code here at ABDPBT. I’m not sure if this is a sign of more trouble across the board on the net, or just a run of bad luck, but I’ve been back and forth with Liquid Web Tech Support quite a bit recently to get spam stuff removed from my site, and this has had me thanking my lucky stars (yet again) that I made the choice to switch hosting companies when I did, because these problems are little more than a momentary headache when you have a good hosting company to help you. Back on my former company, it would be days before I would hear from anybody on tech support, and even then, I’d probably be expected to figure out exactly the source of the problem, which ordinarily beyond me in terms of tech skills.
But even with great hosting, it would be nice to just skip the BS in the first place, which was why I was excited to see that Jeff Star released an IP blacklist last week to help you keep some of the worst offenders off your site altogether. If you’re not familiar with Jeff Starr, he writes at Perishable Press and is Chris Coyier’s partner in the Digging Into WordPress project. Basically, he knows a hell of a lot more about WordPress and CSS and just about everything to do with the web than I do, and he’s gone through all of his server records looking for the IP addresses that came up the most often on his server records associated with attacks of spam, malicious code, and the like. For a detailed explanation of how he determined which IPs should be included on this blacklist, please read his whole post — it’s a pretty comprehensive process, and I feel comfortable sharing it without worrying that numbers were placed on it without careful consideration. Or because they were commie pinko IP addresses or something.
Anyway, here’s some stuff to consider and how to use the list if you’re interested in blocking these IPs:
- Bear in mind that this is a temporary solution. Blocking IPs only works until the spammer gets a new one, and they will get a new one, so this does not permanently solve anything. However, Jeff Starr says he’s noticed that the IP will continue to spam through one IP until it gets blocked, so it is worthwhile to block IPs individually anyway. That’s why he does this IP blacklist thingy and updates it on a semi yearly basis. So if you use this, bear in mind that at some point in the future it will become useless unless it is updated — it won’t hurt your site to have it, but it will cease to be effective.
- Go over to Perishable Press and copy the list, upload to your .htaccess file. There are two ways to get this thing working on your self-hosted site. One is to just go over to the post linked above, copy Jeff’s code, and paste it into your .htaccess file. If that sentence makes sense to you, *and* your hosting company gives you access to your .htaccess file, then go ahead and do it that way. If not, read below.
- Add IPs manually through Control Panel, or submit a support ticket with the list. My hosting company doesn’t allow me direct access to the .htaccess file, so I uploaded the IP addresses through my Control Panel. If you are a Liquid Web customer, you can access this through the Control Panel in a feature called IP Deny Manager. The other option is to leave a support ticket and ask them to do it for you, which would be easier for you, since the IP Deny Manager requires you to do it one by one.
Happy spam blocking!
Hey everybody, we’ve got a new featured blogger ad up and running! Please check out Liam at My So-Called Knife in the sidebar ASAP! If you’d like to participate in the ABDPBT Featured Bloggers Program, please email me and I’ll put you on the waiting list.
TWEET THIS
