Floodwaters by canton

Finished this during a moment in history when 2,000 Pakistanis have died and 20 million are injured or homeless as a result of massive flooding which in many ways is eclipsing the last three major natural disasters combined.

If this creative-commons released free tune gets your head bobbing and heart throbbing, I gently ask that you consider making a donation to one of these many four-star charities providing relief to those displaced by the waters.

Thank you Gmail!

Short answer: Yes!

I ran a test myself because if you search for email client support of imagemap-clicking, you’ll see everyone pointing to this article from 2007 which sadly reports that Gmail is the only significant email client that does not support HTML imagemaps.

Sometime between then and now (July 2010) Gmail added HTML image mapping support, so those of us who are in the business of designing email newsletters can rejoice and take advantage of this useful oldschool feature.

By the way, if you are an email newsletter designer and you had given up on using background images because of Outlook 2007’s terrible support in this regard, have a look at this interesting workaround.

“Il y’a un truque que m’a frappé: Tu a quatre-vingnt ans, il y’a des vins que tu ne boiras jamais.”

(This is the thing that struck me: You’re eighty years old, there are some wines that you’ll never drink.)

This afternoon I was digging through my collection of digitized cassette tapes as part of a journaling / diary project I’m looking into. One of the more precious things I stumbled on was this song I made during a music composition course while I was a sophomore at Northwestern University in 1993. The professor’s instructions were to “compose something of personal and emotional significance.” You can hear the song I composed below.

Nineteen-ninety-three was the year in which I was saddened to learn that a close family friend had died, Monsieur Du Serf. This was a gentleman I had known and loved since early in my childhood. During summer visits to my grandmother’s home in France, Monsieur Du Serf and his dog — a high strung Daschund named “U.F.O” (but prounced “ooh-foh”) – were regular visitors. He always treated me with great kindness and generosity.

A few years prior to this music composition assignment, I had started making sneaky recordings of conversations people had around me on a tape recorder. So as it turns out I was able to find a fairly recent recording of Monsieur Du Serf for the project.

The voices you hear in this composition are primarily those of my grandmother, Lucienne Bert (1912 – 2003) and Monsieur Du Serf (19?? – 1993). This pair liked nothing better than to sit around the dining room table and argue about wine and food. Discussions even about seemingly small things inevitably rose to fever pitches punctuated with table-slapping and disgusted exclamations of “baaaah!” and “ecoutez! (listen!)”. If the conversation got too quiet, Monsieur Du Serf would slip a bit of sausage or cheese to U.F.O I think just to elicit a grunt of disapproval from Lucienne.

Listening to this song again today (for the first time in the 17 year interval since it was recorded to a 4-track cassette recorder) I was moved by this conversation in which these two old friends, now both dead, were discussing what it meant to be eighty years old and buying wines that wouldn’t be ready to drink for ten or fifteen more years. In recent holidays, my mother and I have enjoyed drinking some of the very wines they discussed in this conversation.

Du Serf: This is the thing that struck me: You’re eighty years old, so there are some wines that you’ll never drink.

Lucienne: I bought some yesterday. I bought some yesterday because it gave me pleasure. I know I won’t drink them either.

Du Serf: When you’re old… when you’re old you buy wines for your <<héritiers>> (those who will inherit from you.)

This morning I flashed back to 2006 when video game maker Konami hired me to compose a dance remix of Toryanse for their Xbox release of Dance Dance Revolution. Did you listen to the melody in that video above? It is plain eerie – a definite timewarp into feudal japanese history – and making it danceable at all was a huge challenge.

All in all I think I went through 13 rounds of remixes back and forth before Konami finally settled on a techno genre tempo-warping version of the melody. Here’s an early draft version of the final mix (to which Konami still has exclusive rights):

Toryanse Techno Mix © Copyright 2006 Konami

While digging through my files this morning, I rediscovered three completely different remixes I composed that Konami didn’t like. I’m releasing the following three tracks under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. This means you can do almost anything you like with these songs — download them, remix them, mash them up, extend them, even sell them — provided that you give me credit and link back to this website.

Toryanse Urban Mix

Toryanse Dark Children Mix

Toryanse Broken Children Mix

www.FuturePrimitive.org

To extend the reach and audience for FuturePrimitive.org, the website is now connected to Facebook, Twitter and Feedburner (email) so that followers are automatically notified whenever a new episode is broadcast. Furthermore, fans can embed individual episodes as streaming audio widgets on their own websites by copying and pasting a single line of code (as is done with YouTube videos). For example, the episode you see below was embedded by inserting this single line of code:

<script src="http://futureprimitive.org/embed.php?show=142" type="text/javascript"></script>

1) No need to set the TITLE if it’s the same as the name of the page. Only set it if you want to make a bigger fancier more keyword-rich TITLE. (Not a bad idea.) at the top of the page than the name of the story itself.

2) In my opinion, you can leave the KEYWORDS field blank; consensus seems to be that these are pretty much ignored by search engines at this point because of abuse.

3) Instead, make sure your most valuable keywords appear in the TITLE and DESCRIPTION fields. This counts for quite a lot with the search engines. Don’t worry about making the description field read like a really nice sentence. On the other hand, don’t turn it into keyword salad. Strike a balance.

4) If you have particular keywords you’re aiming for (e.g. Arizona Immigration) then make sure that the PERMALINK (URL) contains those keywords, even if they’re not in your title. Keywords appearing in your URL make a huge difference, so don’t just accept the WordPress-generated URL without giving it a look-over.

And just to go all meta on you, look below for the TGFI settings used on this very post with which I am trying to attract web visitors searching for tips on using the TGFI.net SEO plugin. Notice I’m using both “plugin” and “plug-in” to account for both searches.

The TGFI SEO settings for this post

Mark had purchased the domain name for WorldTreeChocoaltes.com some time ago, and last week in a frenzy of chocolate-induced mania, we planned, designed, and launched his new website in under four hours. (We cheated some by starting off with one of my favorite off-the-shelf WordPress templates.)

The site doesn’t have a shopping area yet, so you’ll have to be patient before you can purchase your own soul transporting confections from Mark. However, the website we put together does include a blog, essays on chocolate history, and best of all: chocolate recipes. You can also subscribe to his blog via email so that each of Mark’s missives are delivered directly to your IN box.

"The Ancestral Puebloan peoples (commonly known as the Anasazi) had drinking chocolate brought up from Mesoamerica for use at Chaco Canyon. The medicine people, who were also astronomers and astrologers, used this chocolate elixir only in a ceremonial fashion..."

Click here to continue reading Mark’s post on how to replicate Mesoamerican or Ancestral Puebloan styles of drinking chocolate.

www.mmdfrance.fr

To distinguish MMD from its competition, the goals for this redesign included:

• Becoming content-driven: Focusing attention on MMD’s 10 years of expertise by deploying a blog made up of tutorial videos, tips, and free “maps” for download
• Making the human connection: Demonstrating that MMD is operated by real and approachable people with unequaled experience in their field.
• Simplifying content management: Using WordPress, MMD can easily update nearly 100% of their website content using a web browser. Adding new training videos or products takes minutes.

And now (as of WP version 2.9) it’s also possible to crop and rotate your images from within WordPress. No Photoshop required! Watch this video to learn how.

Click above to see how to use the WordPress "Edit Image" function

This site is 100% WordPress powered, meaning that as new Earth Treasure Vases are buried, the client can edit the content, photos, videos etc. without assistance.

www.EarthTreasureVase.org

1. Backup your WordPress database and wp-content directory
2. Reinstall WordPress from scratch (the latest version, of course)
3. Restore your database and wp-content directory

Next, you need to make sure there are no ‘backdoors’ installed in your wp-content directory. Here are a couple of tips. They all require that you have shell (SSH) access to your server, and at least a little familiarity with the command line.

If a backdoor has been installed on your site, it is almost certainly located in your wp-content directory. The reasoning behind this is that once you discover that your site has been hacked, you will most likely wipe out every single file on your server except for your wp-content directory, where your uploads, plugins, and themes are installed.

Begin your investigation by logging into your website via SSH and changing to your wp-content directory:
cd ~/public_html/wp-content
Here’s what to do next:

1. Search wp-content for every instance of an ‘eval’ command

grep -R eval * | more
A number of plugins have legitimate uses of the eval command but if you see anything like this (especially at the very top of a .php file) OR if you see an eval anywhere in your uploads or themes directories, then you should be suspicious. And if the contents of the eval command are hidden inside of a base64_decode and/or gzinflate command like you see in the example below, then you’re definitely looking at a backdoor.

Actual example of backdoor hack inserted into the PodPress plugin

Really, the best thing to do regarding plugins is to delete your plugins directory, and reinstall your plugins from scratch.

2. Search the uploads directory for any .php files

find uploads -name "*.php" -print
There is absolutely no reason for a .php file to be living in your uploads directory. Delete any you find.

.php files should not be in your uploads directory

3. Delete any inactive themes

Backdoors may have been installed in your unused themes so delete those, including the wordpress ‘default’ and ‘classic’ themes.

If you have a local copy of your theme, delete your themes directory altogether and re-upload your theme anew.

4. Investigate all recently modified files

While it’s possible to fake the modification time of files, many hackers won’t bother. What this means is that many backdoor exploits will have a timestamp that sets them apart from your regular files. In most cases, I advise running the following command from your html root directory (usually “public_html” or “www”):

find . -mtime -10 -print

Replace 10 with however many days you want to look back. I advise going back at least 14 days beyond when you are certain your site was hacked, since a vulnerable site may be compromised multiple times in the same time period.

What you are looking for is any files that you don’t remember uploading or updating (e.g. the footer.php file in your theme) or anything like what is described above (e.g. a PHP file living in your wp-content/uploads directory, or your wp-config.php file, where exploits are often inserted).

5. Scan your WordPress database for exploits and spam

Exploits such as rogue PHP functions and  new administrative accounts may live in your database, as well as spam (e.g. hidden ads for pharmaceuticals). If you’re not experienced with digging through your SQL tables with a tool like phpMyAdmin, then you will have to rely on plugins like this one.

Wrapping text around objects

I just recorded a quick screencast video tutorial for a colleague on how to use paths or shapes to wrap text to avoid objects or circumscribe shapes (circles, etc.) using Photoshop. This is something more often done in Illustrator, but PS does the job pretty well too.

When mocking up websites in Photoshop, this is a great way to illustrate how text will flow around an inline image.

Click here to watch the tutorial.
(1 min 35 sec)

Hopefully, this information will be of use to some people out there who are unlucky enough to be hit by the “bablooO” wordpress security exploit. I believe this hack can impact anyone using WordPress version 2.8.0 and earlier. See this recent advisory, which I believe is related.

If you do a ‘view source’ on your WordPress blog and you see a bunch of spammy links  beginning with the comment code:
<!-- bablooO-start -->
…then here are some tips for how to recover from this problem:

• Make sure your theme is okay. If you have a backup of your theme, restore your theme from backup as your theme files themselves may have been molested. In this particular exploit, footer.php may have been rewritten.
• Don’t trust your WordPress installation. The actual core files may include injection code / backdoors. (wp-blog-header.php for example may have an obfuscated ob_start();eval(base64_decode()) call in it. The safest thing to do is:

1. backup your wp-content directory and your WordPress database
2. wipe out your entire installation
3. reinstall the latest version WordPress from scratch
4. restore your wp-content directory and database, and then examine both for any suspicious content. Here are some critical tips on how to search your wp-content directory for “backdoors”.

• Make sure your database is okay (posts/pages). One tip I read about here is to use the export function (under the WordPress admin Tools menu) to save a giant XML file of all your posts/pages/comments to disk, and then you can use a text editor to search for strings like ‘viagra’ and ‘casino’ — two words which probably do not appear on your own blog, but are very likely to appear in the hidden content of these spammy links. You will have to fix these by hand.
• Password-protect your admin directory using the .htaccess method to protect yourself from similar future exploits.

Related discussions:

http://ckon.wordpress.com/2009/06/05/bablooo-spammer-attack-on-several-wp-blogs/

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/280748

http://milw0rm.com/exploits/9110

The Culprit

Recently bluehost made an update to their “SimpleScripts” installer so that when you install WordPress, no matter what theme you’re using, your site gets a “Web Hosting Provided by Bluehost.com” footer advertisement.

This can be pretty aggravating at first, especially since it seems like the only way to remove the promotional message is by commenting out the wp_footer() call in your theme. (Bad idea, will break some plugins.)

Fortunately, the fix is pretty easy once you know where to look:

1. Go into your WordPress admin page
2. Click plugins from the sidebar
3. Deactivate “SimpleScripts Footer“

Shame on BlueHost for (a) forcing its clients to switch to SimpleScripts by not providing WP updates via Fantastico anymore, and (b) automatically installing and activating a plugin that ads a promotional message on the websites of paying customers.

Deva Foundation

www.deva.org

I started off with this freely available WP theme. Then my client found a nice stock image of clouds on iStockPhoto.com that I converted into an ephemeral background. Finally, I popped in a new header graphic, improved the font styling (and IE compatibility) and integrated  iContact for email newsletter signups and and PayPal for ecommerce.

Ta-da! Deva Foundation’s brand new site was completed in less than 20 hours, from concept to completion.

Maria Benitez

www.MariaBenitez.com

This website for the legendary Santa Fe flamenco dancer Maria Benitez was completed in even less time by taking advantage of the excellent — and freely available –  “Yoghourt” WordPress theme.

Add these lines to the top of your .htaccess file:

# Override GoDaddy defaults that inhibit URL rewriting
Options -MultiViews
rewriteEngine On

# Rewrite URLs to remove www from domain name
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.(.*)$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://%1/$1 [R=301,L]

E-620 noise reduction / gradation test

I figure I’m not the only person out there with this quandary, especially as the E620 risks being a little noisy, and using SAT can make that noise really jump out at you… But then again, you get photos that are so usable right out of the camera. So I’ve published a webpage  that makes it easy to compare how a couple of shots look different when taken with and without NR and SAT. You be the judge!

http://cantonbecker.com/olympus-e620-noise-and-gradation