I had to refresh twice to get a string I could read and type. Captcha anti spam checks suck.
reCAPTCHA Fail
WP Super Cache 0.9.5
WP Super Cache 0.9.5 is now available.
This release fixes a number of bugs and adds a few new features. The main one being improved mobile support and improved mod_rewrite rules generation.
For more, check out the shiny new changelog.
Worldwide Photowalk on MU
For all you photographers out there, did you know the Worldwide Photowalk takes place next Saturday? It’s a good chance to meet other photographers in your area. It was a pleasant surprise when I realised their website runs on WordPress MU! I’m leading the Cork City Walk (still a few places left!) on Saturday and it was nice when I recognised what it was running on.
So, if you’re free on Saturday, check out the listings page. There might be a photowalk near you!
PS. If you’re running WordPress MU, check out the alpha release of the new version. It fixes a number of bugs in the original 2.8.1 release. It’s very stable but try it out on a test server first.
Why you should limit login attempts
Some idiot at 213.155.4.184 hit all my websites over the last few days trying to login to my blogs. He fired off hundreds of automated requests probing and searching and testing my admin login. Each request had a different password. I use difficult to guess passwords but seeing the attempts was disconcerting.
I went searching and found the Limit Login Attempts plugin. After installing, a new page appears under Settings with a wealth of options:
I’m glad I did install it, it caught the same guy when he hit this blog a few hours later! You should probably install it too.
PS. Matt asked me to explain how I recorded those requests. There is a WordPress plugin that sends an email when a POST request is made but I threw this code into a file and load it with the “auto_prepend_file” directive in my php.ini (saves adding it to every installation of WordPress on my server)
if ( ( isset( $HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA ) || !empty( $_POST ) ) && $_SERVER[ 'REQUEST_URI' ] != '/wp-cron.php?doing_wp_cron' && $_SERVER[ 'SCRIPT_NAME' ] != '/wp-comments-post.php' && substr( $_SERVER[ 'REQUEST_URI' ], -10 ) != '/trackback' && substr( $_SERVER[ 'REQUEST_URI' ], -11 ) != '/trackback/' ) {
mail( "MYEMAIL@gmail.com", $_SERVER[ 'HTTP_HOST' ] . " POST request: " . $_SERVER[ 'REMOTE_ADDR' ], "URL: {$_SERVER[ 'REQUEST_URI' ]}\nPOST: " . print_r( $_POST, 1 ) . "\nCOOKIES: " . print_r( $_COOKIE, 1 ) . "\nHTTP_RAW_POST_DATA: $HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA" );
}
Irish Blog Awards 2009 Photowalk
About time I posted these. The Blog Awards took place in Cork this year, last February, and before the big night, a good number of photographers wandered around Cork City. I posted several IBA09 photos on my photoblog already but here are a few more:
BTW – if you’re in Cork next weekend, there are still places left in the photowalk! I haven’t decided where we should go after the walk but it’ll probably be The Old Oak as they have plenty of room.
WordPress MU 2.8.1
WordPress MU is a multi user or multi blog version of WordPress that is used to run sites like WordPress.com.
Just a day after WordPress 2.8.1 came out and here’s WordPress MU 2.8.1. The original WordPress announcement has plenty to say about this release, but what you need to know is this is a security update and a required upgrade.
This is the first MU 2.8.x release because of course there wasn’t a 2.8 one. Make sure you upgrade to stay up to date. The handy auto upgrade facility built in to the software should kick in but if not, go to the download page and grab the new zip file. Unzip over your current install and any database upgrades will take care of themselves when people login.
The WPMU Timeline is a good place to look to keep track of what has changed. Many bugs were squashed and features added.
How not to advertise a blogging event
Don’t search for your event topic and spam the blogs you find.
At least make the effort to look up the blog author’s name and send them an email. I would have gladly plugged Kinsale Arts Week if they had been polite. Big Bad Fail.
WordPress MU 2.8.1 beta
WordPress MU is a multi user or multi blog version of WordPress that can be used to run sites like WordPress.com.
MU Admins! Please download and test wpmu-2.8.1-beta.zip on a test server! This is a beta release that is this <—> close to being final but it needs testing by the community.
It works fine on my test server but I haven’t been able to test every last thing to death. That’s where you come in. Download it, install it, login, look around. Notice anything broken? That’s what Trac is for. Verify you can repeat the problem, open a ticket and describe how the problem can be reproduced. Well done. You’ve just contributed to a Free Software project. 🙂
PS. I know there are two “My Blogs” links in the beta. That was fixed 2 days ago. Grab the zip file from the end of this page to get the most up to date code.
Run a program on one CPU core in Linux
Modern computers use CPUs with multiple cores for performance reasons. Software can take advantage of that and use both cores to run separate threads but sometimes it’s useful if you can force a process to use one core rather than both.
In Linux that’s easy to do. If you’re using Ubuntu or Debian grab the schedutils package:
sudo apititude install schedutils
That will install a program called “taskset” which is a tool to “retrieve or set a process’s CPU affinity”. It’s really easy to use too.
I wanted to force Bibblelabs on to one core while importing photos.
# ps auxw|grep bibble
donncha 19482 78.7 33.1 1090388 681220 ? RNl 09:56 77:28 ./bibblepro
# taskset -p 19482
pid 19482’s current affinity mask: 3
# taskset -p 01 19482
pid 19482’s current affinity mask: 3
pid 19482’s new affinity mask: 1
The app is still heavy on the system, and “System Monitor” doesn’t suddenly show 0% usage on one CPU because I’m also running Firefox, Xchat, X, Gnome Terminal but I’d almost swear the browser window refreshes faster.
PS. Thanks to whoever told me about this on Twitter a while back. It had slipped my mind and I had to search for it again. Blogging it to remember it!
Please help the World Health Organisation
I received a nice polite email from a man asking for my help last week. He was a bit cryptic but he replied this morning saying he works with the World Health Organisation.
Hi Donncha O Caiomh,
there is something to talk about , i want your assistance coz i work with W.H.O ( world health organisation ) and i bought some goods in state and i am in finland here for official purpose.
Will you kindly send me your address so i can send the goods to you and also maybe when am through with my official assignment i will come down there and collect the goods bought.
Pls kindly reply me so as to know what to do.
THANKS
JUNIOR BENRICHARD.
Oh the poor guy! He’s stuck in Finland and needs goods delivered? As I was about to reply with my full address, I remembered getting another email from him. He had contacted me about a post I wrote. That was last week when I was on holiday and I still haven’t got around to clearing out my inbox. I went searching and here it is:
hi
yea i drive an electric car. i work with the car construction company. if you wanna know, kindly send me 3000usd via western union and i will get back to you as possible.
you can call me on +2348029479959. am junior by name.
Oh what a talented guy! He works for W.H.O. and for a car company! I don’t know if I want to know about electric cars that much. I mean, $3000? That’s a lot of money!
Oh, and Ben, since you’re subscribed to my blog, please get in touch again. The Irish Police want a word with you.
Edit (10/08/09) Ben has been in touch again:
Hi donncha, how r you nd everything, am off state and i some1 wanna send some money to my credit-card so as to collect and use it to pay my childs school fee. pls send me you details so as to send you the money nd you will only help me to western it to my child coz she is totally inneed of it.
am looking forward to see your reply
JUNIOR BENRICHARD.