A Return To AI-55FF

Some of you may remember my post about my Flash Fiction counter.
It has been pointed out that hyphenated words and contractions like "can't" and "don't" should be counted as two words. Not all words with an apostrophe should be counted as two though, as possessives like "America's" would still be a single word.
Originally I figured since no one had made a determination about how those cases should be handled, I would give some flexibility and only count them as a single word, but since there are other Flash Fiction fans and they do count those as two words, I'll comply with that.

Therefore I have altered the AI-55FF gadget and anyone using the one on my page or who has it installed via the Gadget button (the blue plus beside "Google" beneath the one in my footer) gets the updated version.

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Open Source Scalable Vector Graphics Editor

I do a lot of reading, I'm interested in a lot of different subjects, and many of them are very technical. I sometimes think I missed my calling, there's a possibility I should have become an engineer. With my employment situation as it is, I don't have a lot of money to be spending on new software, so I've been looking at open-source software, and an article I ran across about doing UML using XML/XSL and SVG graphics piqued my interest in SVG.

SVG is an acronym for Scalable Vector Graphics, a standard put forth by the W3C. Its actually a subset of XML, and is supported by most browsers to some degree. Its supposedly simple, but utilizing it in your blog doesn't support that claim. My experimentation would seem to indicate that some parts work, while others don't.

In looking for editors for SVG, I did happen to run across an application called Inkscape. For an open-source package, its amazingly complete and professional and is akin to one of Adobe's programs. Although I haven't been able to use straight svg files from it in my blog, or even use any of it as inline code (that renders properly), it does allow the export of bitmapped graphics to PNG files. Those definitely work on blogger.

If you look at my header you can see one of the exports, with a nice color fade, rounded corners, and transparency. Here's another example I did this morning:



I recommend Inkscape, especially if you like to draw or just can't find the right graphic that says what you want. If you don't feel like wading through all the pages of the Inkscape.com site, you can get to the downloads directly from here.

Click "Read Full Post" below to read the rest.

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OpenID and Web Authentication

OpenID is a relatively new (since 2005) grassroots idea, founded on the open source paradigm. It makes it easier to achieve a "Single Sign On" (SSO for those that want to be in the know.(I know you're thinking great another TLA (Three Letter Acronmym(Ironically, itself a TLA.))))

Ok, so you want to be able to not remember 30 different Usernames and Passwords. Here's what I've done and how I've done it, so far.


Click "Read Full Post" below to read the rest of this.
Since I'm going to be using my easily remembered blog URL for delegation, I used the directions from Blogger in Draft. In my case, I pasted in the following after my shortcut icon mark-up in the head section of my blog (you can view source to see how and where lines 5 & 6):

<link rel="openid.server" href="http://draft.blogger.com/openid-server.g" />
<link rel="openid.delegate" href="http://ai-onemansquest.blogspot.com/" />

Now that doesn't create an OpenID, it merely makes it so that I can use my blog address to act as a delegate server for an OpenID provider.

Then I went to http://wiki.openid.net/Public_OpenID_providers to find a provider (these are slightly out of sequence of how I should have done this, but it works anyway, and made it slightly easier when I needed to copy some values.) From there I found that Verisign Labs (you know, the people that provide all of the security certificates for websites) has a free provider, VeriSign's PIP so I decided they would probably be around for a long time, and since everyone trusts them with monetary transactions, they may be a good choice. So I went there and clicked the "Get Started Now >" button. This page asks you to fill-in some stuff, Username (your choice,) Password (again your choice, it says minimum of 6 characters, but I prefer a longer more secure password personally with numbers and symbols and more than a single word, (and you can't use the Username in password field,)) Confirm Password (no choice here unless you change the Password field,) and email address (any will do, just be aware that they are going to ask you to confirm it by sending you an email, with a link that you'll use to login using the UID & PW you're creating.) Then of course to prevent the creation of accounts by spammers using scripts, they have a requisite Captcha where you have to be able to read the distorted text amongst the distorted grid. You hit the "Create Account" button to proceed.

I'll let you continue from there without my own documentation of the process. Once you have all the stuff that is requested or you care to fill-in, check your email account you provided, and follow the link in it, and sign-in.

Verisign also created a FireFox Add-on, called SeatBelt, which you can install as an aid for managing both providers and delegates, and IDs (Verisign allows you to add as many IDs as you desire, although I'm sure there's some kind of limit.) It's pretty cool, since you can use it to automatically sign you into your provider each time you start FireFox, it shows your status, and has an anti-phishing feature for your protection. I'd recommend its use, I'd also recommend the use of FireFox, since it makes browsing safer just by itself, and there are other Add-ons that let you block Ads, do development, et cetera. Of course if you use SeatBelt you have to use FireFox (duh, did I not mention that?) Verisign also provides some links to sites that utilize OpenID, so you can test it, I went to MakeMeSustainable, which kind of was a downer, since it says I'm responsible for something like 6.1 tons of carbon per year (I don't eat that much, and I don't drive that much either (I guess part of it is that I eat red meat.)) SeatBelt will have to be installed, so you have to add them to the sites you trust to install from, install it and restart FireFox. Then SeatBelt has to be configured. By default it adds an icon to your toolbar, but if you right-click and go to "SeatBelt Settings..." and you can make it show on the Status bar instead. Nothing is set selected either, here's how mine looks:


(Click the pic to see it bigger)

As you can see, there are tabs to allow you to add your providers, which you can have more than one of, and delegates. Its the delegates that we put our blog URL into, if we want to use it as our login. Pretty simple, just a lot of words here.

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Did you know this about Blogger?

Did you know that if you publish your post, and weren't yet ready, (you could do that by trying to type an uppercase P, and accidentally hitting control instead of shift) you can depublish it? From the Edit Posts, open the post, then simply press Ctrl+S (which is save as draft.) Voila! Its no longer published, and its saved without deleting it.

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A Really Cool Feature of Blogger, You Probably Didn't Know About.

A really cool new feature of Blogger, you probably didn't know about, was introduced when they brought us OpenID.

***NGAC*** are you listening?

OpenID is a really cool way to avoid having to remember UserId/Passwords for the sites that support it.

You can read more about it on the OpenID.org page. Better yet, read OpenID.net page.

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National Cyber Security Awareness Month 2007

Did you know that it is National Cyber Security Awareness Month 2007? What have you done this month to increase or even check your secutity? I didn't even know it was such a month and I have implemented a little troll blocking. I'm looking at the Google authentication API, and thinking that making a widget to make sure folks have to login with a Google account to see your blog wouldn't be a bad thing, and that using that to see if they are are on a list of people you don't want on your blog might be good. Kicking them out, if they are would be better.

I'd urge that anyone who doesn't use FireFox, to move to using it as their primary browser. I have seen many a time I would read of an exploit, only to have Firefox updated within a couple of days patched and updating, something you won't see with IE.

For those who have the resources and the technical leanings, there are other things you may want to do. Like installing an Intrusion Detection System. You've probably seen these referred to on TV(i.e. Criminal Minds, NCIS, etc.) Its good to know if somebody has been snooping on your systems. Always think security, it might save your life, or your bank account.

Don't show people screen-shots of your desktop! It gives them too many clues as to what you are running, what browser, what other software you might have that can be exploited to gain access. Just kindly decline for security reasons. Let them know what the reason is, so that if they don't know, they aren't exploited.

UPDATE Oct 19, 2007:
I just ran across this on Slashdot:
"ZDNet is reporting that hackers are actively exploiting a zero-day hole in RealNetworks' RealPlayer media player, a software program installed on tens of millions of Windows computers worldwide. The in-the-wild attacks targets a previously unknown and unpatched ActiveX vulnerability in the way RealPlayer interacts with Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser. The flaw is causing drive-by malware downloads when an IE user simply browsers to a maliciously rigged Web page."

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Troll Blocking

Trolls. They are the bane of the blogosphere. Mean, nasty, belligerent, persistent, malicious, and many times towing other trolls with them. They attack you, and attack your friends, often for no apparent reason. They need mental health help.

I'm sick and tired of putting up with them. They change names, they delete their blogs only to start others, they run multiple accounts. I'm taking steps to stop them. I've been gathering IP addresses for months of visitors, and I have a pretty good idea where at least the original problem comes from. Thus I have employed the IP Address Blocker. Its not exactly what I wanted to do, but its a start. Getting the IP of a visitor isn't something that Blogger makes easy to do, even this tool doesn't show you what the address is. But Ve hass our Vays. I'm going to be looking to block by profile IDs also, in case these trolls decide to become mobile, and I'll be mapping the profile IDs to the IPs to aid identification. If the ID comes from the IP, ban it, if an IP comes up from an ID, block it. If the IP comes from a certain region, ISP, etc, I'll block it. Don't like it? Too bad.

Now down to brass tacks, the how-to.

I found Peter Chen's Blogger Tips and Tricks blog a while ago, and although I was hesitant to use the tools there, I could not find anything we could do to get an IP using just Javascript. I know if we could, the redirection of the browser can be done from Javascript. I finally caved, and so I'll describe what I'm doing at this time.

Peter's tip, How to ban a person from your blog or Website points us to Toolshell IP check and IP ban, pick which button style you'd like and add an IP Address. Click the button to generate the script and copy the code it produces. Basically, you want to add this into your blog template where you'd like the button to appear. With the new blogger templates you'll click the "Add a Page Element" and paste it there, then drag it to where you'd like it to appear. For those of use with the older templates, just paste it into the template where you'd like it. Refer to Peter's instructions if you need more information.

You'll edit the script if you need to add more IPs, alternatively, if you have a huge number of addresses to block, you may need to add more buttons, I don't know if multiple buttons would make it any faster, but I suspect it will. You can always hide the extras, but I'd leave at least one showing to support the authors, since they are hosting the actual program and every time this is invoked it uses their bandwidth.
To edit the script just add the new IP address with the first one and separate the addresses with a pipe ("|", this is on the same key as backslash ("\").) I've tested it with as many as 11 addresses, and it worked. I don't know at what point it becomes too slow.

I would suggest to anyone who is attempting to ban someone from their blog to also include the following tags into their template just before the end </html> tag:
<HEAD>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Pragma" CONTENT="no-cache">
</HEAD>

This is a second head section, that should prevent the use of the cache to read whatever got loaded before the redirection took place. I hope that this helps.
This should also make certain that in order to read your blog again, your readers return, so it should increase your hit count.

To get the IP Addresses in the first place you'll need to run a hit counter, I'll refer you to Peter's page for instructions and or suggestions.

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Google Pages: Websites for Free

Google Pages are a fairly new service Google is offering now. You can create a Website, in addition to your blog, with a few advantages that your blog won't let you do. Things like upload files that Blogger won't do. Like my icon file that those of you with IE may now see, instead of the Big G in blue on white or the Big B in white on orange.

Those who used Firefox probably already saw that I had an icon that distinguishes which tab was my blog at a glance. Big deal. Well, now that I have a Website I can store files on, I actually got my icon file to upload, and have it linked as my favicon, as I was trying to do on my last post but couldn't. I don't know how long it will allow it, but for now if you use the image upload button and pick a file that isn't an image, it happily uploads it. I had one file it wouldn't work on, that was an image, a png file. The thing is it let me upload my ico file, and let me upload 2 vbs files, as well as a wsf file. The layouts aren't many, and the styles aren't nearly as plentiful as blogger makes available. The html isn't very flexible like you would desire for a webpage, and you can't yet create your own. There's the inability to alter the CSS also. But the ability to upload files... ahhh.

I still need to see whether I can upload js files, which would be really nice. That could make up for the the deficiency in the CSS, and add the ability to add other elements to the page. I still need to read the documentation on how they are getting around the JavaScript restrictions. Its not that they don't let you, it just isn't there apparently. Yet.

If you want your own, while you're logged into your Google account go to
http://googlepages.com/. It should be pretty apparent how to create your new website, just agree to the Terms of Service, and it highlights the button. You can make four or five different sites. Each site can have as many pages as you can create I believe, and there is a size limit of 100 megs, not too shabby for free. Isn't my personal icon just something that looks cool, because virtually no one has them on their blogs? Well, Jillie has hers, and we put one on Mona's, but Mona's still doesn't show up in IE (we'll take care of it later) meanwhile mine does. :)

Oh, I have the scripts that if anyone has the need for, there. I have quite a few Administration scripts that I may upload to share, but I need to go through each one to make certain there is no domain names, machine names, account names, etc in them, and edit them and confirm their operation before I do.
My Website's address.

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Image Tips & Et Cetera.

One of the things that irks me is when I'm reading comments on folks blogs is that when there is more than a pageful of comments and I scroll down towards the bottom, and I'm reading suddenly the page pops back up towards the top. The more comments, the worse this seems to happen. Its irritating.

I know why it does it, too. It does it because folks are using blogger accounts to make the comments, but they aren't using blogger to store their profile pictures.

So here goes, I'm going to tell you what to do to make your picture show up almost instantly and quit bothering us with your slow butt servers. Pay attention, this works well for other uses, like the image you use for your FavIcon (the one that shows next to your URL in the address bar, it doesn't have to be that omnipresent orange & white "B" (more on that later, like how to add one like mine.))

First you need your image file, whether or not its on your computer, or you can get it from another server on the internet.

Go into your Dashboard to create a new post, we aren't really going to create a post, but this makes available the tool we're looking to use. Hey, there's the "Add Image" button, just what we're looking for! Click it. This will bring up a dialog box, with "Add an image from your computer" and "Or add an image from the web" as our two optional methods. "Choose a layout," is below, and I haven't experimented with them, but have always just chosen "None" and "Large." Of course if your image is on your computer you'll want to click the "Browse..." button and go to wherever you have your image, and if you have your picture elsewhere on the web enter the URL to it in the appropriate URL box. Click the orange "UPLOAD IMAGE" button (what is it with Blogger and orange?)

A window will popup showing your image and telling you 'Your image has been added.
After clicking "Done" you can change your post and publish to your blog.' At the bottom click the blue "DONE" button (Thank goodness it wasn't orange.)

Now you want to select the tab that says "Edit Html." You should see something that looks similar to the following:

<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_cMH6wuXfzDHJstVlAxJoyasaTX7u1TJwUfN6zSQOONZUYXFTgwzHXUvHhzUxgkaBYy3-Z8VZATNI8Wgkq9EsrDsQqn8m1Rl6FtPcVUq8cAiKjrE5Du1r2PF0yS1ds4F50Jj2/s1600-h/MonaIcon.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_cMH6wuXfzDHJstVlAxJoyasaTX7u1TJwUfN6zSQOONZUYXFTgwzHXUvHhzUxgkaBYy3-Z8VZATNI8Wgkq9EsrDsQqn8m1Rl6FtPcVUq8cAiKjrE5Du1r2PF0yS1ds4F50Jj2/s400/MonaIcon.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5093460096992237970" border="0" /></a>

For those that didn't notice, there's actually two (2) URLs shown there. Hmm, Blogger stores two different images every time you upload an image. Maybe the s400/s1600 is a resolution or compression setting... That explains how you can click an image and see it full resolution...
Anyway, to get back on subject, what you want to do is select the portion of the above between the quotes following the "href=" or the "src=" and copy it to your clipboard or write it down (ugh, what am I saying? Write? What do they make computers for?)

If you want to check, you can open a new browser window or tab and paste your URL in and it should show you the image on the blogger server (you can use the example above, its real and an icon made from Mona's profile picture.)

Now that out image is uploaded, we don't need that post we started, and chances are excellent that it already auto-archived. So let's delete it. Click "Edit Posts" under the "Posting" tab, near the right in the fourth column from the right, you will see in orange the word draft next to "by your name" , which is next to the date or time. To the right of all of it, is a blue "Delete." Click that word "Delete."

The page changes, and you get " Are you sure you want to delete this post?" near the top. This is where you want to be careful. You can delete your image here. It tells you:

"The following photos will also be deleted from Blogger. Please uncheck any that you wish to keep.
(It may take up to 24 hours for them to be removed)."

It shows your image near the bottom, above two buttons, and above that, there is a small checkbox (checked) and the word "Delete." Before continuing, un-check that box and you'll see the word "Delete" change to "Keep."

Now you can safely press the orange(!) "Delete It" button.

I detailed the heck out of this, its really very much easier than it sounds. So let's move on to that FavIcon.

FavIcons are pretty cool to have for your blog. They make it easy to recognize which tab is for your blog, and help establish a feel for your blog and are easier on the eyes than actually reading (what kind of person reads on a computer?)

Again the first thing you'll need is the image to use. I'll point you to Canadian Mind Products for an explanation and tools. Just create it as instructed, upload it as I instructed above, and copy the URL.

Now what you want to do is goto your dashboard, Click the "Template" tab, and make sure you have "Edit HTML" selected. Near the top (it may be several lines down) you will find a tag "<head>." you can add a blank line by clicking after the tag and hitting Enter or on that line, you want to add '<link rel="shortcut icon" href="">'
Click between the parenthesis and paste your URL.
Save your template by clicking the orange (there it is again) "SAVE TEMPLATE" button.

I need to change mine, apparently it doesn't show for IE (I guess I should have read about it first.)

UPDATE: It seems that only jpeg or gif images can be uploaded, which keeps us from using ico files.

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Sock Puppets

There is a phenomenon out there in blogger world, of the use of so called "sock puppets." If you are not familiar with the term, along with the original meaning of actually making puppets from socks, is the meaning of using multiple accounts by the same individual, to post comments so that they are perceived as someone else.

There may be several reasons for someone to perform this sort of deception. One would be to proffer an opinion, then to bolster that with "others" agreeing. It has been done. Another reason would be for someone to be mean to someone else, and skate by acting as if nothing has happened, so that they can continue to be perceived as being nicer than they really are.

Some of the other blog providers are capable of tracking the originating IP address of the commenters, allowing the correlation of multiple IDs to a single source, making the likelihood of those being a single person pretty darned high. Unfortunately, Google's Blogger doesn't provide such an animal yet. So the options are, wait until they do, do nothing, or create our own.

I'm currently researching and working on, trying to create my own. Since Firefox and IE both support JavaScript, its use is almost mandated for the task. That JavaScript can use Java classes makes it a bit easier, but requires the installation of Java. Uhg.

Stay tuned, if I have any luck, I'll get this sorted out. And I'll be willing to share.

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Things I've Learned for a Better Blogging Experience

One of the things I've learned about posting, although not something I use, is that you can use drafts to save without actually committing the post. One of the complaints was only one draft with that name could be saved without losing everything. The secret to saving the draft the second time is to always be sure to click the Edit Posts tab to get a copy of the file from the server, then click Edit beside the Draft. You can then Save it with any changes or additions as many times as you like. Just be sure to always get a fresh copy from the server. Don't rely upon your browser's still having the draft open, because it can and possibly will timeout your session.

When you want to make a link to some site or blog, open a second browser with that site open. Write away and then select the text you want linked. Now click the button that looks like a green ball with a link of chain over it, its between the Text color and Align Left buttons and if you float your mouse cursor over it, it says "Link" (imagine that). This will cause a dialog box to popup asking for the address. Go to your browser with the site open and drag the icon in the address bar down to the task bar and float over the browser button with your post in it. This should bring it into focus, and drop the icon in the dialog box. Be sure the "http://" isn't duplicated and hit the OK button. You just avoided having to type in all that stuff and any typographical errors.

I've been a bit irritated with losing comments I'm going to post, only to lose what I've entered if I click on a link so I can look for something. I think I have that one figured out. If you click "Preview" the browser treats that as a new page, so even if you accidentally use the window/tab to go elsewhere, when you hit the back button the text you typed is shown there without loss. WhooHoo!

I use Firefox for my browser and XP as an OS, if you use anything else your results may vary.

Speaking of Firefox, if you haven't upgraded to the latest, you're missing out. You now get a close button on each tab, so no more sliding across to the close button, or having to right-click and choose close; and one of the best features it now has is (drum roll, please) Spell Checking!

I hope at least one of these things helps you in your blogging, if you have any tips, please do tell.

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My Apologies

I really must apologise to those who may wish to comment on my blog. I enabled the captcha for comments feature, since I was being spammed.
What in the world makes folks feel that spamming is acceptable, morally or otherwise, I do not know. I personally do not feel that it is appropriate. I don't do it, and I won't have it done to me, if I can help it.
Spam is a meme that must die. Spammers need to figure out that no one wants to hear them. No one wants that unsolicited stuff. If what they are espousing was so great, then they wouldn't have to spam anyone, because people would beat a path to their door. Don't spam me and I won't feel the need to do something about your spamming me.
As for you, johnmartin26274676, your erroneous stock information on EGTY, turns up the following as the second entry on google, here.
It's a scam. Keep your spam and you hambone ideas to yourself.

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Blogging better

Well, I went to the local library yesterday to return a couple of books and darn it if I didn't end up checking out more books. Since I was a child and my cousins took me to the library and got me a card, I've loved the library system.
One of the books I ran across and had to check out was "Blogging, Genius Strategies for Instant Web Content," by Biz Stone. It's an easy read, I'm already some 60% through it. It is also quite informative; I've learned a bit from it and will learn more before I'm finished, I'm certain. This much reading in about 24 hours, even including my sleepy time. It is entertaining, I think mostly because of his sense of humor and obvious familiarity with the subject. This style writing keeps me interested enough that I don't put the book down for long.
On a slightly different note, I was thinking of my blog's usefulness as a medium to get some of my scripts into the hands of some of the people who might find them interesting or useful. The present problem of posting the code is that I must change the tabs, linefeeds, quotes, et cetera to HTML, a task I find onerous and inconvenient. That's when I got the idea that I have a script presently posted to do base64 encoding and decoding, I could use to actually post the code into my blog.
I could just run the script over the file, paste the results into something like say a comment, mark it up with a little XML, include a button or link in the blog, and pop-up a window that the script in my template would display the code as written in. It would be simple from the reader's perspective, and easy for me to convert. Now for the hardpart, implementation...
It also holds some potential to allow me to include other things like pictures, binaries, et cetera in the blog, although I haven't figured out yet how I could get the browser to display pictures encoded thusly.

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