llpricedesigns

Deb Fisher, candidate for the Senate seat Ben Nelson will soon vacate, has made national new — at least Tech. news — because her new campaign website was hacked. While her site still looked fine, a Google search results revealed a long list of hits for cheap Canadian prescription drugs.

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2135625/How-State-Senator-Deb-Fischer-Should-Fix-Hacked-Website

WordPress, Joomla, Drupal and other content management sites (CMS), are more vulnerable to this kind of abuse than simple html web sites.  Despite this problem, database driven sites are desirable for so many reasons, I usually recommend them to people considering a new site.

There are ways to defend your space online, but clients and web developers must take the threats seriously. First and formost, users must appreciate the value of strong password.  If the site has more than one contributor, the site needs a security oriented policy regarding permissions and passwords. Sites like Strong Password Generator can help users make safe password choices.

Update the site (especially WordPress sites) when WordPress or plugin updates become available.

There are a wide range of plugins available at each of the major CMS sites that can help reduce the risk of this mischief that often requires a great deal of time to fix.

Gingrich has argued that children in poor neighborhoods should be employed as janitors in schools and he compounded on that idea Thursday, saying: “Really poor children in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and have nobody around them who works, so they literally have no habit of showing up on Monday. They have no habit of staying all day. They have no habit of ‘I do this and you give me cash’ unless it’s illegal.”

http://thehill.com/blogs/twitter-room — December 3, 2011

Poverty among children is rising, and is estimated to be over 20% now.

Most poor children live in a household where at least one parent is employed. And even among children who live in extreme poverty — defined here as a household with income less than 50 percent of the poverty level — a third have at least one working parent. And even among extremely poor children who live in extremely poor areas — those in which 30 percent or more of the population is poor — nearly a third live with at least one working parent. — NYT OP Ed, 12/03/11

Newt is probably projecting his own issues onto the little children, but his message seems particularly cold and heartless as the Christmas Season begins.

I’ve updated lots of WordPress sites in the last few months, while neglecting my own, and now the wicked weather (tornado season) is beginning again (sigh).  I did buy an iPad – two in fact, but both were gifts for others.  The first was for non-profit staff, who needed a presentation tool to share the organization’s story while on the road. It’s been a slick and easy way to enhance a customized presentation during one-on-one visits. It’s also being used for talks to small groups. The staffer captivates small groups of visitors with impromptu talks, augmented by one of the slideshows loaded on the iPad, but displayed on an HDTV screen. No clumsy technology needed.

The other gift was for a family member with mobility issues. The iPad is lightweight, portable, malware free, and just plain fun.

I still don’t have one myself, but opted for an ipod instead. It’s my pocket planner/computer.

Restless storm clouds swirl and part to reveal light from the cloud tops. 2009.

Storms have pounded the Nebraska Panhandle with giant hail, and swept north and south of the Platte in wave after wave, but Kearney has only seen  (knock on wood) frequent rains, a bit of lightning and thunder, but no sirens wailing or warnings. As the jet stream moves northward, we might expect fewer, and less intense storms in the next weeks.

A nice summary from NYT staff specialist on healthcare issues, Reed Abelson: The Cost of Doing Nothing on Health Care.   “It is a course that is literally bankrupting the federal government and businesses and individuals across the country.”

Yes Virginia, (and Maryland) “Global warming” can mean MORE snow.

Link: “Get This: Warming Planet Can Mean More Snow”

Snow storms may be a somewhat unintuitive consequence of climate change, and it’s understandable that the unwelcome snow storms would be the butt of jokes, but did people in Washington really think that the crisis would only mean they’d have Miami weather in February? The conservationist, Hunter Lovins, suggested an alternate term: “global weirding.” That neologism might be easier for ditto-heads to wrap their quotes around, but climate scientist, Joseph Romm, recommended “‘Hell and High Water’ — since at least it does accurately describe what is coming,” Whatever term sticks, bloggers, pundits and (unfortuantely) politicians sound like nincompoops when they take the jests about Gore and recent, wearisome weather seriously.

Conservatives have one tool to control the economy: interest rates, Those rates were run into the ground early in the last decade. That left the Republican administration and their allies with no option but magical thinking “thing will improve-they always do.” Republicans, the party of “deregulation” let the Wall Street Bull go tearing through the streets without oversight.

Republicans claim to be the party of fiscal responsibility, but the hated Clinton Administration reduced deficit spending. Deficit spending increased under the “Conservative” President George Bush, just as it had under Reagan before him.

The new, post-neo-conservative teabaggers have turned away from their “birther” rants, to howl about the ratty state of the economy. They conveniently forget that a credit gridlock was avoided, a depression was avoided by quick action of the new administration. The slow jobs recovery is painful, but look at the jobs chart below. Job loss (red) increased under the conservatives. Blue represents the job growth in the last year.  UPDATE: Read more about what the chart means.

May Job Growth

http://games.slashdot.org/story/10/02/05/0737210/GameStop-Other-Retailers-Subpoenaed-Over-Credit-Card-Information-Sharing :

MSNBC explains the scenario thus: “You’re on the site of a well-known retailer and you make a purchase. As soon as you complete the transaction a pop-up window appears. It offers a discount on your next purchase. Click on the ad and you are automatically redirected to another company’s site where you are signed up for a buying club, travel club or credit card protection service. The yearly cost is usually $100 to $145. Here’s where things really get smarmy. Even though you did not give that second company any account information, they will bill the credit or debit card number you used to make the original purchase. You didn’t have to provide your account number because the ‘trusted’ retailer gave it to them for a cut of the action.”

http://www.ag.ny.gov/media_center/2010/jan/jan27a_10.html

Cuomo has sent subpoenas to 22 well-known merchants that have deals with the three major companies that offer these discount programs: Webloyalty, Affinion/Trilegiant and Vertrue. The subpoenas seek information about retailers’ practices of sharing consumers’ account information with membership program companies; their knowledge of any deceptive solicitations; and compensation from the membership companies. The merchants being investigated include: Barnes & Noble, Orbitz.com, Buy.com, Ticketmaster.com, MovieTickets.com, FTD.com, Shutterfly.com, 1-800Flowers.com, Avon.com, Budget, Staples.com, Priceline.com, GMAC Mortgage, Classmates.com, Travelocity, Vistaprint, Intelius, Hotwire.com, Expedia/Hotels.com, Columbia House, Pizza Hut and Gamestop/EB Games.

It’s really sleezy for a retailer to pick their own customer’s pocket after a transaction. Find alternative to the losers above. Buy from Amazon, Office Max, The local flower shop, Pappa John’s, etc.,. Will corporate management never learn the breaking trust is not a long term strategy? This double-dipping behavior is disfunctional.

I wasn’t really following the Mac tablet rumors with baited breath, but when I heard an NPR brief about the unveiling, I visited Apple to look-see. Yeah. Okay. So the pay-per-opinion crowd will pan it (actually, they started weeks ago), but they are so wrong.

This is another game changer, and the price is not a turnoff.

Of course I want one. Don’t know how soon I might buy, but I can imagine myself cheerfully evicting the expensive “timer” calendar from my handbag and slipping iPad in its place. I’d sync at home; I’d sync at work…

It’s not about the slick design.
It’s not about the slick design.
It’s not about the slick design!

Yes, it has that beautiful slick case, but my lust for the product is about the design from inside out, not the other way around. Get that. It’s what’s inside the counts. The suggestion that it’s all about eye-candy is so cliché, so insulting, so petty, so sour-grapes.

THIS is the toy that will kill the netbook Mr. Balmer. Of course, I’m going to keep my precious white Linux EEE pc, but the slew of windows netbooks are going to change or die starting today.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I do not work for Mac but like most Mac owners, I have a PC laptop, and before last week, the OS was Vista.

I was hesitant to upgrade my PC “frisbee” to Win 7, so I was distraught, but not surprised when the first attempt to upgrade was a bust. I was ready to ask for a refund after a second try, but on the third attempt it magically installed. I was surprised — surprised that it was so attractive and easy to use. At first, the monitor colors were skewed to purple, but it was a snap to adjust the balance to get a really clear, color correct rendering of my photos and documents.  All of the settings seemed easier and more intuitive than any Win program I’ve ever used. Bugs aside, bad corporate behavior aside, I have to say Microsoft seems to have done well with this release.

If you’re stuck in Vista, upgrade as soon as possible; it may improve blood pressure.

Viewing those wretched Haitian earthquake images provokes a outpouring of desire to help. The organization, Doctors Without Borders, is “on the ground” and has operated facilities in Haiti for years. That makes them an excellent choice for donations that will alleviate some of the current suffering.

Before the earthquake, Haiti was not so much a failed state as a unofficial, failed colony of the US, a hapless condition Hispaniola’s Western population has endured for at least for the last 100 years.

All the piecemeal charitable efforts of thousands of private groups have failed to bring significant improvements to the lives of average Haitians, the country has been a sink-hole for small scale charitable efforts, as frequent eruptions of violence have erased the hard gained advances time and time again.

The economic refugees, who have fled deplorable conditions, have been treated with deplorable contempt by politicians and immigration agencies, not to mention the smug fundamentalist preachers.

I sincerely hope that the massive efforts, which will be needed to reconstruct the capitol to the pitiful state of affairs before the quake, can be extended to transform the political system, the social and economic circumstances of the popluation, and lay a foundation for sustainable development into the future.

If the international community can’t manage successful nation-building in this tiny country, Politicians surely must be deluded to speak as if “America” can do it anywhere else.