particlestorm.net

You can now stalk me on:

Twitter: http://twitter.com/caladd

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1587281726

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/cladd

My Blog: http://www.particlestorm.net/

I’ve upgraded my blogging software to Wordpress version 2.5 so if you see anything wonky with the site please let me know.

I have been planning for almost 2 years to redo my site layout to use CSS instead of tables. The HTML table tag was never meant to be used for layouts, it’s purpose was to display tables of data, much like a spreadsheet. CSS layouts are more complex to design, mainly because it is hard to make the layout look the same across browsers, such as IE and Firefox. But the benefits are worth it, such as better search engine results and better accessibility for screen readers (for the blind) and devices such as PDAs and cell phones.

Along with the redesign I added another sidebar column and added a bunch of my favorite links, such as audio and video podcasts I subscribe to. I also busted out my vector graphics program, Inkscape, and refreshed the graphics with more of a “Web 2.0″ look. BTW, if you are into making digital art you need to try Inkscape, it works under Linux, Mac X, and Windows. It is also open source and free!

Download Inkscape at: http://www.inkscape.org/

If you haven’t found time to check out my two newest web sites there is no time like the present to take a look.

Python Hacks - www.pythonhacks.com
I recently published the first part of a two part article on Python Hacks covering threading and how to use threads in Python. The second part of the article is going to cover a cool new feature in Python 2.4 called Decorators.

Aona Security Journal - www.aonasecurityjournal.com
This new content will probably be of more interest to most the readers of my blog. I have an article covering the latest batch of Microsoft patches with links to detailed information on each problem. I strongly recommend people go to http://update.microsoft.com to install these patches because 4 of the vulnerabilities are now being actively exploited. Nothing will ruin your day like having your computer and its data turn into a festering spam-bot, recking havoc on humanity.

I also just posted an article about the two different types of web browser cookies and why third-party cookies are evil. The article gives detailed instructions on how to disable them in the most popular browsers.

I just put the finishing touches on my church’s new web site. You can see the finished product at:

http://www.fccbakersfield.org/

Please take a look and let me know of any errors.

I added a section to the right that displays the 5 most recent comments posted to my blog. I am hoping this will encourage people who read this blog to post comments about my posts. People do read this blog, right? Hello, is anyone there?

I noticed that my site’s feeds were not being updated in Bloglines and after a little investigation I found a solution. For other WordPress users out there in the blogosphere, this is a known problem with the new 1.5 version. For a temporary fix, change line 17 in your wp-blog-header.php file to:

(false === strpos($_SERVER['PATH_INFO'], ‘.php’))

which means just delete the ‘index’ portion of ‘index.php’. After doing so, the feeds should work again.

This site is now running WordPress version 1.5 and everything seems to be in working order. Please email me if you find any problems.

I have also removed automatic comment moderation because this new version of WordPress is suppose to be able to handle comment spam. This means that any comments you write should be posted immediately, unless your comment looks like spam, in which case it will be placed in a moderation queue for me to ok or delete.

The wonderful software I use to run this web site, called WordPress, just released a shiny new version. I want to play with this new version so I will be upgrading my site later on today. This is a major release, so expect some issues with the site until I get everything running smoothly again. The upgrade instructions look simple, but these things have a way of becoming more complicated than they look.

When I first moved to town I tried to do a quick google to find out what time Sunday church service was. To my surprise, First Christian Church, the church I go to here in Bakersfield, didn’t have a website! So, these many months later, I finally took matters into my own hands and created one for the church.

The new website for First Christian Church - Bakersfield, California is at http://www.fccbakersfield.org and I just finished posting the first version of the site. It is very simple because I did not know what to put on the web site. So, currently it just has the church’s contact information and the time of the worship service every Sunday.

So, please take a look at http://www.fccbakersfield.org and give me some suggestions on what information the site should contain.