Author: Sungak

Continuing Fun With ‘The Slug’

Some of the latest things I’ve been working on with my NSLU2 Debian-install ‘Slug’ has been mostly tweaking.

Last couple days, due to discussion on #libsl, I got curious and decided to get the second account I use for freenode IRC network working again. (I use a separate user login for each ircnet under irssi so that I’m *positive* not to post to the wrong channel (an unfortunate and common mistake for awhile).

I’ve so far parked myself (within freenode) on #secondlifelug, #commits (god what a mistake that is), and the three main nslu2/openslug channels. So if you happen to see tkimball there, wave hi. ;) Next up is what they call over there a ‘cloak,’ which should hide my IP as well as denote anything I’m working on (or even one of the folks who’s donated to freenode itself, which I’m considering).

For those who’s wondering where I am on EFNet nowadays, its just #libsl now. Though I poke my head into #secondlife from time to time, it’s gotten too popular now and just wanders too much. Oh, and God Forbid the grid goes down (which has sadly been a common occurance the last two weeks…)

Note I’m using irssi over dtach, so it’s very possible that I won’t respond for hours or days. I’m not logging any of the freenode channels either, but only #commits is insanely scrolling. Can’t help much with the slug stuff anyway, since I’m now using Debian (and very happy with that btw), but never a bad thing to follow what’s happening code-wise or even physical hacking wise. For example, some months ago I successfully overclocked (actually de-underclocked) the ARM CPU by carefully opening the case and breaking a specific resistor; Since many over time reported that was not too bad to do, I went and did it. :)

Anyway, back to relaxing…

–TSK

The King Widgets

I had some time last weekend (after realizing that the other site upgraded relatively painlessly) and went a searchin’ for some tools to help configure my layout from anywhere – even work, in a pinch. ;)

I ran across a little goldmine over here. It’s a group of WordPress ‘Widgets,’ mini-plugins that work off a special widget plugin you can find here.

What I’m using from his list so far:
— King Framework – Required, its a library for the other stuff
— King Login – Used primarily to restrict my login/meta section to the main page
— King Text – It allows inclusion of HTTP/PHP files. Yay!
— King RSS – Much nicer-looking RSS feed, which allows different settings in different areas.

An example of what some of this allowed is available from my ‘Second Life’ catagory link. You’ll see two things a bit different:
— At the top of the sidebar, there’s an updating Lindex stat summary (mined on a regular basis from outside my webroot).
— Just under that, the RSS feed for the Linden Weblog has more entries listed.

I’m still playing with these, and some of the other widgets not listed. Should be fun…

EDIT – Hah. As I post this I (of course) run across some sort of bug, or combination of things that are creating a bug. More later, but the RSS feed is back to the main page only…

–TSK

Downtime

Bah.

The T_S Journal site will need to come down sometime this weekend for a proper upgrade. I botched the original install (from Fantastico’s perspective anyway) and would like to correct that.

I’ve also been away from this site, but tis because I’m a bit busy again. Mostly following other’s weblogs. ;) I’ll start to update the ToDo page with topics I want to write about but don’t have the time. Hopefully that will help. Will also drop one of those ’email comment’ thingies so others can make suggestions.

EDIT – I’m also trying to attend to my personal health, which is making me drop off the online radar a bit again. Nothing serious (thankfully), just gotten out of shape the past five years and trying to correct it. This was spurred on by the suddenness of what happened to my tooth a couple months ago (which is still being worked on) as the dentist has no clue how that happened.

*wave*
–TSK

Regarding the Second Life Security Problem Last Week…

[Disclaimer – Most of this is distilled from concerns that were raised both within their own forum and from ‘live’ discussion on the resident-run IRC channels.]

The story so far…

Well, there *was* a breach of some sort, but as of now they don’t know what exactly may have been taken. They’re getting close to finding out (as part of the ongoing investigation), but they decided to lockout the userbase last Friday as a precaution for everyone.

The two main items of information that I have concerns about were the passwords and the credit card data. Both were stored encrypted. However, the password you used there should be considered as invalid and not used anymore, anywhere (which is why I’ve been off the radar a while – I’m criusing many a forum and site to figure out which ones I used mine on :headbang: ). In my case, I had *just* changed the SL ones the previous week too, in an effort to make those accounts more secure. Bah. Why the password – for SL anyway – should be considered invalid is due to open source tools available now to login to the world and manipulate it, which could be modified to just send the encrypted password…

Credit card data is a coin toss as to what’s possible with an encrypted one. I’m in the same boat as many others, and my take right now is to keep a close eye on my balance for the next month or two. In the interim I’ll look into getting a new card and moving the many, many things I have on it (I need a new card anyway, the current one is falling apart again from wear ;) ). Linden Lab at this time is not being as forthcoming about the possibility of this data being grabbed, though I and several others are still pressing for a definitive answer.

I’m not as concerned about personal data, such as name, address, etc. My RL name is up for all to see, and from that I located the rest through the various ‘searching’ sites. I do know many in SL who care about this however, and am still following that aspect.

Changing the password should be easy enough – if you got the email notice last Friday, the link is there, plus trying to login to the site on a account not reset will re-direct you. The primary form of re-verification is the security question that should have been set during account creation; For older accounts there are a few others, including listing several people on your ‘Friends’ window. If all else fails you can call them; By now things should have calmed down (somewhat) at their Support Center.

If anyone is actually interested in hearing more updates, I’ll be happy to post them; Please comment…

–TSK

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