Faster, better…

Archive for the ‘Blog News’ Category

Just when you thought it was safe to start expressing your right to free speech, Democrats in Congress are gearing up for a vote on a new piece of legislation to blatantly undermine the First Amendment. Known as the DISCLOSE Act HR 5175, this bill – written by the head of the Democrats’ congressional campaign committee – is their response to the recent Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. In short, the Supreme Court found that the government could not restrict the free speech rights of individuals or other entities wishing to participate in the political dialogue.

Read the entire eye-opening opinion at Big Government:

via » Bloggers Beware – They’re Coming After You! – Big Government.

My CGAUX flotilla gave me the opportunity to create a new website. It is almost one month old and has been submitted to the Auxiliary chain of leadership for final approval. Creating yet another WordPress blog has been great fun and yes many hours of work initially. Local folks curious about the Coast Guard Auxiliary please check out DrumPoint.org. Find an article or two to comment on if you have time.

We live in a private community. We have a sign at the entrance stating that it is a private community. There is one way in and one way out. Nowhere is there public parking for beach access by car. At each beach entrance there is a chain and a no parking sign.

Despite this, some visitors to our neighborhood seem to think they can park wherever they feel like it and walk to the beach. There are signs at the beach that indicate the beach is for the use of Neeld Estate residents and their guests. Each cheater has to drive or walk by two or three signs sharing the who has what right of passage. Pretty clear it seems to me.

Those of us that own homes pay the humongous local and state property taxes for the privilege to have private beach access. It seems unfair that a cheater can drive in and park on a private lawn so he/she can use the beach instead of going next door and paying to use the county beach at Breezy Point. It’s rude. When I challenged one of the cheaters I got a silly answer and a dirty stare. Anyone visiting a friend would be parking near the friend’s home. Perhaps we should go camp in his front yard?

The Firewall plugin detected two injection attempts last Friday, April 3, 2009 at around 1357 hours from the same IP address 84.45.45.133 as reported by the Firewall plugin. Watch your logs and look for suspicious activity. I STRONGLY suggest WordPress blog owners install the Firewall plugin.

This attack was directed at a well-known plugin. The IP never even tried to look at the blog just issued a command to the plugin itself.

Need help securing your blog? I follow Lorelle On WordPress.  She wrote an article in March that is a must read. Go here.

I just wish there was a central clearing house to upload hack attempts so that people in the know could review them and distribute hack events and code ideas to plugin developers. Shouldn’t someone be keeping track of the villains and their shenanigans?

72.46.128.106 59
72.46.128.114 70
72.46.128.78 227
72.46.128.86 245
72.46.130.196 31
72.46.130.197 194
72.46.132.59 93
72.46.136.43 114
72.46.157.162 61
76.164.197.101 85
76.164.220.50 78
76.164.228.5 209
76.164.232.139 90
94.229.65.173 53
94.76.229.196 33
206.53.51.50 176
208.64.26.38 184
208.64.29.150 174

IP’s and connect attempts from SVSERVERS.COM since I wrote my first article on the attempts at blog comment spamming. The bot IP’s continue to target the same blog post. This company sure is an Internet pest.

Additional Internet searches recorded at DougWeb:

Boater’s Safety Course Calvert County

There are a number of places to go for a Boater’s Safety Course. I believe the College of Southern Maryland and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources offer a course. I am partial to the Coast Guard Auxiliary courses since I belong to that organization. Regardless of who you choose consider sitting in a classroom and taking the course from a human instructor instead of taking the course online.

The courses can be taken on line and some people may prefer it.  There is however a tremendous advantage to benefiting from the personal experience of qualified instructors and other students.

Boating is not as easy as it looks. People die making bad decisions. The benefits are that in a classroom you hear anecdotal examples of safe behavior and learn from the bad behavior of others. You don’t just regurgitate facts on a test.

The Auxiliary’s course starts in February so it is well under way. Another will be given later in the year. Sign up for a classroom course if you can. It will make a difference.

Restaurant Rating Criteria – Poor Customer Service in Restaurants

We enjoy rating the places we visit. We have our own standards on our review pages that you may find entertaining. Southern Maryland has a number of very good restaurants. The good ones have been around for a long long time. We have a number on our list to visit as we have time and discretionary income.

Weather Service Sky Warn Training

This is worthwhile. I took the training last year though I am still waiting for my Sky Warn number. You learn to recognize the serious weather that we experience in Southern Maryland.  The class is taught by trained NOAA weather professionals. It is an activity the entire family would enjoy. I saw elementary grade, junior high, college age, and older folks like myself there. My hat is off to St, Mary;s County emergency planners for hosting the class I attended last year.

Economy Good News

Wouldn’t it be nice to find one place where you could read about good economic news. It would be nice to have a pleasant place to work again as well. I think I speak for quite a few folks. I’ve written one article on good news. Perhaps we need more.

Celtic Festival of Southern Maryland

Yes! Get ready. It is coming. See our calendar over in the right column. My spouse and I go every year. She goes for the fiddle music and I go for the bag pipes.

Main Street Cafe Prince Frederick

Glad to see more folks are searching for this unique little coffee/sandwich shop in Prince Frederick. We reviewed this great place. Hope you have a chance to visit. 

The912Project.com

I am a big fan of Glenn Beck. It would be nice to have a 912 group right here in Calvert County. Not a disguised group of Republicans or Democrats but a group of common-sensitives focused on finding solutions to problems and acknowledging that principles and values are needed to find solutions. The bulletin board here at DougWeb is offered as a place to meet on line.

Calvert Cliffs Public Hearings

I believe in nuclear power and support the new reactor. Local folks are concerned and rightly so. Other than pointing out public meetings I have not written on this topic but it sure can be discussed on the bulletin board.

Twitter Calvert County

There don’t appear to be too many of us. At least I have not found very many. It is a very unique service and has great potential and value at the moment. Twitter folks work very hard to keep the Twitterverse safe from spammers. I follow local news at CalvertNews.info, SOMD.com, and WUSA TV.

PopularWireless

My other two-way radio website that deals with GMRS and other radio services.

Portside Restaurant and Bar Galesville

I cannot believe how popular searching for this new restaurant is. We have not been there yet. A relative said it is very busy at night, mostly on the upper deck. We hope it is more than just a bar.

Adidas and Graffiti

Sad how Adidas marketing folks have embraced the vandalism subculture. They have lost me as a customer.

What are you searching for on the Internet?

This evening at DougWeb I added the Faster, better BBS. A bulletin board system to discuss local topics and the anti-graffiti movement. Discuss things that move me and perhaps even you.

Check out the new bulletin board.

Various webmaster tools allow me to see search strings people use to find this website. Looking at the searches reveal what people are thinking about at a particular point in time. The searches are revealing. SOmetimes they are entertaining and sometimes make you think or wonder about the context of the search. I share some of those searches made over the last week in this article.

Tailgating on Highway

Searches for tailgating are especially picking up. It is no wonder since driving in Maryland is getting more dangerous every day.

Aggressive Driving Bullying

People are getting sick of aggressive driving. I really do hope that the majority of us finally start driving safely and that police abandon their radar traps to finally do something about aggressive drivers.

Solutions to Cyber Terrorism

I’m hoping to read more about this too! This blog was attacked and mae the subject very personal.

Car Warranty Call Scam

You would not believe the number of people searching for the credit and car warranty scam calls. This is good because they will find the mountains of information on these calls here and elsewhere and perhaps file a complaint with the rest of us. My latest tactic is to dial one and waste the scammer’s time.

Graffiti Art Lesson

Who in his right mind would be looking for graffiti art lessons. Graffiti by definition is a crime. The difference between graffiti and art is permission. What was this person really thinking?

DougWeb hosted the first anti-graffiti web page on the Internet way back in 1995. I am still a supporter of the anti-graffiti movement through NoGraffiti.com. We have a graffiti problem now in Calvert County. Tags are going up and are not always abated. When we ignore it it will begin to flourish. You watch.

Breezy Point Grill

Great place to eat. I wrote a review. Glad to see people reading it. I spend way to much money here but I just can’t help myself.

Topside Maryland and Portside Galesville MD

OK the Topside restaurant in Galesville closed but there are HUNDREDS of folks searching for information about it. Never in the years I have been writing reviews have I seen this many queries on a restaurant. They had quite a following. I understand the Portside opens in the old Topside restaurant building on March 6. I wish them success! A whole lot of folks really like to eat in that building.

Network Solutions mysql and WordPress Network Solutions and WordPress automatic upgrade

I see all of the searches. Are you hosted here? mySQL is a shared environment. Because of that, the path to mySQL is not available so some WordPress plugins like Lester Chan’s great database backup program cannot be used. Other plugins make up for it. The shared system also causes System error 500 messages and the occasional slow periods. There is just no way around it unless you spend more for virtual server hosting. As far as using automatic upgrade options, install your own WordPress site and don’t use their install. Using their install prevents or at least used to prevent updates using the automatic upgrade plugin.

Better Steak Restaurant in USA

Man if you find it share it with me! There are some famous ones ion Kansas City, Fort Worth, and I’m sure other places. Where is your favorite steak restaurant in Southern Maryland?

What did Confederate veterans want?

Not sure what this search was looking for. My great grandfather was a Confederate, at age 16. Discovered this when doing my family history at age thirty five. I never knew it until then. My second great grandfather was named after Ulysses Grant so I had branches in the North and the South. You gaina real appreciation for history when you do your genealogy. Genealogy was an earlier passion of mine. I wonder what the context of this search was?

Blacks in Plum Point Maryland

Contact me if you made this search. Were you looking for local history? The Patterson Museum has an exhibit you might be interested in. Plum Point Rd has a place in black history. Knowing the context of the search would allow me to research it more. I was once very active in the genealogy hobby and I have still have a strong interest in local history.

Poor Customer Service in Restaurants

People are very interested in this topic! I have written about it here.

There are many more and from time to time I’ll write about the more interesting searches used to find DougWeb. I encourage readers that do find DougWeb to comment. A blog is a community and you are welcome to join in on the fun.

Bloggers and fans of blogs take a minute to read Lorelle VanFossen’s article at the Blog Herald about scamming, spamming, splogging, and scraping! These cons are big business and impact the rest of us that do our best to write original content.

Faster, better joins Lorelle in the Year of Original Content! You can also read articles by Lorelle at Lorelle on WordPress.

Do you live in Calvert County, Maryland and author a blog? Send me the URL. I’d like to list it in my blogroll under Calvert Blogs. It doesn’t matter whether it’s commercial or personal. Send me the link. Searching the Internet our county seems under represented. There have to be more personal blogs and even commercial blogs out there! Send me the link.

Much to my amazement my website was hacked by porn merchants on 6/28/08. Every .html file had a huge keyword and link list added to it. You can’t see the list of offensive words and links until you actually view source. Links appear to go to other compromised website in .at .uk and .com locations. From there the user is bounced to an attack site that does who knows what.

I reported the hacking on Sunday morning to Network Solutions but I was told I wouldn’t hear back until tomorrow. Even Gold VIP members have to wait until a regular work day.

This compromise is very disconcerting. It comes right after a series of complaints made regarding the quality of database service and right about the time the web service provider begins offering a $14.95/month hacking prevention option. I thought they were doing that anyway? It also happens after the web service provider made directory privilege changes to prevent unauthorized stuff. I do not know what to think.

The hacking method used has triggered Google to unlink DougWeb from the world. Adsense ads no longer display. This attack may have been pre-meditated or is just another porno hijacking.

I hope Network Solutions has security people on staff that can get to the bottom of this.

If you were brought here by using perverted key words in a Google search that’s why. You will not find porn here.

It may take a awhile to clean up after the attack.

The PopularWireless.com ship watchers AIS page now has a seasonal view of Delaware bay. Be sure to check it out.

I’m not sure why but the blog is not being crawled by the google bot. I’m not indexed. Some of my static pages are but not the blog.

…or at least slowed down just enough to become a pain. (mysqlv1)

Both DougWeb and PopularWireless are facing DEAD SLOW mySQL server problems again. Third weekend in a row. The AIS page looks like it can’t accept new data. Attempts to repair tables on that small database took quite a while – waiting on the database IP to finish whatever it was doing. An attempt to optimize the largest table in the PopularWireless database produced the following:

Error

SQL query: Edit

INSERT INTO `pma`.`pma_history` (
`username` ,
`db` ,
`table` ,
`timevalue` ,
`sqlquery`
)
VALUES (
‘popwireblog’, ‘wp_popwireless’, ”, NOW( ) , ‘OPTIMIZE TABLE `wp_wassup`’
)

MySQL said: Documentation
#2006 – MySQL server has gone away

Network Solutions busy tackling a database server problem that has been an issue for over 24 hours. Access to the bulletin board and the blog is not possible as of Sunday morning.

As a Gold VIP member at Network Solutions I was promised periodic updates on situations like this but I have received NOTHING since I called around 7 PM yesterday evening.

It looks like the SQL 4 database is down but the SQL 5 is up.

I took the header pictures with my digital camera. These are from the immediate area around my home. There are a couple of shots of Eileen on the beach. We are just 800 feet from the Chesapeake Bay and loving it.

Network Solutions had  one this evening. The database server went down causing the blog to fail.  Looks like it is back up. Sorry for the inconvenience.

I created DougWeb in 1995. Way back at the beginning of the Internet. Before modern Internet time that’s for sure.  Then it was a place where I could post my resume, deal with issues in my community like graffiti and neighborhood problems, my pets, my spouse. It was and  remains one of those old sites that has a personal twist to its point of view.

Thirteen years seems like an eternity given how technology has changed. Then I was just leaving the world of FidoNet having managed a FidoNet hub 161/200 and node 161/911 (The No-Name Yet Genealogy BBS).  That was in the early 90′s when the 8086 was king and 9600 baud was possible with a modem that set you back over $400.  Remember the US Robotics Courier HST?

I want to bring it back to life in the 2000′s so my friends and relatives have some idea where we have been and perhaps where we are going. Eileen and I are living now in the land of exorbitant property taxes, excessive litter, and unfriendly government.  Graffiti is even on the rise in my area.  What a mess we are compared to California. Maryland’s saving grace is its beauty, and if I can keep up with the litter control in my area even the roadways look as nice as the Chesapeake bay does.

Just as DougWeb looked at BART, graffiti, local government, and conservative views so shall it now in 2008. We might even go back to doing an occasional restaurant review.

A mentor of mine, Galen Workman, cherished the word, “Faster!” As my boss at the time, Galen used it in a serious but friendly way to inspire continuous effort and work output among his charges. Tending to be confidently argumentative I pushed back and said, “Better!” He said, “NO! Faster!”

We compromised on, “Faster, better!!”

I kept those two words close to mind as my career changed and I think they have made a difference. The following is a list of favorite management-oriented slogans that I have shared with others over the years. Almost all of these were swiped from folks that I admired and respected for their knowledge, ability, and entrepreneurial chutzpah. Faster, better is one of those slogans. Thank you Galen   (He really was an inspirational character. Don’t ever tell him I said that though.)

We’re always asked to be faster! The perception is here is never enough time. The faster we go the less difference it seems to make. It’s when you are better that faster really counts. Better means that whatever you do is generally not called into questions. Faster is often not better but is rather misdirected and hastily performed work e.g.  Just because you were faster doesn’t mean you were better. Faster to market, faster to get done, etc. Better means your results excelled over others because you gave your best to whatever you did and that end result reflects better. A better widget if you will. A widget can be anything you want to be.

Problems develop when people cannot compromise and insist only on faster and not insisting on achieving better. The problem is that faster makes you just another, “Me too.” A me-too marketer, salesperson, developer, programmer, writer, whatever. Me too is faceless achievement. Faster meets the objective of getting to market on time but adding better is what actually makes success possible.

That’s where the title of my personal blog comes from. Oh by the way, you can meet Galen chasing his dachshunds even faster at http://www.ozdachs.com!

I enjoy using WordPress so much at my other site PopularWireless.com I thought I’d wake up this site a bit with WordPress as well. This is a personal blog. It may deal with my belief system as well as my interests.