Linked List: September 7, 2009

Monday, 7 September 2009

How to Not Get Your Blog Hacked 

Maciej Ceglowski:

If you listen to me, the answer is much simpler. Do not run this kind of software on a public server. Either host your blog with a competent centralized site (like LiveJournal or Blogger) that takes the burden of upgrading, backing up and patching off your hands, or use whatever personal publishing software you like (WordPress, Movable Type, and so on), but keep it on a local machine.

This is how a lot of early blogging software worked. The software generated static files and uploaded them to the publicly available server, which meant the software was not publicly available. This is very secure, especially if you’re using SFTP, but the downside is that you can’t post from multiple machines.

Update: Maciej has added a new post with a basic outline of how such a setup would work.

John Nack on Snow Leopard’s New Default Gamma Setting 

Good explanation of the historical reason for Mac OS using a gamma setting of 1.8.

Commodore 64 Emulator for iPhone Approved by Apple 

Remember the Commodore 64 emulator app that was initially rejected from the App Store? With changes, it’s now accepted and available for $5. (One of the changes was to hide the BASIC interpreter, alas.) Aron Allen has a nice interview with the app’s lead developer.

Update: Rene Ritchie details how to access the hidden BASIC interpreter.

Update 2: Apple giveth, and Apple taketh away. The C64 app is no longer available from the store. Methinks Apple took none too kindly to the wink-wink-nudge-nudge “hiding”, rather than removal, of the BASIC interpreter.

Spotify Mobile App Released for Both iPhone and Android 

Tom Insam’s first thoughts on the just-released Spotify mobile client for the iPhone and Android. (It’s worth mentioning again that Spotify isn’t yet available in the U.S.)