Author Archives: Matt Simpson

Digital Certificate Expired

On Wednesday of this week the digital SSL certificate for secure.digitalorphans.org expired before I had a chance to renew it. Ouch. If you attempted to access Plesk from Wednesday to Friday evening on websrv01 you would have been presented with a warning message from your web-browser stating that the digital certificate for the domain has expired.

I apologize for not getting this renewed on time; however, it was successfully renewed and installed this morning. The old digital certificate is still installed when sending e-mail through secure.digitalorphans.org if you have SSL enabled, but I will get Greg to copy that over today.

A Web-Journal Entry (i.e. Blog Post)

A quick post today about a few letters: i.e. and e.g.

Have you ever felt imbecilic for using terms in sentences that you weren’t 100% sure of? I’ll admit, I’ve used “i.e.” and “e.g.” extensively throughout my life writing technical documents, teaching and even just in day to day blog posts I suppose. I’ll assume that I have used the terms correctly because no one has ever corrected my uses, but I never did know why I was writing “e.g.” in place of “Example”. Where did the G come from? I really never even questioned it before yesterday, to be honest.

This morning before I got into my work routine I needed to find out.

Well a quick search of the net turned up Yahoo Answers, which made me happy because someone else asked this question. It turns out that this is commonly misunderstood.

From my extensive research (ha), I’ve turned up the the following:

i.e. stands for id est, Latin for “that is”.

e.g. stands for exempli gratia, Latin for “for example”.

If you previously did not know this… you do now! Lucky you. If you did already know this… oh aren’t you a smarty pants, don’t think less of others who aren’t so linguistically savvy!

DigitalOrphans Update (v12)

Server Maintenance Report: websrv01
The scheduled maintenance of websrv01 went very well today with no problems to report. All relevant Red Hat updates were installed and I’ve upgraded PHP on the server to PHP 4.4.4.

Greg and I have not yet decided on a date to upgrade Plesk to version 8; however, we will be looking into it shortly and we will definitely post a solid date and time. I’m thinking arbitrarily sometime in mid-November… I’ve actually heard that SWSoft is going to be releasing Plesk 8.1 very shortly so at this point it might be better off to wait and see what they are doing first.

DigitalOrphans Update (v11)

Server Downtime: websrv02
On Saturday, September 16th at approximately 5:25PM EST we had some unexpected downtime on websrv02. This was caused by a permissions problem during a standard RedHat package update. The issue was resolved after about 15 – 20 minutes when Greg found the issue and corrected it. Users may not have actually noticed an issue at all since it was a problem with DNS and it only affected new queries to Bind. websrv02 was rebooted during this update.

PHP Updated: websrv02
Thanks to Greg’s persistence and assistance, we have also upgraded PHP on websrv02 to PHP 5.1.6. If you had PHP scripts running on websrv02, please check them out for any compatibility issues.

Server Maintenance: websrv01
We need to do some updates to websrv01 as well and we’re thinking that Sunday morning would be ideal for this. Updates will be performed to RedHat Enterprise on websrv01 on Sunday, September 24th @ 10:00AM EST. Downtime should be minimal if any, although we will need to perform a reboot of the server. A PHP upgrade to PHP 4.4.4 will also be done at this time.

Future Maintenance: websrv01
We still have not decided on a date to perform the upgrade of Plesk on websrv01 to version 8.0.1; although I will consult with Greg about this shortly and provide a solid date. After we have upgraded Plesk to the 8.0 release, we will shortly there after be upgrading PHP to version 5.1.6 as well. As previously stated, please make sure that all PHP scripts on the server are compatible with PHP 5.1.

Crocodile Hunter: Sadly Missed

I awoke this morning to some terrible news… the world famous crocodile hunter, Steve Irwin, was killed while filming a TV series in Australia.

The official statement from crocodilehunter.com is as follows:

Media statement – 4 September 2006

Steve Irwin

At 11am today, the 4th September 2006, Steve Irwin was fatally wounded by a stingray barb to his heart whilst filming a sequence on Batt Reef off Port Douglas for his daughter’s new TV series. Emergency services were called from Cairns Rescue Base and met Croc One, Steve’s rescue vessel at Low Isle on the Great Barrier Reef. The Croc One crew performed constant CPR during the thirty minute dash to Low Isle, but the medical staff pronounced Steve dead at approx. 12 noon.

His producer and closest friend, John Stainton said on Croc One today, “The world has lost a great wildlife icon, a passionate conservationist and one of the proudest Dads on the planet. He died doing what he loves best and left this world in a happy and peaceful state of mind. Crocs Rule!”

This unfortunate accident leaves behind Steves loving wife Terri and his two small children, whom, from what I’ve read, were “the reason he was put on the Earth”. For a complete research resource on Steve Irwin, please see Wikipedias fantastic write-up.

The Crocodile Hunter can without hesitation be referred to as a staple TV series, one that is both timeless and entertaining for people of all ages. For years I have enjoyed watching Steve risk his behind in-front of the camera; his love of nature, wildlife and education was an inspiration to millions of people around the globe. He will be missed, may peace come to his family.

Crikey!

Board Room Of Snakes

So there is this movie out now… Something about snakes on a plane or something stupid like that. ha. It seems that a bunch fat cat executives and their slave-type man-boy assistants tried to write a movie as part of their mid-life crisis.

I seem to have found this dialogue from their first meeting:

INT. FANCY BOARD ROOM – MID AFTERNOON

A fancy executive type board room full of fat cat executives and their slave-type man-boy assistants. WALTER struts into the full board room cackling at something on his cell phone, followed by TIMMY, a spineless errand boy with his arms full of books and papers.

WALTER
(insincerely)
Sorry I’m late gentlemen, I was… stuck in traffic if you know what I mean. (cackles aloud, alone)

So I have all this money, damit, lets make movie… A scary, scary movie… one that people will be scared of… really scared of. (cackles aloud, alone, again)

Timmy, what are people scared of?
TIMMY
(cowering)
Dust?

WALTER
(impatient)
No

TIMMY
(cowering)
The IRS?

WALTER
(more impatient, yelling)
No!

ROGER, a fat cat from Texas on the other end of the long table speaks out.

ROGER
(yells)
Snakes, I hate snakes. Crazy little critters, yeee hawwww.

WALTER
(delighted)
YES, snakes! Snakes are good.

SIMON, ROGERS slave-type man-boy assistant, whispers to ROGER.

ROGER
(disgusted and ashamed)
Flying? Boy, you’re scared of flyin’?

ROGER, about to go off on SIMON is interrupted by WALTER.

WALTER
(excited)
That’s it! We’ll make a movie about snakes on a plane?

TIMMY
(confused, cowering)
But, what is it going to be about boss? What would it be called? How would snakes get on a plane?

WALTER
(invisioning)
You idiot, it’s about snakes on a plane, snakes on a plane, and who cares how they got there.

ROGER
(excited)
Yeee hawwww.

Anyways, thats how that script I, erm, found said it initially went down. I believe it. Then I’m told they found some out-of-work writer, who happened to be addicted to meth, to actually write the movie.

Then when they actually showed the script to someone who knew what they were talking about, sh@t hit the fan as described in the other dialogue I, erm, found.

EXT. PATIO IN AN UPSCALE CAFE

Fat cat WALTER waits in anticipation as JEAN-PIERE a French artisan-type movie director dressed in black reads in horror the script which he must now direct because of a lost bet about loafer lightener.

JEAN-PIERE
(repulsed)
Vat is dis? You caunt be serious?

WALTER
(completely not getting that JEAN-PIERE is repulsed)
Isn’t it great! Lets get started.

A single tear runs down JEAN-PIERES face.

JEAN-PIERE
(crying)
Dis will ruin me? De only thang that would make this acceptable…

(his face lights up)
Is… is…

WALTER waits eye-wide in anticipation.

JEAN-PIERE (CONT)
A single good actor… no critic previews… advertising which vill cost more dan de movie… and most importantly… release it ven there is absolutely nothing… nothing… nothing… else in da theatres… (smug, evil look on his face)

WALTER
(confused but ecstatic)
My movie making dream will finally be a reality!

Yeah, so there you have it. The dialogue of the making of that movie about snakes… on a plane. Embarrassing stain on Hollywood? I think maybe. You?

Jeeves, News Please

So I’ve always been one of those people who gets angry at people who win lotteries and blow all their money on stupid investments, expensive houses and fancy cars that you’d be scared to drive for the fear of someone running into you. My theory is, keep what you need to enjoy the rest of your life with your family and friends and do something with rest that will cement your name in history, such as paying for a new cancer centre at your local hospital… or bettering the lives of people who actually need it.

That said, I would do one stupid thing… I would like to hire someone to read the news, all the news, or at least a lot of the news, and tell me interesting things on demand… I’m talkin RSS feeds, local papers, foreign papers, anything and everything. Then summarize all of that news into brief conversations that I could ponder in my spare time. If I was really interested in an article, maybe they would also be required to do extra research and provide a detailed report or something to that effect.

I used to read a lot of news, almost exclusively through RSS feeds, but I found that it cluttered my brain with things I wasn’t super interested in and I never did find a good way of training any RSS readers to read everything and show me stuff I’d be interested in.

DigitalOrphans Update (v10)

  1. Server Maintenance Status Report
    Just a quick update to let everyone know that the required server upgrades were performed successfully this evening. All RedHat Errata were applied on both websrv01 and websrv02 and both servers were rebooted without incident. websrv02 also received a Plesk update which pushed it to version 8.0.1. The only thing that was not completed was the PHP 5.1 upgrade on websrv02; I have read of a few minor issues I must first look into regarding the webmail application (Horde) and PHP 5.1 compatibility. I will be investigating this over the weekend (likely Sunday evening), but I will not be scheduling any downtime for this upgrade because generally it will happen so fast that no-one would notice.
  2. Conclusions
    I am always a happy camper when upgrades go “as-planned” 😉 If anyone notices any problems or is having trouble accomplishing something that was previously working, please contact me immediately.

E-Mail Scams Scram

Being a long time “netizen” I probably deal with more spam, scam and virus e-mails than anyone else I know. Thanks to SpamAssassin and Thunderbirds’ fantastic bayesian filtering techniques I luckily only see about 5-10 of these messages per day in my inbox, the rest (at least 100 – 200 messages per day) are being filtered through to my Junk folder and deleted.

Spam is one thing, but some of these damn scam e-mails are something much more diabolical. Now I’m not talking about the ridiculous Nigerian 411 scams that only work because of human greed… I’m talking about messages like:

Dear Matt [which just happens to be the first part of my e-mail address]
Yada Yada… this is notice to inform you that the credit card information that we have on file for your account will be expiring in the coming months, please log into our website and update your billing details. For your personal security, please type “https://www.ourcompany.com” into your web-browser’s location window or click the following link [evil_link]https://www.ourcompany.com[/evil_link].

Sincerely,
Real Name
Valid Company Inc.
http://www.ourcompany.com

Now being that long time experienced “netizen” I can spot these things (usually really quite easily because I use text-only e-mail)… and I know not to click on links in e-mails, period… but how am I supposed to explain that to unsuspecting friends, my father, etc? They look at me like I’m a nutzo paranoid crazy man if I tell them they can’t click links in e-mails at all, never ever, no matter what or who it’s from.

Here’s something that made me laugh today (again because of all my net-experience)… I received a virus e-mail that actually got me concerned (for a few seconds anyways). I actually called WorldPay before I did anything, just to confirm my suspicions and that this was infact a hoax message. It is honestly the first time I’ve ever given any significant number of seconds thought to one of these messages; therefore, it’s a valid share and besides Google has nothing on this yet:

Hello

My name is Dave and I am from the Support of WorldPay.

We have received the payment order (ID 0220712,Receipt Date 09/07/2006) from you and we need to make a verification of the details you have filled in, as we have received a notice from your card service stating that there was a chargeback made by the owner of the card with which you have made the payment and that your level of authorization has been altered during your last transaction.

This is a very serious matter. We have deducted the amount of the chargeback, GBP 149.89, from your account and added our standard fee of GBP 24.00 as well (you can see your payment details in the attachment).

We have failed to contact you using the telephone number you have provided earlier, meeting no response.

As a precaution, we have limited access to your account in order to protect against future unauthorized transactions.Please understand that this is a security measure intended to help protect you and your personal information.

Please contact your credit card company to resolve this matter.

Best Regards,
Dave Gollick
shopper@uk.worldpay.com

Yes there was some pour grammar in the message and true there was no “Hello [firstname] [lastname]”, but I deal with card processing quite a bit and I actually know WorldPay and their services, plus there were no links off-message… It was enough to get me thinking anyways. Of course the major tip off was the attachment. Why the heck would WorldPay attach a .zip file of the unauthorized transaction? Either way, that quick call to WorldPay confirmed that indeed it was a hoax. Question solved.

I’m actually not sure where I was going with this blog entry now… I was just annoyed and thought it would be fun to share… so yeah, I’m leaving now.

Earth To Amy!

So my friend (and co-worker) Amy is somewhere down in Peru right now on a three week * “vacation” and we were just sitting around the office a moment ago wondering what exactly she is up to right now. Perhaps she’s wandering around Lima, perhaps she’s taking flight over the mystic Nazca Lines, perhaps she’s even hiking the ancient Machu Picchu Trail… What ever she is doing right now, she is probably having the time of her life and enjoying a touching, life changing, cultural experience. She sure is a traveller.

So Amy, cu-do’s and enjoy your trek! Oh and a big high five from Canada, in the odd event that you are actually reading my blog while enjoying your time in a small rural Peruvian village. erm… prolly not, at least I hope not. Oh but in case you are, HAPPY belated BIRTHDAY (it was yesterday). Our birthday wish for you was that you don’t have to endure the eating of small rodents while on your vacation… of course being a vegetarian and all, not because eating guinea pigs is weird or anything. erm…

Safe journey and we’ll see you when you return. We’re looking forward to reviewing the 4GB’s of photographs you’ve taken while away, on Flikr no less.

* The word vacation is in quotes because to me, a vacation entails being served copious amounts of strawberry daiquiris while sitting on my ass in a beach chair by the warm ocean. For the love of all that is holy it’s called “Vacation Time” Amy; not “Haul Your Ass Around The Globe Time” geeze! haha. But of course when I return to work after a vacation, I’m “dumber” to the nth degree as a result of all the booze and sun versus you returning smarter and energized as a result of your touching, life changing, cultural experience. But come on! *thinking of the Simpsons episode when Homer is walking down the beach in a speedo, singing “I’m in Ri-o! And I’m walking on the beach, I’m a speedo!”*