Could this be....

October 19, 2006

Earlier this month there were some stories about Podshow 's influx of cash. At the time I speculated there might be an Apple link. Today brings news that an Apple patent filing in the last couple of years hints at satellite radio compatibility for the iPod. Could it be that there is something to the idea that Apple and Podshow with their satellite radio ties might be looking to do something in the future?

Federated users in Drupal

October 14, 2006

I'm working with a complex network of Drupal sites and trying to find the best way to do federated users. The Drupal Module approach is a little too shotgun for this case. I need fine control, roles, taxonomy access etc. for each site but would like to have a common username and password. In the best of all possible worlds single-sign-on.

One approach uses MySQL views to accomplish this. So far this seems a good approach but it is not as simple to administer as I'd like. The Open Journal Systems approach is very much what I'd like to implement. An administrator goes to the main site and can see all the users and can assign users to various sites. It would be possible to do this with the roles in Drupal but one would quickly end up with a huge number of roles in managing just a few sites.

Authenticating all sites to LDAP would be another option worthy of consideration.

A discovery in this process has been that to share the sequences table most effectively using MySQL's ability to handle symbolic links for tables seems to be the best way. This solves two problems. One is modules that don't work well with table prefixing. The other problem it avoids is one of table locking when trying to use a MySQL view in place of a table. The drawback is you need an up-to-date version of MySQL and it may not work with other databases.

Dreamhost earns mixed reviews

October 13, 2006

Back in July I looked at moving web hosts to Dreamhost as they got high marks on several Drupal related boards. Indeed they have a lot of great ideas. Ultimately two problems caused me to invoke the 97-day money-back guarantee.

The first problem reared it's head as I started to transition domains to Dreamhost. If one has a "fully hosted" domain with Dreamhost they presume that you will have your "www." name pointed to their www server. Therefore it's not possible to have their DNS setup without having www.example.com pointed at their server. This makes for tough going when one wants to test and transition.

Fatally, however, the email system for IMAP was terribly unreliable. Time after time it would ask for my password when it had just been given. Perhaps it's a client issue or a conflict between the client and server but whatever the root cause it proved fatal for their hosting. It does seem that POP clients worked reasonably well.

Dreamhost's MySQL, PHP and therefore Drupal support earn high marks. It would be great if they'd add it as a goodie to install in their hosting control but it works pretty well otherwise.

Sick MacBook

October 9, 2006

We have a sick MacBook on our hands. Fortunately (we hope) it is not the dreaded restart problem that some have had. Rather the cause is a battery issue where the battery is not recognized after it was fully drained and the computer left unplugged overnight.

Of course this is probably a decent time for it to break because the only thing we'll miss is yet another post about Google buying You Tube.

TV Free

October 8, 2006

How does one explain to people that they really don't watch television. I have a TV. I watch movies and I do watch some TV series via NetFlix when they come out on DVD. I quit watching the TV about 18 months ago now. My choice came from the revelation that even the best TV both failed to improve my life but also managed to suck productive hours from my day.

It never fails though. Some well meaning friend or family member calls or IMs with the latest "must see" show or special that is on right now. The advice may well be good but for one little detail. Turning on the TV would make me far less productive and cut into the already too-few hours of sleep each day brings.

All Tower Records Stores to close

October 8, 2006

Thanks to a reader for pointing out this article talking about the shuttering of all Tower Records stores.

While the 90 Tower Records stores may not be a huge impact on overall retail sales, it does send a strong signal where the bricks and mortar record industry is going. The real question is when the record labels will catch up with the times or if they too will fall victim as artists figure out that the companies have outlived their usefulness.

Never store tar backups in web accessible directory

October 6, 2006

One blog is accumulating Google code searches that reveal information they shouldn't. For example this search produces a list of some Drupal database usernames and passwords. Most are for distributions but a few folks have unwisely put backups of their configuration files in .tar files inside their web accessible directories.

Simply put, no file containing sensitive data should ever be stored in a web accessible directory unless it has the proper extension to prevent random browsing. Files like Drupal's settings.php are OK because they must go through the PHP processor. Putting settings.php.txt or a .tar file with a settings.php in a web directory is a bad idea.

Pages

Subscribe to