Arr… Arr… My website got hacked again. The hacker exploited a security hole in phpBB 2.0.10. I should have upgraded my phpBB once I got the security warning. This time the hacker has a bit more conscience, he only defaced the front page of my forum, left a message tell me to patch my version of phpBB. Since it is partly my own fault not patching the files immediately, I not as mad as last time. Last night I spent quite some time installing the latest version of phpBB to fix the security bleach. I’ll just have to leave with my current setup a bit longer, once I had more free time I’ll get a new computer to setup a more secure server. My grand scheme is to integrate phpBB (forum), Word Press (Blog), Coppermine (Album) into a coherent website. I’d also like to add databases to display random quotes, facts about myself and interesting background pictures. The crowd jewel of my site will be an on-line version of my mp3 archive completed with sorted catalog and search features.
All posts by hevangel
PC Magazine
I have been a read of the PC Magazine since grade 9. It was the most popular computer magazine back then. Another computer magazine I used to read is the Byte Magazine, which flopped a few years ago. In Hong Kong imported magazine was expensive and hard to find. Being a poor student, the only place I could read PC Mag was at the central library, which close to where I had my math tutorial. I remember after the tutorial lesson, instead of going home straight, I used to spend an hour or so at the central library, checked out the magazines every week. Among the columnists in PC Magazine, I had been a loyal of John C. Dvorak, whose articles have good insight into the trends of the computer industry. I think my opinions on high tech related issues more or less had been influenced by him over these years. When I was waiting for my prescription at Safeway this evening, I browse the magazines section to kill time. To my surprise, I couldn’t find PC Magazine on the shelf. How can PC Magazine not carried by the biggest supermarket chain in Canada? The only logical conclusion is that it is not selling well, and Safeway decided to drop it. I have a bad feeling that PC Magazine is going to disappear soon, when its parent company ZD publication decided to cut the lose.
vacation scam
Today Pat received one of those vacation scam phone call. A representative from Ramada Plaza Resort (RPR) claimed that she had won a luxury cruise vacation through lucky draw at the Vancouver food festival. Pat get suspicious when the caller asked for her credit card number and decided to hang up. Later on she searched the web on more information, it turn out that this RPR is well known for scam people and the US government is filing law suits against them. Instead of getting a free vacation, you will end up paying thousands of dollars for unexpected charges and upgrades. The caller had purposely misled you to believe you are getting a vacation for several hundred bucks of administration fee. But what you really got is an option to purchase a discount tour package at a marked up price and a promotion video. Since they taped only part of the conversation to their advantage, it is not easy to get refund from the credit card company. Beware of this kind of telephone scam, if it sounds too good to be true, it is very likely something is wrong. Only greedy and dumb people will fall into their traps. Lastly, think twice before entering any lucky draw by source without credibility. They may simply use information you gave them to scam you.
single
For a person almost at the age thirty still remaining in single seems a bit unusual these days. A friend of mine at work unfortunately falls within this category. When the group get together and run out of topic, the focus will somehow always shift to this poor guy’s lack of girlfriend. We had tried to offer helps and advices to hook him up with some girls. Normally, a single person would show at least some interest to those girls or reflect the question by claiming he already has potential dates. However this friend of mine always dodge those conversations, that makes us even more curious on the true reason behind his single status. If his claim of being a straight normal man is is true, I couldn’t understand why he never show any interest to any girls. Too bad that the relationship between him and one of the two other single female coworkers doesn’t work out. Either (or both) of them should be quite a perfect match for him. Ar.. somehow this just reminds me the first song of Miriam Yeung’s latest album.
first goal
I had my first goal in the soccer game tonight, quite an accomplishment. However I lost 5 chances to have my 2nd goal. Too bad that it will be the last indoor game for a while. Starting from next month, we’ll try playing outdoor field which is free. The only bad thing about playing soccer late at night is I couldn’t sleep right away as the body is still in adrenaline rush. So I have to relax my mind a bit before going to bed.