Just wanted to give some quick props to a really nice favicon generator here: http://realfavicongenerator.net

It made the work of creating all the different kinds of favicons (including transparent versions) quick and easy.

Lately I’ve had a bunch of wordpress sites that seem to randomly come under brute-force attacks on their wp-login pages.  One relatively simple solution is to password-protect the login file which will block the attacker from even trying to log in.  Seems like a reasonable security measure that can be put in place.  Use a htpasswd generator to create the .htpasswd file.

Add the code below to your root level .htaccess file, and make sure to change out the path to your .htpasswd file as necessary.

# START brute force protection
 ErrorDocument 401 "Unauthorized Access"
 ErrorDocument 403 "Forbidden"
 <FilesMatch "wp-login.php">
 AuthName "Authorized Only"
 AuthType Basic
 AuthUserFile /path/to/.htpasswd
 require valid-user
 </FilesMatch>
 # END brute force protection

PayPal is upgrading SSL certificates, connection types, and so forth, which is generally a good thing.  However, CentOS has a tendency to be a bit behind on just about everything and that includes the version of cURL that is bundled into the OS.

To test your CentOS machine (or just about any linux machine) to see if it’ll be compatible with PayPal’s new updates, run this command:

curl https://api-3t.sandbox.paypal.com/nvp

If you get an SSL Error (35), you’ll need to run some updates.  If you get a long string back from PayPal complaining about the method not being supported, then you’re in good shape.

To get CentOS to actually use a modern version of cURL, there’s some great instructions here http://serverfault.com/questions/321321/upgrade-curl-to-latest-on-centos that worked perfectly for me.

You might be a computer science geek if your idea of a good way to learn a new framework is to create a tic-tac-toe game.

Had a project today that I figured might be a good use case for MongoDB.  Since I’ve never used that tech before, I started googling around to see if my use case would be a good fit.

As it turns out, I can probably just use a combination of MySQL and Amazon S3 and make it easier and cheaper than using MongoDB, but along the way I found a great read: Why You Should Never Use MongoDB by Sarah Mei.  She talks about using MongoDB as a replacement for a relational database (MySQL, PostgreSQL, etc.) and how it doesn’t fit that use case in real-world situations.  If you’ve got some random JSON data and that data can be of formatting any-which-way, then MongoDB works great.  It also seems to work well as a cache layer between a RDBMS and code, but as a straight up replacement to an RDBMS? Nope.

I’d like to give a shout-out to dropzone.js.  I’m working on a project that requires very-easy uploading of images, and this makes drag-and-drop uploading a breeze.  Thanks dropzone!

I learned something awesome the other day — you no longer need a dedicated IP address for every site that needs to have an SSL certificate!  Not only does this greatly help with IPv4 exhaustion, but on a personal level, it means that I can throw more SSL-based sites on a single server without needing to add additional IP addresses.  So cool!

To make it work, your server needs to be SNI compatible.  Looks like most modern operating systems are, including CentOS 6, which I’m using to host my “big” server at AWS with cPanel.

I’m just so excited about being able to host as many secure sites as I want without any concern for IP address allocation.  Cool!

BTW, I found a place to get SSL certificates for $8 per year, and they’re using the same backend technology as GoDaddy.  If you haven’t already, check out Starfield Technologies.

I just got done putting together the “why” video for DuxCal.  1 minute and 15 seconds of finished video took I-don’t-know how many hours to put together.  Writing the script, recording the raw footage, finding the right supporting media, doing voiceovers, editing the script, additional voiceovers, editing, and finally publishing, takes quite a while.

When you see a really smooth professional video with a great script, good camera work, and a clear voiceover, that should be appreciated just for the art and talent it took to create it.

I don’t think I’ll ever become a professional at video creation, but it is really nice to have a finished product!