artiss.blog

Blog

  • Missing Data

    After more reports of personal data being lost, I’ve been left confused.

    Where I work, only those who need laptops get them. And when they do, they don’t keep data ON the laptop, but on a remote server. When away from the office you have to sign in with a secure password, etc, to access any data, etc. If the laptop is stolen, you get nothing.

    Most laptops these days come with built-in hardware security including finger-print readers, TPM chips and, if you have Windows Vista, technology such as BitLocker.

    Additionally, you can prevent PC’s (whether desktop or laptop) from accepting USB devices, floppy-drives, writeable CD’s, to ensure that data doesn’t go wandering.

    Now, I’m not a security expert (I leave that to friends) but why (and this isn’t just aimed at government who are not the only people losing personal data) is this happening?

    I believe in the US they come down hard on companies who lose personal data such as this and we should do the same here. And that includes government departments. There really isn’t an excuse.

  • Database Update

    After whinging in the ear of my host, Streamline.net (poor quality but, erm, cheap), they have moved my MySQL database to a different server – a better one, they say.

    Well, they didn’t have to, so I have to thank them for that. Both this blog and the Copy+ site has been updated appropriately – time will tell if it will help.

    Longer term it’s still my intention to move to Memset.

  • CNN taking the cold war a little too seriously

    Or are they?

    This screenshot from their site seems to show them going a little hay-wire with the bar charts – how can the US have a larger bar than the USSR when they don’t have as many medals? Besides, who works out the positions based on TOTAL number of medals?

    This bar chart seems to be wrong for 1976 and 1988, but not other years. Probably a bug with the CNN website. But amusing anyway.

  • WordPress Tags

    I’ve found – and I know others have too – that you can’t delete tags in WordPress from the tags management screen.

    However, after recently upgrading my WordPress version I found that, after leaving my plugins disabled by accident, it would work. Enabling my plugins then broke the functionality. Unfortunately, my good fortune didn’t go as far as thinking to test it and try and work out which plugin is the cause.

    So, yes, that’s the cause. But exactly what I’m not sure.

    Next time I have some tags to delete and some times on my hand, I’ll try and work it out further.

  • Getting some work done

    No, not me, as well know I don’t get much done other than write blogs and dabble with websites 😉

    Last year, my excellent IFA cashed in my endowment insurances as they weren’t generating the required money – this money I put towards the mortgage but also I kept some aside for some work on the house (which, after all, should increase the worth of the house). So, this summer we’ve been getting quotes from local businesses for some work – external painting, guttering replacement, tree pruning and, biggest project of all, getting rid of the slabs and gravel from the back and converting it into a nice lawned area with corner garden plots. Nice.

    The estimates are in and we’ve contacted the appropriate people and…. nothing. We leave messages. And nobody gets back to us. It’s as if they’re really not bothered.

    And we wonder why skilled Polish workers are taking over the industry! Maybe they seem to be a little more interested.

    Well, I’ll give them a few more days…