The list below shows a list of free cloud storage services, limits are not always clear but I think every service will shut you down eventually if you start to generate serious amounts of traffic.

Demo (using Ubuntu One):

To use these numbers just choose a credit card vendor below and enter an expiry date within three years from now. For the security/CVV2 / CVC / etc number just enter three random numbers.

Note: none of the numbers below can be used to buy anything.

Using LESS can be done in multiple ways, there’s a client side Javascript but that’s only good for testing purposes in my opinion. You don’t want your users wait the extra milliseconds and be dependent on Javascript for the compilation of the CSS for your website. I’d say don’t use less.js on you’re production evironment. For Mac OSX there’s the less app and for Windows there are different command line tools out there.

I’ve been using Dreamweaver myself, it is my preferred code editor. And since the first of september there’s a LESS CSS plugin available and with a little workaround LESS syntax highlighting is also available. The Dreamweaver extension allows you to compile your less css files into pure CSS instantly. It also includes basic syntax error checking.The Dreamweaver extension is made by Drummer_si and is available for Dreamweaver CS5 and above.

Usage:

Download the plugin from the Adobe exchange

To compile the currently open .less file, select “Compile .less file” from the Commands menu. To compile multiple files or folders, simply right click on the requested items in the “Files” panel and select “Compile .less file”.

LESS CSS syntax highlighting

• Open C:\Program Files\Adobe\Dreamweaver CS?\Configuration\DocumentTypes\MMDocumentTypes.xml (Windows) or  /Applications/Adobe Dreamweaver CS5/Configuration/DocumentTypes/MMDocumentTypes.xml (Mac OSX) in a plain text editor.
• Do a find for “CSS” and modify winfileextension=”css” to include the less file extension.
• it should look like winfileextension=”css,less” or macfileextension=”css,less” when your done.

Note: Dreamweaver CS5.5 users also need to do this for C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Dreamweaver CS5.5\en_US\Configuration\DocumentTypes\MMDocumentTypes.xml

CLnet.nl used to be the homepage of my company CLnet Media but since I started working for dutch public broadcaster NOS there isn’t much activity in the company anymore. Altough I took the website offline months ago the company is officially no more since 01-02-2011. So I decided to turn clnet.nl into something like a digital portfolio for myself. A place to show off some of my digital ninja skills.  The content isn’t perfect yet and the portfolio itself isn’t online either but I couldn’t wait to write about my cool Javascript particles. Have fun playing around with them, tinker around with your mouse and you’ll see all the awesome effects. Just drop a comment here if you’d like to say anything about the new version of clnet.nl. And because I don’t like to start and end with the same link i’m adding this final sentence :p

Javascript:

$(document).ready(function(){
var userAgent = navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase();
if ( userAgent.search('ipad') > 1 ) {
if (!localStorage.ipadTip){
localStorage. setItem("ipadTip", "on");
}
if  (localStorage.ipadTip=='on'){
// CHANGE DOCUMENT TITLE TO YOUR DOMAIN
document.title = "Kaisersblog.com";
$('body').prepend('<div id="ipad-tip"><span>Add to homescreen <a href="#">x</a></span></div>');
}
}
});

$('body').delegate('#ipad-tip a','click', function(){
$("#ipad-tip").hide();
localStorage.setItem("ipadTip", "off");
return false;
});

CSS:

#ipad-tip { background:url('ipad-bg.jpg') repeat 0 0 #ccc; width:100%; height:50px; }
#ipad-tip span {
font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: 15px;
background:url('ipad-tip.png') no-repeat 0 0;
width: 190px;
height: 40px;
display: block;
position: relative;
left: 111px;
padding: 17px 10px 0;
text-shadow: 0 1px 0 #fff;
-webkit-border-radius: 5px;
}
@media (orientation:portrait) {     #ipad-tip p { left: 173px; }    }

#ipad-tip span a {
background: url("ipad-close.png") no-repeat scroll 0 0 transparent;
bottom: 22px;
display: block;
height: 21px;
left: 163px;
position: absolute;
text-indent: -9999px;
width: 21px;
}

Note for WordPress users: WordPress uses jQuery in no-conflict mode. So you will need to replace all the $ jquery calls to ‘jQuery’. Example: $(“#ipad-tip”).hide(); needs to be editted to: jQuery(“#ipad-tip”).hide();

What do I think? I think “Why the hell does HTML5 need a logo?!” … I mean it looks professionally done… but it’s incredibly stupid that anyone thinks HTML5 would need a logo. HTML5 isn’t a brand, or a company, or a technology that requires ready identification so people know it’s there (like WiFi or Bluetooth). People don’t give a crap or even need to know that something is HTML5 or not, or even if it’s HTML5 compliant.

This is as stupid as creating an icon for “HTTP” or “English” or “Cows”. Also things that people don’t need icons for.

Outside of that. The icon itself says nothing about HTML. It looks like a shield. Is HTML5 somehow safer than XHTML? No. The shield doesn’t make any sense.

The W3C is antiquated and ridiculous. This logo is another attempt for them to justify their existence. All major browser brands (IE, FF, Safari, Opera) have been adhering to whatever standards they please, generally improving upon their predecessors and adopting standards that make themselves function well with current content.

[/end_of_bash]

1. Update

Althought this one might seem obvious it is the most important security marker. Always, and i mean always, keep your blog and plugins updated. There are a lots of websites which track security bugs in WordPress and its plugins. As soon as a bug is found lots of crackers are eager to test it out on real websites. You don’t want this to be yours. If your blog or plugin stops working after an update you should fix that or find a new plugin, this can never be a reason for not updating.

2. Use your .htacces file

As a WordPress user, you probably know how important the wp-config.php file is. This file contains all of the information required to access your precious database: username, password, server name and so on. Protecting the wp-config.php file is critical, so how about exploiting the power of Apache to this end? The .htaccess file is located at the root your WordPress installation. After creating a back-up of it (it’s such a critical file that we should always have a safe copy), open it up, and paste the following code:

2.1 Protect your wp-config.php file:

<files wp-config.php>
order allow,deny
deny from all
</files>

2.2 Protect your blog from script injections and variable modification:

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} (<|%3C).*script.*(>|%3E) [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} GLOBALS(=|[|%[0-9A-Z]{0,2}) [OR]
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} _REQUEST(=|[|%[0-9A-Z]{0,2})
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php [F,L]

2.3 Save bandwith and protect your blog from content scrapers:

RewriteEngine On
#Replace ?mysite.com/ with your blog url
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(.+.)?mysite.com/ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
#Replace /images/nohotlink.jpg with your "don't hotlink" image url
RewriteRule .*.(jpe?g|gif|bmp|png)$ /images/nohotlink.jpg [L]

2.4 Prevent directory browsing:

Please note that it’s not enough to update the blog’s robots.txt file with Disallow: /wp*. This would prevent the wp-directory from being indexed, but will not prevent users from seeing it.

Options -Indexes

3. Create a plugin to prevent malicious url requests

Hackers and evil-doers often use malicious queries to find and attack a blog’s weak spots. WordPress has good default protection, but enhancing it is possible. Paste the following code in a text file, and save it as blockbadqueries.php. Once you’ve done that, upload it to your wp-content/plugins directory and activate it as you would any other plug-in. Now your blog is protected against malicious queries. What this code does is pretty simple. It checks for excessively long request strings (more than 255 characters) and for the presence of either the eval or base64 PHP functions in the URI. If one of these conditions is met, then the plug-in sends a 414 error to the client’s browser.

<?php
/*
Plugin Name: Block Bad Queries
Plugin URI: http://perishablepress.com/press/2009/12/22/protect-wordpress-against-malicious-url-requests/
Description: Protect WordPress Against Malicious URL Requests
Author URI: http://perishablepress.com/
Author: Perishable Press
Version: 1.0
*/

global $user_ID;

if($user_ID) {
if(!current_user_can('level_10')) {
if (strlen($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) > 255 ||
strpos($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], "eval(") ||
strpos($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], "CONCAT") ||
strpos($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], "UNION+SELECT") ||
strpos($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], "base64")) {
@header("HTTP/1.1 414 Request-URI Too Long");
@header("Status: 414 Request-URI Too Long");
@header("Connection: Close");
@exit;
}
}
}
?>

4. Stop some standard WordPress functions

These two functions will hide your WordPress version number and stop WordPress from returning any errors when a login attempt has failed. This information could be used by hackers trying to get access to your admin.

remove_action('wp_head', 'wp_generator');

add_filter('login_errors',create_function('$a', "return null;"));

I intend to actively maintain my blog in the future and this new theme is a great start in my opinion. It is still a work in progress and I haven’t got all my plugins up and running but all things will be back to normal soon. My old posts might not always look good but i’ll try fix that as soon as possible too. Until then let me know if you see something not working or anything missing. Besides that i’d like to hear what you think of the new design!

The idea: Dual tuners, combining DVB-S and DVB-T with the possibility to watch and record at the same time on multiple devices (TV, PC and mobile) with network streaming.

The hardware:

• 78cm dish  (4 LNB’s  w/ Diseq switch)
• Skystar USB 2 HD CI (DVB-S)
• Cinergy DVB-T MKII
• Infinity USB Unlimited (DVB-T)
• AMD Athlon dualcore 64-bit / ATI 1950XT / 2GB RAM / 2TB storage
• Nokia N900 (for bluetooth and IR remote control)

The Software:

• DVBLink TVsource (connected version)
• Windows 7 Media Center
• Hadu CCCam client (DVB-S)
• Acamd plugin (maybe Splug) (DVB-T)
• Infinity USB software (DVB-T)