Posted on: June 18th, 2008 Firefox 3.0 released

In an attempt to garner a Guiness World Record, Mozilla assigned June 17 as the Firefox Download Day. However, it appears that they underestimated the volume of download requests. The Firefox blog reports that “the outpouring of interest and enthusiasm around Firefox 3 has been overwhelming (literally!)” and that their servers are “currently feeling the burn.”

Fortunately, as I write this entry, I am able to download the Mac version of Firefox.

I am not too concerned about participating in the attempt to set a download record. I have been using the beta version of Firefox 3 so I just want to make sure I am using the official version.

So what are you waiting for? It’s free. Download it now.

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Posted on: June 12th, 2008 Why you should keep Wordpress up-to-date

Techcrunch explains:

Due to its popularity as a blogging platform, Wordpress has become a prime target for hackers looking to take over blogs for search-engine optimization (SEO) of other sites they control, traffic-redirection and other purposes. Recently there have been a spate of automated attacks which take advantage of recently discovered security vulnerabilities in Wordpress.

To date, Wordpress has been keeping up with the security holes by releasing updates within a few days of new exploits being found, but in the past few days new exploits have appeared that nobody seems to have answers for.

The article goes on the explain how one of its hosted blogs was hacked and hijacked, turning the front page into a billboard for pharmaceuticals and adult products.

Posted on: June 8th, 2008 A photo a day for 20 years

I found this at Flickr:

Had he lived, Jamie Livingston would have beamed a picture perfect smile seeing how his collection of more than 6000 Polaroid photos – one taken for each day of his life, beginning in March 1979 – has turned into an international sensation.

The discovery of the website containing the collection of Polaroids shot and collected over a twenty year period is as intriguing as the collection itself. Chris Higgins at Mental Floss stumbled upon a website full of seemingly bland photographs that were dated for each day across twenty years, beginning in March of 1979 and ending in October 1997. Since the website was still in beta mode, he had no way of knowing who the photographs belonged to or what the collection signified. After some Google trickery, Chris finally managed to reveal the identity of the photographer and the story of his collection.

James Livingstone, a New York based cinematographer had indeed taken a Polaroid for each day of his life, probably meaning to build a collection. Tragically, he died of cancer in October 1997, and the collection was interrupted. His friends Hugh Crawford and Betsy Reid were in the process of setting up the collection on the website that Chris chanced upon.

The collection, entitled PHOTO OF THE DAY: 1979-1997, 6,697 Polaroids and dated in sequence, was displayed at the Bertelsmann Campus Center at Bard College, the place where James began his Polaroid-taking odyssey. The entire collection spanned an entire 70 x 120 feet wall.

Some of the pictures, captionless and, in these days of digital imagery, in quaintly poor resolution, are breathtakingly poignant. Like the shot of the engagement ring lying in its box, followed shortly after by a picture of the happy couple, or the stitches in his head, where we begin to see his losing grip on life.

He probably lived a normal life, no different from yours or mine. But his series of pictures just demonstrate that life, no matter how simple, can be quite beautiful. And such a simple collection can make a simple man quite extraordinary.

View the pictures at http://www.vagabondish.com/jamie-livingston-polaroid-photos/.