Menoducayshunul - geek peek

A while back, you may recall, there was a move which transferred Blogger URLs onto the HTTPS protocol. Those who had custom domain URL had to wait a little longer, but do now have the option for HTTPS.

image; YouTube screenshot

Why bother? READ THIS. In short, using HTTPS has three main benefits:

• Authentication
• Data integrity
• Secrecy

Now, you may think you have clicked the switch in your settings to make your blog HTTPS... however, you may also recall that there was talk of 'mixed content' when it was all getting rolled out. No? Well, to keep it as simple as can be, it boils down to whether you use non-Google plugins in your side-bar, or place non-Blogger templates and backgrounds (for example, Hot Bliggity Blog and others like that). If the plugins you opt for do not come from HTTPS-protected sites or contain the appropriate security coding, using them on your site will degrade your own security standing.

Here's a question... how many of you make a habit of checking the address line (URL) of the sites you are visiting? Now, how many of you check your own addresses? I was a little surprised to find that my photo blog was showing as 'not secure', but then remembered that I had used a 'foreign skin' when I last redecorated. Removing that sorted out the problem. Go on. click on your own blog/s and check...

Why should you care? Well, even if you are not bothered about the security of the data of the visitors of your site, you must surely be concerned whether you are open to attack from hackers and spammers yourself? Not the comment spam which appears from time to time (and remember, the best practice is not to simply delete, but to mark these as spam in both your comments listings on the dashboard sidebar and in your email alerts - Google does follow up on all notifications of spam). Blogs, in general, are not high on the list of hackers, but it does happen from time to time and it is happening where HTTPS has not been adopted or where mixed content is a big problem.

image; OpenClipArt

A third thing to consider here is whether you have the latest updates of your browser and/or any plugins you use. Good computer hygiene is not just doing the anti-viral runs but also checking weekly for coding updates. Even if you have auto-update on. I recently discovered a new version of Chrome which I thought would have auto-updated but had not.

Right. You've checked and discovered that your site is insecure. What are you using that has caused this to happen? Blog 'dressups'? Widgets that are not from Blogger itself? These are the two commonest culprits. Quite simply, you need to remove them and find HTTPS compliant options. Other problem sources could be video plugins, images from insecure galleries or HTML coding which has missed something...okay, I know most of you are not doing your own coding, but it behooves me to mention all possibilities. (For the true geeks among you, this page is worth a read!)

BOTTOM LINE; for fullest available security, ensure you do not have mixed content and that you have taken the option to switch to HTTPS. This is not just good for you, it is courtesy to your visitors.

Feel free to spread the word by linking back to this post; many of you I visit show up as 'insecure' and, whilst it will not stop me visiting, it does tickle this geek's slightly OCD not-so-funny bone! Not everyone I visit reads this blog though - so spreading the word would be a good thing. Think of it as a neighbourhood watch for Blogville!!!

Menorise [men-oh-rIse]; the process of inculcation

"There are two seasons in Scotland.  

June and Winter."

(Billy Connolly)

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In regards to another form of 'inculcation', that is to say, useful information for the imbibing thereof, 

Charlie from Downunder asked a very pertinent question yesterday which prompted a rather full response. Considering it may be of use to the general Blogvillager, it is pasted here also...

Hari Om

No worries Charlie mate - the page will be here when mum's got the time.

As to blog save - that is very easy.  Go into the blog's setup pages where you see the list on the left of things like 'posts', 'comments', 'layout' and so on. At the bottom you will see 'settings'.

Click that.

Now click the 'other' at the bottom of the settings list. At the top of that page you will see links for import/export/delete.  Click export.

A box will come up with the 'download' instruction. It will go into your dowloads folder where you can the place it where you like for storage.

What the help (eerrrr.. Mum) may not be aware of is that EVERY picture uploaded to blogger gets stored in 'the cloud' on picasa. So once in the ether, always in the ether.... this is why it is advisable to 'watermark' all photographs.  In theory they are secure to you, but as we know, lots of things turn up on Google images which I am fairly sure the copyright owners didn't want there!!!

Be aware that what this export function exports only photographs and written content - it also holds onto comments made on the posts. It DOES NOT save the format of the blog page. If for any reason your page was compromised it would be necessary to set it up again and then IMPORT the saved items.  

Which brings up the need, if you are going to take this action, of saving regularly (once a week, say), so that the  most you would lose in the event of a crash of the page is max 7 days.

This brings up the need to back-up computer systems on a similar time scale.  If a pc or tablet crashes, and you haven't backed up to an external storage device.....   no sympathy here.... (she can be a hard woman at times, the old aunty...) Yxx

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Need to make three things, so let me remind all those who are taking up the Blogville Marathon challenge - train well, remember to stretch, and hydrate!!!

Menoducational - one of those things.

Last Thursday we covered the basics of cookies, and that was rounded off on Monday with a few helpful links to assist in blocking. There is just one more very useful and informative link I would like you to have. CLICK HERE. On that front page you can plug in the url of any site and learn what type of cookies and the spread of them applies when you visit it. A nice visual. There is also a lot of easy-to-understand info. (Would have been nice to have found this before I got all lyrical... hey ho...)

One last thing on cookie-related matters. Cookies are written into software by every webmaster and are nothing to do with any single operator. Therefore, to rage against any one operator just because they are bigger or more visual is misdirected anger. Sales and marketing are a general tool common to all, just as cookies are to all the online chains. Every store has the right to put up whatever sales notices it wishes. Equally it can push which goods it chooses to online. The high street upon which the stores sit can charge rent for them being there but has no say in how they run business.

Yes Google has to comply with the cookies regulation...because so many blogs have advertising on them and advertising brings cookies - not the blogs themselves. Utilising widgets and such like apply in this category too.

Now, onto matters more directly Blogger related. Touching again on the https://... for the few who may not have caught up, the letters stand for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (the original) and the 's' is just a short hand for Secure Socket Layer. As it suggests, this means the extra layer of code ensures an increase in security of the sites which employ it. Only other people who have 'joined' the site concerned can enter and use that site. This is the protocol which has been employed by banks and shopping sites and other highly sensitive pages. Whilst there are a few folk wondering at the benefit to a hobby blogger as to this level of security, it is also good to remember that it minimises, significantly, the chances of rogue code corrupting pages. Frankly, I'm in favour of that; aren't you? If you go somewhere you used to visit regularly and now find you can't get the page, it is possible that you did not 'join' (the followers gadget on sidebars); of course there are quite a few bloggers who don't use that for some reason... Anyway. It's a good thing peeps. Trust me on this.

That out of the way, what about this change of the dashboard? Well, after a couple of weeks working with the thing over three blogs, I have decided there are both pros and cons. It certainly doesn't look quite as sleek; unfinished even. Why on earth they just didn't leave the 'pencil' instead of writing 'new post'  beats me. The visual prompt would have been much easier to locate without the blue air expulsion. There is no real advantage for swapping between blogs as such - in fact it is downright frustrating and if one wishes to edit after posting, it drops back to reading list instead of to posts, which is idiotic.

Did I say there were pros? Well there is - a pro, singular. Finally I can access blogger dashboard reader on my YAMroid. Previously, if out and about, I had to go to my blog and pick you all off the side bar. Very tedious. For some reason the dashboard would not scroll in Android. Now it does. THAT at least is a positive. Overall, though, we are talking ugly and clumsy. I have accessed the feedback button (bottom right of your screens when in dashboard or edit post mode) to beat my chest a bit. There is also the Blogger Blog, where they indicate (as I had suspected) that this is just the 'first stage' of a larger shift. It is possible to leave your views and comments there too. The louder we shout, the greater the faint possibility we will be heard.

I am not against change per se, but let it be for genuine benefit. This does not appear to be it.

Having said that we are stuck with it and of course we will adjust, as that is the human nature...sigh... There is a large call from bloggers for having the choice as to which dashboard we use so you never know; it might happen.

Continue breathing though. For goodness sake, keep breathing.

Menosophical [men-oh-soffy-cul]; the condition of waxing introspective - an occasional series on the more deep and meaningful.

A passing comment by one of my lovely new "connexions" got me pondering.  It was in relation to the early days of blogging.  She remarked how it was both fun yet scary.

Scary?

It never even crossed my mind to be in a state of fear about this and I wondered how one could be.  I do not wish at all to belittle the sentiment.  This is merely the curiosity of the counselor and philosophical seeker, ever introspecting about the nature of Mankind and how it can help myself, the individual of the species, to grow.

The thought arose, "ought one to be scared of letting the greater world into one's own little, hardly-worth-a-pinch-of-salt, world?"

Certainly there should be some level of circumspection; all the warning notices when setting up point to the fact that there are plenty of folk who perhaps have no limitations or self-restraint.  Indeed, as mentioned previously, when simply following random threads in Blogland it soon became clear there were places to avoid.  Each to their own, of course.  Live and let live and all that.

A censor rating system for bloggers might be an idea though.

How would this cause one to feel in any way timorous or even fearful?  Then it struck me.  Comments.  Or worse, NO comments.  Writing and posting (or photographing  and posting or whatever) is all good and well.  The purpose of blogging though is the sharing.  Sharing implies feedback - touchy/feely - possible criticism - maybe even downright castigation.  That last one is unlikely, unless one has gone online with a thunderous roar of one's own.  The first two would generally be accepted as welcome. 

Many folk though have trouble receiving criticism.  Multiple factors are involved of course and this is not the place for a treatise; it is, however, worth noting that the baseline factor is ego.  Not in the megalomaniac sense, but in the sense-of-identity scenario.   If someone has a difference of opinion and we are super-invested in our 'product', it can prick the hide somewhat.  But at least they cared enough, felt enough, to respond.  Why do we tie ourselves in knots about such things?  Particularly if we are running a simple life-interest type of blog with no special axe to grind?  Have a say then get out of the way.

Ah yes, but then one realised that there was a desire for comments.  Any comments.  Connection.  This of course is a form of validation.  No matter how independent, mature or detached one is, connection matters.  Finding common ground, comparing notes, even getting helping pointers.

That's where insecurity, if it is allowed, can seep in.  Will anyone want to bother with a mid-aged-mudhead and her ramblings?  With so many incredible photos already out there, what difference is my attempt going to make to anyone's day?  Creative writing? Tell 'er she's dreamin'! Who - for crying out loud - is ever going to want to look at mandalas?  Phah!  

Strewth!  What was I thinking???

There. I found a bit of deep scary-fication.  What on earth was I doing, flaunting myself upon the ether?  Our Gurudev wrote "If you can't stand your own company, why inflict it on others?"  So it didn't last long.  I am not by nature fearful.  Doubt-filled yes, fearful no.  I am also very content and have no trouble being in my own company.  As a general rule in the 'actual facing' world, it seems my company is enjoyed, so why would it not be so in Blogland? 

That brought up the next potential sticking point.  Finding one's voice, as they say. Well, call me strange (or anything else, I can't hear you after all), but it all just happened.  Perhaps because I am secure internally, as well as never having been one for 'putting up a front', the voice you read is pretty much the voice that speaks - just a wee bit more coherent.

(which should have you worrying about my state of speech!  Think menosappelled.)

There has been no great planning.  There still isn't.  Except now there is a notion to grow things such that "The Serious Blog" can get built at a later date.  So I write it as it is and however it decides to fall out of the brain.  Sometimes that's okay.  Other times mediocre.  It's all fun.  It's all learning.  It's all practice. It's all sand-papering the rough edges.

Scary? 

No. (Not yet anyway…)

Menoteknikkuls... musings on matters mesmerising

WARNING; POSSIBILITY OF BRAIN FRIZZ...

I mentioned (yes I did) about the loss of YAMspetoo. Also mentioned that this meant travelling light to OZ.

That resolve lasted about, oohhh, 87 hours. (... I'll explain the following travesty shortly...)

The convenience of a tablet really is worth noting. Even here in the hutch, it matters. Voovoo the Vaio is a fully grown laptop and no light weight. For majority processing, it can't be beat. However, Voo mainly lives in 'the office' and having to move her round the house with me made it clear very quickly that this was not convenient. Okay, so don't be working at night in the lounge, YAM....

Only it is not just writing that Y2 served; for reading/researching, the tablet is by far the more viable tool.

There ensued an entire night of searching the web, updating knowledge of what is value and would serve key purpose, and whether I wanted to go all out and get a high-end 10 or 12 inch model which would be full back up to Voovoo; or go even smaller than Y2, opting for something which is truly just for travel and sitting in the lounge of an evening, reading and listening. As you'll gather from that bogoffal vid clip, the latter was the final decision.

Okay, an explanation for the video vomitable on offer above... the ASUS Zenpad C 7.0 arrived and I was very keen to show it off. I opened up Voovoo's camera and it turned out that she only had a 'monitor'... you know, for burglars and lost birds checking.... then had to cobble the three parts together into a total clip. The quality of the webcam is generally pretty good, so have no idea why it is so grainy. Then, the sound instructions were all there, but as you gather, failed completely... the failing was futher compounded by deciding to upload directly via blogger insert (that little clapper board at top of compose page). Never done that before, but didn't want this thing out on the tubular! Anyway, that reduced the quality further so you can't even read the explanation I added. It may not show up at all if your reading on an android device.

Hey ho. Here's the kicker. The newbie is called the YAMroid. It runs on, you may surmise, Android.. version 5.2 which goes by the name Lollipop. OMD. Preserve me.... am getting HAEMorrhoids trying to learn this thing. A whole different universe from the one I have been in.

You will have noted from the silent movie that there was a wireless keyboard purchased also; when it comes to traveling and having to write my comments to you all, that will be a sanity saver - for typing into the screenboard with all that autotype nonsense is enough to cause chips to spit. However, even this little board requires adjustment of style, so if you get some very short, or some very weird(er than usual) comments .... or none at all.... know that at the very least I will still be keeping an eye on you all!!!

Am very very very glad I got all the posts done to the end of the year already.
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Okay, typed all that above on Voovoo and am, as of this section, shifting to YAMroid and the keyboard. Got Voo's bluetooth mouse working on the thing too. That was actually written  a few days ago (I know, I know, am doing my time warp thing again, sorry 'bout that, it's getting a bit crazy as I am on the final count down to OZ), and since then there has been a huge learning curve going on with the 'roid. Tuesday 13th brought a heart-rending 87 moments. The darned thing locked up. Then turned tail and would only show the Bot Signal. I shut the cover, shivered, and put the kettle on. Sigh... determined not to panic. Back to the ever reliable Voo to research the possibilities of self-repair. Deep breaths. At the end of the day I was shaking my head; I knew that the battery would be well-low by that time, so plugged it into the charger

Up came the sign-on screen.

Oh yeah. Tech-wiz right here.

Meanwhile, in all the trawling the teckky and geeky sites, I took time to investigate the whole Windows 10 schemozzle. Have many of you been getting that annoying pane popping up? The Bully Box telling you to "GET IT NOW!"?

You are all capable of doing your own reading; this is not going to turn into a regurgitation of all the various moanings and hoorahs. The salient points are these;
If you are on Win7 currently, stick with it.
If you are on Win8.x then it may benefit you to move on up, on your own head be it.
Many would say shift over to Linux, but I won't bore you with that just now.
After going live, Windows 10 has not stopped dropping hints.
NEITHER HAS IT STOPPED DOWNLOADING FILES INTO YOUR COMPUTERS.

Oh yeah, a cruncher that one. Some of the more alert amongst you will have noted a drag on your systems, no doubt. Most will just have thought it was the broadband narrowing; for those on capped web access, they may have wondered how they were using up their allowance so fast.

The Win10 dowloads have been happening without the usual updating signals and have not required shutdown.

The heavy-handed hints are that there is no longer any 'support' for Win7. "So what?!", roars the YAMster. All that meant was that, if one registered, there was a helpdesk available to the enduser and proper advices of updates. Neither of which were ever required nor will be in the future. There continues to be patches for security and to maintain Office 2010, which matters more. Those are likely to remain for at least another five years, according to Microsoft's own website.  By the time Voovoo reaches 2020 (paws crossed), there will be need to update hardware anyway and by that time, any new machine will automatically come with Win10. There won't be any new versions after 10, you see, because the purpose of this new beastie is to subscribe and get ongoing updates... in the same way as currently happens with Google and Android. Only they do it for free (at least for the forseeable future). Updating to Win10 before June 2016 is 'free', but at some point the subscription notices are likely to start appearing. For business, it actually makes some sense, to be honest; but for the 'ma and pa' user, it stinks.

All of which is to tell you that I am opting to stay with Win7, which has proven to be incredibly stable and user-friendly. When it and Voo have to retire, I shall be giving serious consideration to alternative operating systems.

Meanwhile, I had to try and get rid of that nasty little bully box and the drag from the daily dasteredly downloads of unwanted files. 5+GB of them! That proved to be quite simple. I followed, exactly, THIS PAGE of instructions and, hey presto! No more 'spamming' from Redmond. I highly recommend it, if you are fed up with the offensive being mounted from that location.**

There is another matter which has come to attention and will affect all bloggers in the upcoming months; the shift to HTTPS. Some of you may already have been readdressed.

The addition of the 'S' is 'secure'. Hyper Text Transfer Protocol now is Secure. The trouble is with just http:// most of us are open to hacking... and it is a minor miracle that more blogs aren't damaged this way (Blogville's own Sweet William is a recent example of what can happen) - though majority hobby bloggies like ours are not prime spoils for the likes of those mischief mongers I suppose.

However, this rollover on Blogger is only just underway and many are not yet there. You can opt to go to https:// by clicking the settings page of each blog and scrolling down till you see the option. I have not yet done so myself, as when this is done, it means going back over various connections and links which may not yet be secured and would interrupt presentation. Every image, for example... it's a tad complex. It'll have to wait till I get back from OZ. Just wanted to give you the heads up.

Are you still here?  Well done for wading through that. Give yourself a treat.

**addendum; about 24hrs after writing that, the Win10 reminder box appeared again... disgusting. Turned out that even as I had followed the instructions, one thing that was not clear was that one requires to alter the updates notification status (in security section of control panel); some would say to stop them altogether, but I just opted for 'show me updates, but only download on my choice'... then I again hunted out the KB3035583 on the updates list and did the right click & 'hide' . By having altered the updates notifications, it couldn't slip through the back door. I left the notifications that way for a couple of days, doing a daily check manually - it didn't appear again, so have reverted to full automatic updates as of yesterday.  Let's see how that goes... sigh...

First Friday Filmclub

An intermission from the menotripsicals, a break between countries, as it were...

THE PAWLYMPICS START TODAY!!! Please go to SWTSs page to hear the live broadcast. I shall be making an attempt at bagging a munro on Aug 16th, but till then shall be pawticipating only in the great sport of spectatorship (bwhwhahahah - but supporting one's pals is supery-dupery impawtant, right?..) There is a bloghop which can be joined in. Sadly, due to the update to https:// here, the code cannot be supplied with this post due to non-secure connection. But Sweet Wills has got it - so why not 'hop' on over?!

Now - there is not a marathon listed in the pawlympics, so I though I might add my own twist to the games with this little videa. Heheheheheh - you MUST watch right through - there's a 'false title' sequence then the 'punch-scene.' (In case of there being a block from the blog for viewing in certain countries, do click the link below and watch on Vimeo direct.)

BOB from Jacob Frey on Vimeo.