Gl.ib.ly

For the longest time I have been unhappy with password masking in GUIs. I never really saw the point and a whole host of functionality has been developed to help users out when dealing with passwords; browsers remember and auto-populate password fields for users. I use many passwords, even have my own encrypted password lists, however, I only use a handful of sites everyday and I know those passwords pretty well. This doesn't stop me from making errors while typing complicated 10-16 character passwords -- three in a row is not unheard of and then you have to deal with unreadable CAPTHAs. Seeing the password reinforces the context in which the password is used and helps users learn them off more quickly.

A much better option is to use a screen privacy filter to stop a wide audience from snooping over your shoulder.

This is just one of those gripes that was rekindled when I read The Problem with Password Masking.

Earlier we looked at how you can extract a list of all the $CFG variables in your Moodle code. Now that's not of much use! We need to know where in the code all these variables hide. I feel some spooky awk a coming on.

Continue reading "All configuration variables in Moodle code - Part two?"

On September 1, 2008 Google announced a A fresh take on the browser. I greeted this news enthusiasticly; some people believed that google was mobilizing to crush Microsoft in an all out internet browser war. At the same time Firefox crackpots (I am nearly one :op) riled at how inferior Google Chrome was or still *is* -- what no browser extensions? I decided to hold back on what I thought and give it a fair chance.

Continue reading "My experiences with Google Chrome"

A week ago a development database server lost power, which is usually no big deal only that I have some reporting scripts that run every 5 minutes for each database. When these databases became unavailable they (the scripts) like to send me a quick mail telling me what went wrong. The network switch also was out of action so there was no route to the outside world from this small development network. The server lost power for three days and a massive amount of mail built up in the mail queue. When power was restored the SPAM started pouring in.

Continue reading "Deleting specific emails from the postfix mail queue"