Google did a decent job with its new web app, Google Buzz, but it completely failed at privacy. By default, when you start using Google Buzz anyone can see who is “following” you and who you are “following” by going to your Google Profile. Furthermore, the people you follow are automatically those who you contact most often. This means anyone on the Internet can find out who you privately communicate with on your Gmail account, and can see their “buzzes” as well. However, you can opt-out of this by going to the Google Profile page, clicking “View my profile,” then clicking “Edit Profile” on the top-right hand corner. Finally, uncheck, “Display the list of people I’m following and people following me,” scroll down to the bottom, and click “Save changes.” Now only you are able to see who you are following.

However, an even bigger privacy concern exists. By default anything you post is set as public. I’ve noticed already that even my highly privacy-conscious friends have failed realize that anything they post on Google Buzz will be available for anyone to see (despite the words “Public” right next to “Post”). People simply assume whatever they post via Gmail is only going to be visible to their friends, which would make sense. However, unless you click “Private,” anyone will be able to see whatever you post via your Google Profile. Remember that when you set your posts to “Private” that if you check “My Contacts,” anyone you’ve ever added to your contacts will be able to see whatever you post on Google Buzz. You may wish to create a contacts list of “Friends,” and only share your “buzzes” with them.

Google needs to change Buzz’s default settings. People shouldn’t have to opt-out of sharing a bunch of their personal information. That is something that, obviously, should be opted-in to.

I’ve had two problems with my website that have been bugging me for a long time. The first was that when I tried to change to PHP5, I couldn’t use <?php include()?> to include files. That was because PHP5 disables register_globals, and I was using $DOCUMENT_ROOT to ensure that the includes worked regardless of the directory of the document requesting the includes file.

The second issue I was having was that when I created a subdomain, my host asked me to choose a directory I wanted the subdomain to use. For example, alex.asolis.net is located at asolis.net/alex. However, if someone went to the latter site, they would get a bunch of error messages since the $DOCUMENT_ROOT code made the document look for the includes file in the asolis, rather than the alex, directory. While alex.asolis.net still worked, asolis.net/alex had a bunch of error messages because the includes files it was looking for didn’t exist.

After several past failed attempts to find a solution to these issues, I finally figured them both out yesterday.
All I had to do to fix the includes problem was replace $DOCUMENT_ROOT with $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] (and put AddType x-mapp-php5 .php in the .htaccess file, of course).

The subdomain issue was equally simple. All I had to do there was add this to the .htaccess file in the asolis directory:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^alex\.asolis\.net$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^alex(.*)$ http://alex.asolis.net$1 [R=301,L]

That results in a 301 redirect from, for example, asolis.net/alex/file.html to alex.asolis.net/file.html.

It’s that easy!

I was having trouble finding some good instructions on how to convert video so that it would be playable on the Wii via the Photo Channel, so I thought I’d post some instructions on how to now that I’ve figured it out myself.

First of all, you’ll need an SD card and an SD card reader. The larger the capacity of the SD card, the better, but I think the maximum that the Wii can use is 2 GB. Once you’ve got your SD card and SD card reader, you’ll need to download WinFF, a GUI for FFmpeg.

After downloading and installing WinFF, you’ll also need the preset for the Wii. First, download the preset. Then simply click Edit -> Presets -> Import and import the preset file you just downloaded.

After adding the preset, click Add in WinFF and locate the video you wish to play on your Wii. Once you’ve done that, click Convert and wait until the conversion has finished. Keep in mind I’ve only tested this once so far and only on Photo Channel 1.0 (as of December, 2007, new Wiis use Photo Channel 1.1 and you can “upgrade” if you choose to, but there is no MP3 support in 1.1). It worked pretty much flawlessly on my first try, but feel free to give me feedback.

I had some “trouble” installing Delineate along with Potrace and AutoTrace, so I thought I might as well make some quick instructions on how to do it. This is in case anyone is interested in using the program, but is having trouble figuring the installation out. After all, it’s not as easy as just clicking on an executable file to install the program for you and waiting as most Windows users are used to. Also note that this information is for Windows XP users.

Read the rest of this entry »

I burned an Ubuntu 6.06 LTS LiveCD a few weeks ago for myself, which was my second LiveCD after Knoppix, and today I set up my 1 GB flash drive so that I can save my settings from my Ubuntu LiveCD. I think I should use my 512 MB flash drive instead of my 1 GB one, but for now it really doesn’t matter that much. I bet this will prove to be useful in the future, anyways.

Also, here’s information on how to do it yourself if you’re interested: LiveCDPersistence
It’s pretty simple and fast. Note that you should only use the information under the heading “Using a Loopback File” if you want to have the information stored on your hard drive instead of your flash drive.

Update, 2007-11-04: You may not wish to do this as I’ve heard it decreases one’s flash drive’s life rapidly.