TextMate and WordPress

TextMate is a text editor for Mac OS X that has many facets. Among them is an ability to interact with WordPress blogs, like this one.

Theoretically I can write this on my new MacBook Pro and upload it to the Consultingsmiths LLC blog automagically.

Let’s see.

dada dada dada whirring and clicking dada dada dada

Well, son of a gun. If I use the right URL and the right password, it works!

And I can get a list of recent posts and select one to download, edit and repost.

Way cool!

And I can do it over and over again!

I like TextMate.

It’s Not Your Computer Anymore

Over at Microsoft’s Technet site, the folks at their Security Response Center have posted the “10 Immutable Laws of Security.”

Admittedly, it only covers security for computers (and remember, that means your cell phone and tablet) and websites, but it’s still very worth reviewing. There’s nothing new, nothing arcane there, but they are the cold, hard facts that we all have to remember if we make any pretense of caring about our clients’ privacy. Simple things, like “If a bad guy can persuade you to run his program on your computer, it’s not your computer anymore.”

Do you have client phone numbers on your iPhone? Have you installed any apps?

Think about it. Seriously.

Duster

Among other things, I use the Consultingsmiths blog to try-out new themes “in the wild.”

At the moment, I’ve installed “Duster” 1.0.5, which will soon be known as “2011″ and the default theme for WordPress when version 3.2 is released.

Of course, if anyone else on earth reads this, and it isn’t Canada Day, 2011, the theme that you see may well not be Duster anymore, but hopefully it will be at least functional and maybe even interesting, useful or fun (or all of the above).

Scientific Religion

So far neither Dark Energy nor the Multiverse seem to generate falsifiable hypotheses, removing them from science and relegating them to religion. I cheerfully admit that in the absence of evidence I prefer the religion I grew up with to these new ones, but perhaps I am insufficiently flexible in my views.— Jerry Pournelle