Watch out for the do-it-yourself Wordpress Designer, It is tough to be a security expert and Designer

Wordpress comes up regularly when people think about hosting a website or blog.  It’s popular what is the problem?  Netcraft has some data that will show you the problem.  Security.

WordPress is the most common blogging platform and content management system in the world: Netcraft's latest survey found nearly 27 million websites running WordPress, spread across 1.4 million different IP addresses and 12 million distinct domain names. Many of these blogs are vulnerable to brute-force password guessing attacks by virtue of the predictable location of the administrative interface and the still widespread use of the default "admin" username.

But remarkably, not a single phishing site was hosted on Automattic's own WordPress.com service in February. WordPress.com hosts millions of blogs powered by the open source WordPress software. Customers can purchase custom domain names to use for their blogs, or choose to register free blogs with hostnames likeusername.wordpress.com.

If you are going to use wordpress try hard to use wordpress.com.

Vulnerable WordPress blogs can also be used for other nefarious purposes. A botnet of more than 162,000 WordPress blogs (less than 1% of all WordPress blogs) was recently involved in a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack against a single website. Attackers exploited the Pingback feature in these WordPress blogs (which is enabled by default) to flood the target site with junk HTTP requests, causing it to be shut down by its hosting company.

Do you have good project stories to tell? Most likely not

I have been studying storytelling, trying to figure out how stories can be used to better communicate.  Here is a Pixar story during the production of Toy Story 2 they lost all the files when a command was run to delete files mistakenly.

The above video was posted on June 30, 2011.    The next web posted a story of the Toy Story 2 files deleted May 12, 2012 that goes into more detail.

When listening to this story it reminds me of the Back-up Disaster that killer the Sidekick.  The Toy Story 2 story had a better message.

“I’ll never forget ever being a part of Toy Story two. I was very lucky,” says Jacob. “I had that chance to work on a level of impact that helped keep Buzz and Woody, and “Toy Story” and the franchise, and Pixar all be a thing we talk about today.”

...

The thing about  a disaster like this one is that the technical directors and staff at Pixar had to trust one another to fix the issue, even though there were several mistakes made and one of them was responsible. “If you can’t sit down and calmly engage that meeting, you can’t be in that meeting with them,” says Jacob. ”Because the circumstances were so incredibly unusual. Black Swan events do occur.”

Instead of dwelling on pinning the blame or lamenting the loss of time and effort, the team made sure to alter the backup strategy so that something like that didn’t happen again, and it went about making up for lost time.

2nd guess is Project Alluvion is Microsoft, not Amazon

When someone asked who was behind Project Alluvion I guessed Amazon, but knew it was a guest when I posted.

Project Alluvion is??? Amazon or someone else?

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26, 2014 AT 7:56PM

I was talking to a data center friend and he tipped who was behind Alluvion, so I corrected myself to my friends who asked, but I couldn’t post based on a conversation that is not a public disclosure

I have friends asking me if I know who is behind Project Alluvion.  My guess to throw out there is Amazon.

DesMoines Register posts on the public document discovery that Microsoft’s GFS employees are registered for Project Alluvion.  My data center friends tip was right.  My guess was wrong.  Oh well, it was a guess.

Microsoft appears to be the company behind “Project Alluvion,” the newest data center project proposed for Iowa, according to documents provided to The Des Moines Register.

In the documents, acquired by the Register through a public records request, West Des Moines city and water works officials discuss Project Alluvion and the project’s water needs with Brian Andersen and Ray Cheng, two employees of GFS Data Center Engineering, a division of Microsoft that works on the company’s cloud storage and data center services.

Both Andersen and Cheng show Microsoft as their current place of employment on their profiles for a social network site.

Part of public disclosures are driven by the need to improve the water infrastructure to support the cooling needs of the data center.

The proposed new data center project, at full build out, could use up to 2.4 million or 6 million gallons of water in a single day when temperatures reach 90 or higher, according to differing figures from West Des Moines and Des Moines waterworks officials.

The projected usage demands significant infrastructure expansion — potentially a new water tower or underground aquifer and storage tank for reserve water — at West Des Moines or Des Moines waterworks facilities.

When you build really big data centers it is hard to hide.  Google, Facebook, and Apple know this as well as Microsoft.

Apple acquires a 3-3.5MW Hydroelectric Power Plant for Prineville DC, no Dam required

News is starting to spread on Apple’s acquiring a hydroelectric power plant for its prineville data center.

Apple acquires hydroelectric project near its Prineville data center

 

The first of two, 338,000-square-foot Apple data center buildings in Prineville, shown last year when it was still under construction. The company says it will power the facility with renewable energy. (Randy L. Rasmussen/The Oregonian (2013))

Details that the data center crowd cares about are here.

Under the proposal, the 45-mile Hydroelectric Project will not have a dam. EBD Hydro plans to divert water from the irrigation canal, run it through turbines and generate enough electricity to power between 2,100 and 2,450 homes.

The pipes and turbines will be located about two miles north of Haystack Reservoir, several miles east of Culver, according to documents filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Power generation will only take place when water is running in the canal. Except for stock runs, most irrigation districts shut off irrigation water in the winter months.

EBD Hydro began the process more than two years ago, Gordon said. While it has been difficult, the company appreciated the support the project received from the governor, state and federal lawmakers.

The Rural Energy for America Program offers funding to help rural businesses with renewable energy projects and those that increase energy efficiency, according to the news release.

I’ll be in Bend at the of the month for the kids ski race.  i’ll see if I make a run to any of the spaces, but most likely not.  If anything I am going to the Bend, OR breweries

Some of my favorites are Deschutes and Boneyard.

Deschutes

Est. 1988, Bend – The one and only “original craftster” brew pub, formerly known as Fish Brewing! Stop by  the now two-story pub, aptly  named “Brew 1”, that started the craft brew industry in Bend. Woot! Visit the Deschutes Brewery page.

Boneyard

Est. 2009, Bend – When Tony Lawrence launched his brewing company, he went straight to the “boneyard.” In different jargon, you might say he went to a used-car lot searching for a classic vehicle. Them bones are tasty! Read more on theBoneyard Beer Co page. Cheers!

What Happened to NxGen Modular? Website is Unavailable

There are two places I know of that have NxGen Modular Data Centers.  Each of these was driven by specific individuals who I doubt would claim to be the decision maker in choosing NxGen Modular.  

What is the problem?  How about the NxGen Modular site is unavailable for a week and looks like it has vanished from the data center landscape.  The current page says only this. http://www.nxgenmodular.com

Thanks to Google you can see the page was last live on Apr 4, 2014.

THIS IS GOOGLE'S CACHE OF HTTP://WWW.NXGENMODULAR.COM/. IT IS A SNAPSHOT OF THE PAGE AS IT APPEARED ON APR 5, 2014 21:42:33 GMT. THE CURRENT PAGE COULD HAVE CHANGED IN THE MEANTIME. LEARN MORE
TIP:

Wonder how much longer the NxGen Modular installations will last give the company has disappeared and the people who choose NxGen have moved on as well.