News

US Army Sees Twitter As Potential Terrorist Tool

Breitbart.com is reporting that in a recent draft that was filed by the US ARMY, Twitter is being considered as a potential terrorist tool.

“Extremist and terrorist use of Twitter could evolve over time to reflect tactics that are already evolving in use by hacktivists and activists for surveillance,” it said. “This could theoretically be combined with targeting.”

The report outlined scenarios in which militants could make use of Twitter, combined with such programs as Google Maps or cell phone pictures or video, to carry out an ambush or detonate explosives

Wow. I guess you know you’ve made it once people start claiming your web 2.0 microblogging service can be used as a tool by terrorists. To top it all off, Osamabinladen has been using Twitter for quite a while now. A U.S. Intelligence officer should direct message him and politely ask where he his hiding.

WordPress 2.7 Is Cause For A Reformat

This is just a heads up that when WordPress 2.7 is released, I will be reformatting my WordPress installation to get rid of the fluff that may be stored in the database and start off from scratch. I’ll once again audit my use of plugins and only install the ones that I think are necessary. Also, if you haven’t noticed already, I’ve changed the design of the blog a little bit because for starters, adding one more step to the post publishing process in the form of filling out custom fields is a drag. Secondly, I think the reformat as well as the simplified theme will finally help this site load quickly than it has before. Not sure what is causing the slow page loads but I am determined to figure it out.

I’ll also be modifying the theme to take advantage of threaded/paginated comments. I’m pretty stoked about 2.7 as I think many WordPress users out their will be blown away by it.

Woopra Continues To Improve

Early this morning, John P. published the state of the union for the month of October for Woopra. In this latest round of news, John lets us know that their is a slew of speed enhancements to the service overall thanks to a brand new DNS architecture. Also in the post, Woopra users will no longer have to type in their SITE ID into the Woopra configuration as it is no longer needed. This has allowed the javascript code to be reduced to a single line.

On top of all that, members can now configure their time zone, rename their website and configure URL Query parameters. I’m especially grateful for the timezone configuration as my stats would reset to the next day at 8P.M. EST which was a little annoying.

There is also word that Woopra will be developing an iPhone application. I’m sure Woopra and iPhone make for a perfect match. Last but not least, a revamped client is coming down the pike that will contain campaign and ad tracking. Two features that I think many bloggers will love.

Small Potato Keeps His Word

Tung Do otherwise known as Small Potato has kept his word regarding what used to be his theme club. He stated that if the new owner didn’t do anything with the site that he would refund those who purchased theme club memberships. Michael Castilla over at WPCandy is reporting today that he has received his $5.00 membership refund through Paypal already. He also mentions word that someone continued to pay the $400.00 webhosting fee for the WPDesigner.com website. How weird is that considering the site has been stale ever since it received new ownership.

I think what Small Potato has done proves that he is someone that is a trustworthy and honorable person. Good on him for keeping his word.

First Interview At BloggerTalks

I published my first interview today over at BloggerTalks.com and the lucky recipient of my interview questions was Christina Warren. As you read the interview, take note how she became involved in the blogging scene. I find it particularly interesting that she received a position at USA Today based on her comments alone. I wonder if it is still possible in this day in age to get a writing position based on your comments.

Taking Over For BloggerTalks

BloggerTalks logo

Thord Hedengren who did a wonderful job with BloggerTalks.com, a blog exclusively focusing on interviews with other bloggers has moved on to greener pastures. Guess who has taken his place? Me.

Each week will feature a new interview. These interviews will mostly be text based but don’t be surprised to see an audio interview mixed in as well. This is a cool position for me because I enjoy interviewing people as I treat interviews as one on one opportunities to learn. I’m a curious guy who always has a series of questions to ask and although mainstream media loves to ask softball type questions, I’ll ask any question I see fit.

So far, I am making an average of $1,200 – $1,400 per month of blogging income. This is almost as much as I made working full time at the grocery store with the exception that the grocery store provided medical benefits. Something bloggers don’t tend to get unless you work for a major blogging network or corporation.

Starting November 1st, I’ll be working weekends only at the grocery store and will be using the time during the week to pump out content on the sites I write for and try to make even more money in this game known as blogging.

NOAA Implements Google Maps To Forecast Pages

I’m a weather junkie, no doubt about it. However, I was surprised to see that NOAA has implemented Google Maps into their point forecast pages. Typically, the map would display a plain image with county lines and various cities. Clicking on the exact location of where you live for your specific forecast was a trivial process of trial and error. Now however, users can zoom into the map, pan the map around, see a highlighted section of the map which describes the forecast area, and download the data in a KML file.

New Google Point Forecast

The Weather Channel website has had an implementation of Google Maps along with radar data for quite some time but I always find the page to load slowly, especially during an animated radar sequence. Although NOAA has not gone that far with regards to local radar images, the new iteration of selecting point forecasts in relation to where you live is a vast improvement.

Here is what the old point forecast used to look like and still does for those sites who have yet to be upgraded.

Old forecast Point Graphics

Twitter Looking To Hire Spam Engineer

The other day, I noticed Ev Williams who is the co-founder of Twitter, send out a Tweet mentioning that the company was looking to hire a spam engineer. Imagine how much it would suck if the job title was rearranged to engineer spam. Of course, there are already plenty of people/bots that have fulfilled that role. At any rate, I hope the position is filled quickly so I can stop receiving followers such as this one.

Twitter Spam Lady

Despite the half way decent looking avatar, this lady has earned a spot on the blocked list.

Woopra To Close Beta Registrations

A post published by John P. over on the Woopra blog is stating that Woopra will be shutting down beta registrations once they reach 50,000 monitored websites. As of October 8th, Woopra was monitoring 45,000 websites. Once registration is closed, there is a possibility that the media will blow in response but John gives a series of explanations as to the reasoning behind the move.

  • A 50,000 site “beta” is certainly a big enough sample to work through bugs and take suggestions.
  • We have a number of projects underway that we need to turn our attentions to temporarily and this will allow us to focus on core improvements as opposed to continual expansion.
  • We continue to hear from the community that you’d like more personalized attention, and pausing the site additions will ensure against further dilution of our current limited resources.

Once the Woopra team gets their ducks in a row, they will replace their site approval system with a personal invitation system in which current Woopra users will be able to send invitations to friends and family. Woopra was unofficially announced back at WordCamp Dallas about six months ago and since then, the sky has been the limit for the amount of success and growth that Woopra has experienced. Keep it up John!