Category Archive for ‘Tech’ at Deadpoet’s Cave

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Clean your keyboard… today

Published

on Thursday, 29 May 2008

. 7 Comments

I apologise for the disturbing photo. Perhaps it is enough to convince you to clean your keyboard.

Otterman mentioned this recently, around the same time that I had other warnings that I should clean my keyboards thoroughly. I was convinced, but I put it off.

Today, I levered out some keys from a spare keyboard that I need to use for photography. Seeing the gunk for myself reminded me that I should get to this sooner rather than later. All the more since I’m recovering from a bad cold. It’s been a week.

My office keyboard definitely needs to be cleaned. So too, my desktop keyboard at home. My MacBook is protected by a silicone sheet, so it’s not that bad. I wouldn’t try popping out the keys of my MacBook anyway.

How often will I have to do this?

I’ve even thought of buying a flexible, washable keyboard. (The price on that website is a rip off though. IIRC you can get it for under that price in Singapore dollars at Funan or Sim Lim shops.)

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Backup Blog

Published

acroamatic

on Thursday, 15 May 2008

in Tech

. 2 Comments

Since I last blogged, Adrian informed my that my sidebar had been spammed.

I was using an old version of Wordpress, so I decided it was time to upgrade for security reasons. Upgrading the software is a bit of the hassle, one of the joys of running a blog off your own webspace.

Everything was going well. In fact, the new version was already installed.

For some inexplicable reason, I was presented with a screen with only one button. It presented me with a username - admin - and a password. I clicked the button and…

I was presented with a brand new blog!

Posts, comments, everything… gone.

So, I did something I’ve never done before - rolled back my blog from a backup. I didn’t know whether this would work. Thankfully, it did.

Went through the installation again, just to get back to the new square one. I took the opportunity to get rid of old plugins and install new ones.

And play with sidebar widgets.

But my installation-loss-reinstallation experience brought something back to mind - a blog backup.

You see, when I pass on, I want my blog to persist.

Unfortunately, my domain and webspace only exist because the living me continues to pay for it.

When I go, this blog goes. Not good, eh?

I searched high and low for an elegant solution.

Nothing.

Either not future-proof or clunky.

The only thing I knew that was I wanted to cross-post to http://acroamatic.wordpress.com/.

For now, the solution is something I’ve resisted for a long while because I am so used to online posting. I like the Dashboard (especially with the Leopard Admin plugin shown at the top). I like Wordpress’ online interface.

I have to forgo the Dashboard for an offline blogging application. This allows me to cross-post to another blog more easily than having to log in to two different blogs online.

It’s still a manual process though.

For now, it’ll do.

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New customer service paradigm

Published

acroamatic

on Tuesday, 22 April 2008

in Musings and Tech

. 3 Comments

On the bus this morning, I remembered reading about customer service in yesterday’s ST. The main thrust of the article was that Singaporeans love to bitch and moan about things in private, both online and offline. Not many want to make a stand by sending in an official complaint or take their grievances up to CASE.

Must a complaint be sent through official channels before it is acted upon?

No doubt most blog owners consider their blogs their own personal sphere. Those really paranoid about privacy will have totally private blogs. The rest are at least vaguely aware that anything they say there can be surfaced elsewhere. It’s probably a “it’ll never happen to my blog ‘cos I don’t say anything of public consequence” mentality. So, those who complain on their blogs never expect anything to be done about it.

This is an opportunity to surprise customers!

There are many tools to track mentions of your product/service(s). Google Alerts is a good place to start. Subscribe you your company’s name or some other relevant terms. Let the complaints and compliments - bloggers do give praise when its warranted - go straight to your inbox.

The rest, as SDU once (in)famously proclaimed, is up to you. =)

Do note, if your product/service name is too generic, trying to track online mentions might be tricky.

Photo by Michael Porter, from here,
reproduced under a CC by-nc-sa 2.0 licence.

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Theory.isthereason’s been hacked!

Published

acroamatic

on Wednesday, 19 March 2008

in Personal and Tech

. 1 Comment

Yikes… Kevin Lim’s blog went down recently, one of among 200,000 affected web pages.

I’d have a mini-meltdown if that were to happen to me.

Then again, I’ve ’survived’ losing my hard disk.

At times like this, you have to become detached from worldly goods, which many religions advocate anyway.

It’s just a bunch of ones and zeros.

Still… a little prevention can go a long way.

Like many people, I’ve thought about how to back up my blog.* Like most of this group, I’ve put it on the backburner, thinking that it will never happen to me.

Complacency. It’s all the rage these days.

I do have a rudimentary backup, just in case this blog ever decides to give up the ghost or if my webhost decides to up and leave or if some malicious person destroys it.

It is at Google Reader. I subscribe to my blog’s feed, and share the post every time I update.

Yup, that’s why my contacts who are using Google Reader see that my ’shared items’ are my blog posts. I started doing this before they enabled users to see their contacts’ shared items.

It’s manual. I’d like something more robust and automated. But it’ll do for now.

Kevin, as you commented recently here, I feel your pain.

* I’ve also thought about how to keep the blog alive after I’ve left the building. The moment payments stop, this blog will go down. No solution as yet. Perhaps one of the advantages of having a blog on Blogger or Wordpress.

Original photo by Adrian Sampson, from here, reproduced under a cc by 2.0 license.

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