Text on a page. It should be so simple.
Unfortunately, writing is something wrapped in a great deal of subjectivity. What seems perfectly clear to the writer might come across as meaning something entirely different to the reader. Sometimes this leads to rather delightful, if unintended, interpretations of a text.
Here’s an example:
Seems to me like Microsoft is encouraging people to switch away from their Windows Phone…
So, there’s plenty of news about the 90,000 node bot that’s currently trying to gain admin access to WordPress sites by brute-force guessing admin passwords.
There are a number of things you can/should do to harden your site against this type of attack…the most important being to USE STRONG PASSWORDS!
I installed the Limit Login Attempts more out of curiosity. I’ve seen it recommended in a number of places, but was curious what it would do against a 90,000 node bot. Seems to me like it wouldn’t be that effective…
Still, moments after installing, I get this report:
90,000 nodes on the bot trying to brute force passwords for WordPress. This is what I see after installing the Limit Login Attempts plugin…
Each lockout stops an IP from logging in (or trying to) for 20 minutes. After 4 lockouts, you’re banned for a much longer amount of time.
Not the best solution, but it at least shows me that I’m being targeted…
If you host a WordPress site, you really need to make sure you are using strong passwords for your admin accounts. There are also a host of other steps you can be taking to harden your site against attacks.
Please add good resources in the comments!
Plug-ins Worth Considering
In The News
So, I’ve kind of orphaned a whole slew of side projects (including this blog) lately while I worked on spinning up another blog to test some SEO, content strategy and audience building approaches I’ve had rattling around in my head for a while.
It’s something I’ve been working on in my spare time for a bit over a year, and I just wanted to do a quick retro and reflection on where I’m at. It’s not a huge deal, but I’ve passed a couple of personal milestones that are worth noting:
A Week of Site Traffic of ~250 Visits a Day
Seems like nothing, right? Well, what makes this special to me is that I built this from scratch. In my spare time. The world it a lot different when you have no existing brand, no guaranteed traffic, and no time to invest in generating either. Nothing.
Transparent red line indicates relatively sustained traffic at or above 250 visitors a day.
Broke Through the Google Webmaster Tools 50,000 Impressions Ceiling
I was stuck at 50,000 impressions (exactly) for so long that I’m convinced Google has a throttling mechanism in place. I suspect site age has something to do with it.
In April, I finally broke through the 50,000 impressions ceiling.
Identified the Reddit Effect in My Analytics
Reddit is notorious for driving mad traffic to unsuspecting websites. After careful scrutiny of my analytics for the last year, I was able to tease out correlation between visitors and having a post make it to the front page of a smallish (50K subscribers) SubReddit. Can you see it? 
If you look closely and use your imagination, you may discern the Reddit Effect.
And of course, there’s more…
Some Things I Have Learned
Some of what I’ve learned over the past year kind may seem obvious in retrospect, but kind of surprised me as things were progressing…
The Valve Employee Handbook, a must read for anyone sick of the traditional workplace and dreaming of a better way. It looks like at Valve, they have the courage of their convictions to put the ideal of the Enterprise 2.0 movement into actual practice, to not constrain themselves by the fetters of doing things the way they have always been done. Interestingly, the first step in pulling this off is hiring the right people, then getting out of the way and letting them do their jobs.
Why do so many organizations get this last part wrong?
Mediacom, this is why you suck. In fact, it might be at the very heart of why you are evil. First you introduce this non-standard “Website Redirect Service” that redirects me to your stupid page, but then you don’t let me opt out of it.
In the past, at least you respected my selection and let me opt out…but only for a while. Eventually, you always come back.
You are a blight on internet standards and really, you need to stop doing this to your customers.
This is awesome. It’s Netflix’ Guide on Freedom, Responsibility and Culture.
Parts of it seem frightening and unfair and draconian, other parts seem absolutely spot on or even, amazing. It’s kind of a chiral reflection of how things work at Valve: very careful hiring, very specific cullings, very little of most of the garbage that comes from Taylor…
OK, so we’re going to be with the default theme for awhile. I’ve just migrated a few properties over to WordPress from Drupal, and this one comes from a Drupal site _and_ an old Blogger site. So, I’m going to stick with the stock 2013 theme for a bit until I get everything else going on in my life sorted out.
Gabe Newell is one seriously awesome dude. It’s not so much that he runs, Valve, one of the most significant video game companies in the world; but that he runs it as a flat organization without traditional “management” roles.
It’s a fascinating organization because their practices fly in the face of many other practices you find in the software industry today. Amongst some of the more interesting facts about life at Valve include,
Oh really?
The following links were provided on the last slide of my Surviving Agile presentation given on 9/11/2012 at the Eastern Iowa chapter of the Society for Technical Communication.
