With a completed move comes an account closure.  I was planning on possibly keeping my old Dreamhost account but I have opted to close it in order to save funds.  On that same note anyone wanting to drop in a few dollars here or there is welcome to do so.  I’m going to put up a chipin block on the site soon for anyone that wants to do so.  It will be set for the monthly server costs and I will start a new one each month.  At the present moment the server costs are $60.95.  I’m not kidding.  You can check out Linode’s site yourself.  It is the VPS 1536 plan plus one additional IP.

In addition to that if anyone wants to host a website here just let me know what you want to do and I’ll consider it.  Anyone that requests is expected to chipin to some degree since we will be sharing the server and provide their own domain name.  No, you won’t be given admin rights on the server but I’ll be pretty loose on what you can do.

Anyways I’m still working on how to deal with the OpenID issue for signups and stuff.  I want there to be plenty of options as I am one of many who do use SSO methods for some sites (some use facebook — others google accounts).

Oh and this theme may or may not stay.  Vast improvement over the prior version but I don’t know…

Hopefully there won’t be any surprises with the plugins. :p

Update: speak of the devil.  As soon as I posted this I checked to see if caching was working and it was broken.  I’ve fixed that so that it is now working.

In other news I have updated WordPress to 3.0 (finally) as well as several plugins.  I have also disabled openid.  The reason is because the plugin doesn’t actually work anymore on WordPress 3.0.  It fails to do registration.  Janrain Engage plugin appears to be a feasable alternative but it is already reported to be broken and the compatibility is 3.0 or newer…

Anyways that still doesn’t take care of the fact that I also used this blog for authentication at a few places so I need to create a new openid end point that I can use.  Something integrated in wordpress is preferred.

Update: One of my themes have updated and it looks quite nice so I switched over to that for a change of pace.  I can get HTML validation rather easily but not CSS.  At this point I don’t really care about that anymore but the nice little IE6 alert is staying put since that browser has plenty of security holes anyways.

As for Janrain goes… I probably won’t be using that at all.  Still probably won’t be using that.

If anyone wants a demo of the speed for the new site you are welcome to check it out.  It is the minefield site so it can change at will.

WordPress bleeding edge: http://www.esminefield.net/wordpress/
SMF 2.0 RC: http://www.esminefield.net/smf2/

Last but not least when I setup the site again I’ll likely do it fresh but I’ll restore the actual data from here to the new site. :p

Update: I have finished external access security (multiple groups depending on setup — initial users added to ssh group for password auth then migrating to sshkey once private key is setup which disables password auth and only allows that key for them.  DNS is technically already over there for both elite-systems.org and robertpendell.com but I pointed the a record to over here.  However the SPF record is pointing over there already.  I don’t send email via the server but I set it up so that it can be done just in case.  On that note the outgoing mail is setup as well.  It is out only so I setup postfix to loopback-only mode.  It does it quite nicely since it only binds to unix sockets rather than to ports which ensures it stays internal.

Update 2: I dropped the other server.  I’ve moved DNS to the same company which I have registered the domains and quickly pointed the main domains to the ip for them so this domain and another are back up and working for now.  I am waiting on FDCServers to finish getting servers available so I can grab one.  It will cost me considerably more but I think it will be worth it for the flexability.

I have plans for a potential series of tutorials on various projects.  Among them is using netsh in more advanced ways.  I have been figuring out ways to control network adapters using this method.  I will also figure out other tutorials to write up as well.  Have any ideas then let me know and I’ll try to write something up.

Law firm AbingtonIP has revealed that it’s currently “investigating” what it calls the “convenient” Xbox Live bannings over modded consoles.

The firm believes that it’s no coincidence that Microsoft banned “tens of thousands” of users after receiving its money for Gold memberships, post release of Halo 3: ODST and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Therefore, the law firm is considering a suit in order to get the membership fees refunded to subscribers along with a “refund for the prorated sums”.

Now then I know of at least one person affected by the huge “ban wave” that went through.  Having followed along with the underground community I know what kind of impact this has made.  Many people have answered back after being banned by stating that they were going to get a Playstation 3 console.  It is also seen that most people who do mod their console are paying customers for XBox Live and also pay for XBox Marketplace content like arcade content, game addons or map packs, and videos.

Quote Source: http://www.neowin.net/news/gamers/09/11/19/firm-considers-class-action-over-xbox-live-bannings

Read more: http://wordpress.org/development/2009/11/wordpress-2-8-6-security-release/

Update:  I have applied 2.8.6 to this blog.

Internet Explorer 7 or greater — Website runs in IE7 Compatibility mode.
Firefox 3.5 or greater
Opera 10 or greater
Apple Safari
Google Chrome

For those of you that are trying to use Windows 2000 you will need to switch browsers entirely to view the site without the overlay coming up each time you stop by the site.  Luckily I just checked and Firefox 3.5 and Opera 10 will install and run in Windows 2000.  However Google Chrome, Google Chrome Frame, and Apple Safari will not.

Still using Windows ME or older?  Well I think it is just time to upgrade then.  I don’t think anyone is still actively developing for those platforms and most companies have stopped supporting them entirely.