December 2013 archive

Dec 02

Releasing a New WordPress Theme Through Github

Deploy360 frontpageAs part of my work with the Internet Society on the Deploy360 Programme, I've wound up spending a good chunk of time learning the inner workings of WordPress due to the fact that WordPress powers our Deploy360 site. Given that the main Internet Society site uses Drupal, we wanted our site to look as close as possible to the main site. The Internet Society also has 100 local chapters scattered around the world who also maintain their own websites - and some of them use WordPress as well. The result is that I've spent a good bit of time working on a custom WordPress theme that is available through Github for chapters to use:
https://github.com/internetsociety/isoc-wp
It's been an interesting experience using Github for a WordPress theme. Given my love of the git version control system, Github was a fairly obvious choice for public collaboration, given that I'd been using Github for long before joining the Internet Society (ISOC) in 2011. Perhaps the single biggest advantage of using Github beyond the ease of collaboration has been the issue tracking. We can maintain a list of "issues", be they bugs, enhancements or otherwise, and collaboratively work through those issues. Github does a great job of tying in code commits to issues and lets you easily associate them with milestones. Today's experiment for me was to learn more about Github's "releases" feature and to make the theme available as a formal "release". I documented this in (of course!) an issue for the theme after Github removed the "Downloads" functionality very early this year. My main issue was that for ease of documentation and support I wanted people to install the theme into a folder called isoc-wp on their WordPress server. If they did so they would be able to use some of the examples in the documentation without any modification. The problem is that if you just download the code from Github using the standard download buttons, you get a ZIP file with a directory name with a version number on it, such as isoc-wp-v1.2.0 or isoc-wp-master. This does actually work perfectly fine when uploaded to a WordPress server... but the documentation examples don't work verbatim and need to be modified with the directory name. With the "Releases" functionality, what I can do is separately create a ZIP file that has isoc-wp as the directory name and then upload that ZIP file to Github as part of the release. I've documented my release packaging instructions in the Github wiki for the theme. All in all it's a rather nice way to maintain a WordPress theme and I'm pleased with how it is all working so far!
P.S. If any of you out there want to help work on this WordPress theme, perhaps as a way of learning more about themes - or about working with Github, you're welcome to join us on Github, even if you have no connection to the Internet Society or an ISOC chapter... best place to start may be to look at the list of open issues and see if there are any you can comment on or contribute to. (You'll need a Github account but those are free.)

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Dec 02

Telefonica Shuts Down Jajah

TheNextWeb reported yesterday that Telefonica is shutting down the Jajah VoIP service that they acquired back in 2009 for a reported $207 million. While certainly disappointing for the users and presumably for some staff, it's not entirely unexpected. In the early pre-acquistion days, Jajah was doing some very cool things (ex. powering Yahoo!Voice, although that service has since faded) and was quite interesting to watch. Back when Alec Saunders was doing his daily "Squawk Box" podcast, we interviewed Jajah co-founder Roman Scharf on April 29, 2008 (you can still listen to the episode).

However, ever since the Telefonica acquisition you didn't hear a whole lot about them... although they did come out with an Android app in 2011 for calling Facebook contacts.

Telefonica isn't saying anything yet publicly about why they are shutting down Jajah. Pretty much the entire Jajah website points to a single "shut down" page and the blog now only has an entry about the shutdown. Matt Marshall over on VentureBeat speculates that Jajah simply didn't have any substantial revenue after voice traffic has been so commoditized - and that's as good a suggestion as any.

So... goodbye to Jajah... best wishes to all the customers and (presumably) staff.

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Dec 02

Inspiring TED Video: Gratitude Leads To Happiness

In this holiday season, particularly for those of us in the U.S. around our Thanksgiving holiday, we talk a lot about "gratitude" and the importance of it. This year I stumbled upon this TED talk by monk and interfaith scholar David Steindl-Rast, "Want to be happy? Be grateful". The abstract is:

The one thing all humans have in common is that each of us wants to be happy, says Brother David Steindl-Rast, a monk and interfaith scholar. And happiness, he suggests, is born from gratitude. An inspiring lesson in slowing down, looking where you're going, and above all, being grateful.

I enjoyed it very much... "Stop. Look. Go." Simple words to live by (in the context in which he phrases them.)  Well worth a listen... 

Dec 02

TDYR #052 – Cyber Monday: A Great Day To Buy DRM-free Ebooks At 50% Off At O’Reilly

Today is a great day to buy DRM-free ebooks on O'Reilly's website from a great range of publishers (not just O'Reilly) at 50% off or more. This includes two of my books: "Migrating Applications to IPv6" and "Seven Deadliest Unified Communications Attacks". More info at: http://migratingappstoipv6.com/2013/12/cyber-monday-50-or-more-off-migrating-apps-to-ipv6/ http://www.7ducattacks.com/2013/12/cyber-monday-deal-50-off-ebook-of-seven-deadliest-uc-attacks.html

Dec 02

Cyber Monday Deal: 50% Off Ebook of Seven Deadliest UC Attacks

oreilly.com Cyber Monday SaleWould you like to purchase the ebook of "Seven Deadliest Unified Communications Attacks" for 50% off? or maybe even 60% off? As I mentioned before, the folks at O'Reilly are now selling the ebook of 7 Deadliest UC Attacks and they have a promotion going on today:

Save 50% on all ebooks and videos at oreilly.com - and save 60% on all orders over $100.

Here's a great chance to help learn more about how to secure Unified Communications / VoIP systems - or to buy this book for someone you think would like to learn more on the subject.

The awesome aspects about ordering ebooks directly from O'Reilly include:

  • DRM-free - you can read the ebook on as many different devices as you want... and you don't have to mess around with silly licensing systems.
  • Multiple formats - you can download the book in ePub, Kindle, PDF.
  • Free lifetime access - you don't have a limit on when you can download the book and you can always go back in and get it.
  • Free updates - whenever there are updates to a book you get a notification and can easily download the update.

All around it's just a great system for working with ebooks... and yes, I'm an author for them so you might expect me to say this, but I'm also a consumer who purchases ebooks and I like their system better than any of the other ones out there that I've tried.

I'll note on the "Free updates" part - I don't yet have any current plans to update "Seven Deadliest UC Attacks"  (unlike my "Migrating Applications to IPv6" book that will see an update in 2014) but if I do work on an update at some future point, ebook purchasers through O'Reilly would be the ones to easily get an update (versus print or ebook through other systems).  And you will get updates for any other ebooks you purchase.

It's a great deal - and I'd encourage you to stock up on ebooks from O'Reilly's site today!

P.S. To comply with full disclosure requirements: the links in this post are affiliate links - I will make a tiny amount of money if you purchase any ebooks after following these links... but that's not why I'm writing this post.

Dec 02

Cyber Monday: 50% (or More!) Off “Migrating Apps to IPv6″


oreilly.com Cyber Monday SaleWant to buy “Migrating Applications to IPv6” at a discount of 50% or more?  Today being “Cyber Monday” the team at O’Reilly are offering an outstanding deal:

Save 50% on all ebooks and videos at oreilly.com – and save over 60% if you purchase over $100.

As I’ve mentioned in the past, buying direct from O’Reilly offers multiple excellent benefits, including:

  • DRM-free – no stupidity with license restrictions.
  • Free lifetime access
  • Multiple formats (ex. ePUB, PDF, Kindle, etc.)
  • Free updates
  • Sync with Dropbox

… and more!  All you do is enter “CYBER3″ as the promotion code when checking out.  The deal expires on Tuesday, December 3, at 11:00 US Pacific Time.

Note that this code is good for ALL of O’Reilly’s ebooks – so it’s a great day to stock up on new reading material!     I love the way O’Reilly notifies you when you have updates to download… and since I’m planning an update to this book in 2014 by buying today you’ll get that update when it’s available.

Please do check it out!

P.S. To comply with full disclosure requirements: the links in this post are affiliate links – I will make a tiny amount of money if you purchase any ebooks after following these links… but that’s not why I’m writing this post.

P.P.S. My “Seven Deadliest Unified Communications (UC) Attacks” book is also on sale today in ebook form through O’Reilly after O’Reilly started carrying the ebook version of 7 Deadliest UC Attacks earlier this year.

Dec 02

FIR Cut – Asia Report for Episode #732

Due to technical issues, Michael Netzley's Asia Report arrived too late to be included in episode 732 of The Hobson and Holtz Report, so we're posting it as an FIR Cut.

Dec 02

FIR #732 – 12/2/13 – For Immediate Release

Two FIR Interviews posted, one more coming; two FIR Book reviews coming soon; episode 1 of "AllthingsIC with Rachel Miller" published; FIR Contest winners; Quick News: GE's '3D Printing Day', Typhoo Tea astroturfs Sainsbury's, Twitter's location prompt to engage, the state of the Web Audio API; Ragan promo; News That Fits: Get used to "Ok Google"; Dan York's Tech Report; PR's use of media databases has gotten out of hand; Media Monitoring Minute; listener comments; be aware of Glassdoor; Coca-Cola wants to kill the press release; music from Life Has Teeth; and more.