ISAW or Internet Security and Warfare alerts users of a page in ITPros.ph that contains a listing of its members’ account details, including passwords, in plain text. ITpros.ph is designed to be “the Philippines’ key employment facilitator for the ICT industry.”

The page is searchable through Google and when I went over its listings, I spotted the account of someone that I know.

EXPOSED PASSWORDS. A screengrab of account details listed in a page in ITpros.ph. The page lists the details, including passwords, in plain text. Click on photo to view larger image.

I informed the person of it and he confirmed it was indeed his old account and the password listed there was indeed the one he used. I think this is potentially dangerous as most people use the same passwords for multiple accounts. I also spotted several accounts using “password” as password.

The availability of the page shows the potential risks of signing up to websites, what with the multitude of web 2.0 services cropping all over the Web and the urge to immediately sign up for accounts. Most people I know use the same password for their e-mail and other web-based services. If one of these services is compromised and your account details are exposed, your other accounts are also at risk.

This is scary, don’t you think? I’m reorganizing my passwords. I’ll be using a different password for my blogs, GMail, AdSense and web server panel accounts. I’ll be using shorter ones for less important services. I’ll be using a new combination for signing up to websites–you know the type, the latest free web 2.0 service to be featured in Techcrunch.

It’s a hot date before the big day. Bayan Muna has scheduled a round table on Tuesday afternoon, Feb. 13, at the Rajah Park Hotel function room in Fuente Osmeña to discuss free and open source software.

Organizers are still finalizing details but I was told it’s open to anyone interested to discuss free and open source software, one of the advocacies of Bayan Muna, particularly Rep. Teddy Casiño.

Casiño is the author of House Bill 5769 or the Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) Act of 2006. The measure, according to Casiño’s explanatory notes, “mandates the use of FOSS in all government agencies and encourages the use and development of FOSS in the private and public sectors.”

The bill is still with the House committee on information communications technology. There is no chance it will be passed by this Congress but I was told they will reintroduce the bill in the next Congress.

Continue reading ‘Open source Valentine’

In the run-up to Sinulog, the biggest festival in Cebu, I was invited to a demonstration of Globe Visibility, Globe’s HSDPA or High Speed Downlink Packet Access mobile Internet service.

The service, marketed by Globe with buzz phrases such as “3G plus,” “better than 3G,” and “mobile broadband,” promises download speeds of up to 1.4mbps. In the limited time that I observed the demo, Globe Visibility was browsing at breakneck speeds. Heck, it was even faster than the faltering and intermittent Globelines Broadband connection I had at home.

Continue reading ‘Mobile Internet and Globe Visibility, a demo’

I’ve been meaning to map Cebu’s Wi-Fi hotspots for more than a month now. It is a project that I’ve kept putting off, mainly because of work deadlines and other tasks.

For a while, I planned to set out–and was on the verge of doing so at least twice–and go through 4 or 5 coffee shops and restaurants in a day to find out 1.) whether they provide free Wi-Fi access and 2.) how good the connection is. I am a recidivist coffee drinker, having kicked it out of my system for a few weeks last year, but still, the prospect of a caffeine overdose (not to mention wrecking my poor excuse of a diet) kept stopping me from starting with the Wi-Fi mapping.

Continue reading ‘Mapping Cebu’s Wi-Fi hotspots’

I took the plunge. This blog, as well as a host of other sites I run using WordPress, is now using the latest release of the popular open source blogging software: WordPress 2.1 “Ella,” named after the great Ella Fitzgerald, one of my favorite singers.

I did not encounter errors in the upgrading process, which took less than an hour for all the blogs I oversee. I am, to continue with the Ella theme, in the mood for “making whoopee.”

Major upgrades, like WordPress 2.1, are not to be taken lightly. I botched a major Serendipity upgrade oh so many years back (my fault) and lost at least 50 blog posts. On hindsight, though, the posts are better off in digital limbo.

CPANEL FEATURE. Cpanel allows you to upload a packaged file (i.e. zip, tar) and then uncompress this using a point and click interface. This saved me time in uploading new WordPress files while upgrading several blogs I run. Click on image to view larger version.

Unlike security releases, which I implement as soon as I read about them, I usually take days to upgrade to a feature release. This gives me time to read about problems of others who took the plunge earlier. The major cause for worry with the latest WordPress version is the compatibility of plugins for your website blings.
Continue reading ‘Nice work if you can get it: Ella sings and WordPress blings’

The recent Internet connectivity problem in the Philippines has allowed me to try several software packages in an attempt to replicate the task management that I do online. Before the connectivity problems, I managed all my tasks (personal, blog-related, work-related and other collaborative chores) using an installation of activeCollab.

EASY TASK MANAGEMENT. Accomplice helps you manage your tasks easily and collaborate with other users. Click on photo to view larger image.

With Internet connectivity deteriorating to the level of the days when flickr would have been dismissed as a wrongly-spelled word, I managed to download several personal information managers (PIM) and tasks managers through the only reliable connection I had left, the office PC, for use at home and in my laptop.

I initially thought of using Sunbird, Mozilla’s calendaring software, in conjunction with Google Calendar. But after searching for possible solutions, I still couldn’t find a way to synchronize Sunbird installations in multiple PCs using Google Calendar. I’m crossing my fingers that Sunbird’s coming version will be able to not only grab data from a Google Calendar account but also add entries to it.

I then tried Chandler, the open source PIM released by the Open Source Applications Foundation, but its hardware requirement is rather steep: a processor with a speed of at least 2 gigahertz and 512mb RAM.

Continue reading ‘Manage your tasks with Accomplice’