W. Doug Bolden

Linux and Me

Linux Apps of Choice

Going to rework this section...

Linux Tricks, Tips, and Solutions

KDE/Kubuntu/Ubuntu sound stops playing, says /dev/dsp is unavailable, etc.

Getting Google Reader to work with Livejournal's protected entries via CURL (note, hosting service required) (6 Sep 2010)

The Case of the Mystery Ghost Server and the Utterly Simple Solution... (10 Feb 2011). After two years of being not only off, but unplugged and unwired, a server starts showing up in some logs. I first assumed it was either a hacker, and then wondered if it was some digital equivalent of a wraith (no idea how that would have worked, but residual power and a wireless card?). The solution, though, turned out to be a lot more mundane. Wanna take a guess?

Games for your (Linux) Box

Tenmado

Webdesign, Website Philosophy, and Tips

Twelve mostly non-technical tips to reduce the headache of starting a new website (based on my experience) (16 Dec 2009). Take these tips as you will, but here are 12 generally short ideas that can greatly reduce your headache upon starting a website. You won't find anything about formatting or proper CSS sheets, here, just stuff like "make sure you can check how often your website is used, because you will want to know".

According to the rash of SEO types who contact me to get their webpage re/linked to through the library's... (17 Aug 2011). My URL is all wrong, apparently.

Notes on Wyrmis.com history and Site Philosophy

The final return to first intentions with Wyrmis.net (4 Dec 2009). A look at what I wanted to do with my website from the beginning (i.e. link to blog posts as static webpages after the fact) and how I finally got around to doing it, something like 6.5 years later. Includes some history of this website, for those who might be, for whatever reason, curious.

What I did to my website, how, and why. aka breaking for a good cause... (9 Dec 2009). About how initially simple solutions can lead to big headaches down the road.

New website design (sort of) and the trip to Tuscaloosa to see Neil Gaiman (20 Feb 2010). This past Thursday, Sarah and I went down to Tuscaloosa to visit the University of Alabama campus (especially Gorgas Library) and to attend an event featuring one of my favorite authors: Neil Gaiman. I talk a little bit about that event and some about changing the layout of my site to better work with mobile devices and so forth.

Python

A brief note about my day in the life posts (boring, but possibly interesting use of Python datetime) (13 Jul 2012). Just pointing out something that you may have not noticed about my day in the life posts, some very short code to find out how many days you have been alive using Python.

Computer Security

Changing out the passwords, some tips and ideas from my own time in the trenches (1 Feb 2011). Passwords are often the number one element of security in the digital age, but from what I've seen: we suck at it. Having spent an hour or two swapping them about today, I have some tips.

Solving the password issue...at least one way to do so... (21 Oct 2012). Passwords are one of the most vital aspects to our online security, and one of the most infuriating. There are many ways to solve the issue, here is just one (technically, three or so are discussed).

Once again in the password trenches, or, take a look at my shiny new quick Python code for making random passwords (4 Feb 2014). Changing out passwords is everybody's worst friend, or best enemy, or whatever you would call it when it is necessary but it just bugs the hell out of you. Here is one program that I came up with to help speed it up.

Password Card, a slightly different way to generate passwords and then take them with you... (18 Feb 2014). The password card is a simple tool to generate [generaly short] passwords and to have them on hand even when away from your computer or device, assuming you have your wallet.

Social Media, The Internet, and WWW Commentary... or: Me Versus the Net

Why I Have Come to Dislike Facebook

HATE as netspeak

7 Reasons I Hate Twitter, Despite Kind of Liking It (13 May 2009). One of the last posts from the old blog format (and the last full, non-misc post), and one of my favorites. Whats more, nearly every single thing is still true as of the time I link it here).

Is the Internet Making Us Dumber? (26 May 2009).

Double strength Earl Grey double steeped, with extra sugar... (29 Jul 2009). Something of a two-fer article, in which I complain about the Amazon Marketplace and how the shipping comes about, as well as talking about FUD and the spreading of it across the net...and a woman who was sued becuase she tweeted about mold in her apartment.

Since more and more of my friends are obsessed with Facebook Quizzes, please read... (15 Sep 2009). I think the rules have changed since I made this post, but I just wanted to keep it up since it's the kind of thing that shows up on Facebook at least once a year.

Twitter Parody That Might Work: Just Five Words Or Less (28 Sep 2009). I started out making fun of Twitter and its future, but honestly, I think I can make this work.

Four basic tips to make Facebook a tad more sane in these "trying" times (26 Oct 2009). A lot of my friends went angry after the switch to "Live Feed" on Facebook. I came up with tips on how to overcome some of the features. I was mostly ignored, but there you go.

What we blog, a quick look at two and two half axes of interest (aka from 11nr to 77uw)(18 Dec 2009). I come up with a way to roughly measure what we blog about.

9 Things that Web 2.0.09 Has Taught Me (2 Jan 2010). Web2.0 proves one thing, no matter how much the tools change, the tools that use them stay the same.

The night of many posts, dealing with the mood I am in, facing Doug's Third Rule about Blogging, and coming back on Monday (16 Jan 2010). In the middle, I talk about three related "rules of Blogging" as seen by me. Namely, you can care about the blog's input or output, but the two things are surprisingly exclusive.

From zero to five stars in Facebook, applying common sense Information science to a sluggish social networking giant (17 Feb 2010). Facebook is massive. Millions of people use it. So many millions that it is on it's way to approaching the "b" word. We are talking about a country sized population. And, well, really it is almost unusable...let me tell how it is, and why it is, and one way to fix it.

The Solitude Project (March 24 through June 24, 2010) (23 Mar 2010). I have begun to wonder the power of solitude in our day and age. However, rather than some project where you go completely without contact, or completely without social sites, or some other extremes, the plan is to merely redirect some of the energy spent on social connections back into self-development, quietude, and peace. To perform this miracle of the modern age, I will use a simple Quadrant system. The time spent upon secondary contact (meaning all contact not fully developed or fulfilling) will be fourthed. The new free time will have new direction.

My End-of-Semester Resolution - Fewer, or No, Brain Droppings (7 May 2010). Brain Droppings, our short littly pithy quoted adages and false intellectualisms that run the gyre of Facebook and Twitter, where human discourse becomes less about communicating and more about being, however briefly, recognized, where the greatest compliment is not merely imitation, but replication. How about I stop contributing to the mess?

Eight and a Half Reasons Why Tomorrow Will See the End of My Facebook Account (11 May 2010). Tomorrow, I will delete my Facebook profile that I have increasingly used as an online persona for, man, I don't know. Awhile? The reasons are varied (partially, I just need to take a break) and I wanted to lay them all out since a few them might be eye opening.

My greatly shrinking online footprint, mixtape for my brother, and 3000+ visits to DoaB (12 May 2010). Over the past few weeks, I have greatly changed my online presence to just a couple of core sites. I'm starting to twitch. In other news, making a mix-tape for my brother, Danny, and my website has reached 3000+ visits since December.

Are Social Networking Experts Going to Eat the Internet? (17 May 2010). As I see more and more blogs about blogs, more and more tweets about tweet, and more and more social network experts being self-proclaimed on social-network sites: I can't help but ask, will meta-net eat the Internet?

10 Things We Do on the Internet Even though We Know They Waste Our Time (25 May 2010). I was sitting around and thinking about this today, the way that Internet, for all its good, does become a giant time sink for most of us. I figured it would be fun to chronicle just some of the ways we waste time, many of us daily, using it.

Lazy Days, Policies and Procedures, Months without Facebook, Inception, etc (29 Jul 2010).

On Twitter's Strange Robo-accounts... (29 Nov 2010). ...in which I ask what they're really for...those weird, random tweeting accounts with bit quotes and odd observations on the hour, every hour.

On using Livejournal to talk about Facebook...our drift away from a compartmentalized Internet (1 Dec 2010). On the way that my friends talking about one social site by posting to another made me about what we've lost with our tendency away from niche websites.

The Moribundity Criers, How [and a guess as to why] X is Dead is the New Futurism (22 Feb 2011). Stop me if you heard this one: _______ [insert any tech, cultural idea, etc] is dead. I have. A lot. And I'm finally ranty enough about it to try and get some of my frustration with the phrase out there. By why do they keep it up? Wrong assumptions? Or an myopic view of technology? Fanboyism?

Avoiding Schadenfreude Sites, Eschewing Comments, and Deciding to Keep the Fedoras (20 Sep 2011). I have come to a point where I need positivity in my life. The Internet has that potential, but certain steps need to be made: turn off the links to schadenfreude sites, avoid reading comments where possible, get out more and enjoy the company of others, and keep wearing my damn fedoras.

Want to guess what stupid thing teenagers are doing now? Sharing passwords to social sites. (18 Jan 2012) Kids start sharing passwords with other kids on social sites. It is a sign of trust (and no doubt will soon devolve into a sign of DIStrust to not do it) but there are much better lessons to be learned by keeping privacy even under passionate circumstances.

Some good, weird, and ugly side-effects of Priv.Ly [not that they haven't already thought of these], and musings on a client centric for-pay social site (18 Apr 2012). Some good, weird, and ugly side-effects of Priv.Ly [not that they haven't already thought of these], and musings on a client centric for-pay social site

Taking NotAlwaysRight.com off of my reader list. Can't take it, anymore... (1 Mar 2013). I've read NotAlwaysRight.com pretty much daily for a couple of years. After a bit, decided just let it go.

Day in the Life 13071: The very nearly Twitter mistake + taking stock of possessions prior to our non-move which is a double move (13 Mar 2013). Though I don't have many rules for my Twitter usage, I still managed to violate one. Also, Sarah and I have a bit of physical labor in front of us, and I wonder how much stuff I really need.

Ok, ok...my thoughts on Kickstarter (29 Mar 2014). I have backed a number of Kickstarter projects, despite having mixed feelings on the platform. Let's talk about what I consider the pros and cons.

Better Ways to Surf the WWW

From blocking all YouTube comments to turning off Twitter's Trending Topics (and Who to Follow), why Stylish is a most awesome extension to have... (4 Oct 2011). I love Stylish. Here are some tips for using it to get rid of the worst of the web, so you can focus on the best.

Eight [relatively quick] ways to get past the 10-articles per month limit for New York Times's nytimes.com (22 Apr 2012). NYTimes.com has a new paywall set up that allows you to view the homepage and up to 10 articles per month without pay, with unlimited articles being available if you start paying for it. Here are seven ways to avoid that limit, if you cared do such a thing.

The Ulimate (maybe too powerful) Comment Killer! Bonus: Most Bad-Ass Young Girl With a Violin You Are Likely to See Today... (2 May 2012). I have been looking for a way to get rid of comments as whole on the Internet (well, get rid of me having to see them). I found a solution that might just be too poweful. Also, check out this photo of a bad-ass girl on a violin.

E-Mail

A twofer! The greatest spam subject-line enticement ever? and Speaking of evil Spam, the worst "referer Spam" I have seen (both published 17 May 2009)

What if spam (e-mail) was more like actual Spam... (8 Dec 2009). A humorously intended "top 10" list asking what if the e-mail plague was more like the not-quite-foodstuffs.

The NYTimes on why innocent e-mails can lead to trouble (20 Aug 2010).

Old Me versus the Net

For some reason, I like to go on rants about the aspects of the Internet for time to time. I decided to go ahead and start collecting them, here.

"I do not think it means what you think it means"

Snappy Answers to Message Board Questions

Notes to Spammers Trying to Trick me

True stories: The internet is a bad, bad place; no water; et cetera (23 May 2009). Only the first part is about the Internet, but it's one of those "absolutely amazing" stories.

Here is a secret. I kind of like clever spam (4 Mar 2011). Spam is the scourge of the digital age. But, hey, sometimes...it makes me smile.