Just poking around, going through my old mail. (OK, like from 2 years ago...) Anyway, I came across a few old news articles I never got around to writing about. There's the accidental wirless hacker, some fitting comments on hacking in general, and the rather interesting case of a hacker arrested not for hacking, but for authoring hacking tools.

We're still here !!! And, after a long leave of absence, I've made some progress on updating the xml-weblog code. The most important new developments are AvantGo support (added a while ago) and an XML/RSS feed for news aggregators (now available at rss.php).

I will also soon be adding support for the Blogger and MetaWeblog XML-RPC APIs, with the goal of being able to submit stories from my news aggregator, the fantastic NetNewsWire, which not only does a great job aggregating RSS feeds, but has a nifty neato weblog editor built in (in the full version). The theory is that once this is all up & running, I will actually have time to *post* to tm.net; I have a whole bunch of stuff I've been saving up.

Full details on the xml-weblog code updates are available in this article on xml-weblog.org

Although xml-weblog 1.1 is not fully complete, I decided to move to the new engine anyway. All of the articles have been migrated from the old system, and the remaining content, including user accounts, will be imported when I get a chance. Some content, like comments, will have to wait for the necessary xml-weblog feature to be built.

Why the early move? I got tired of seeing the PHP-Nuke vulnerability of the week, and I stopped using the old site some time ago. Welcome to the new technomagik.net !

I've started the process to migrate www.technomagik.net from PHP-Nuke to xml-weblog, the new site management engine I have been working on. Right now, there is basically no content on the new site, but that will change as I gradually migrate tm.net content over to the new system. When I do make the switch, (unfortunately) accounts will no longer work, but when xml-weblog 1.1 is complete, I will be migrating all user accounts, with the exception of passwords, which I will reset. I will send notification of your new password to whatever email address is stored in your account, so please make sure this is the correct address.

A preview site is available at: http://www.technomagik.net/test/

from the future home of http://www.xml-weblog.org:

xml-weblog 1.0 is now complete, and ready for download! The source code can be downloaded below; it is covered by a four-clause BSD-style license.

Currently, there is no public CVS repository available, but I would appreciate any feedback, bug reports, corrections, etc. You can send them to me at: loki@technomagik.net

Download

from wellstone.org:

Paul Wellstone was one of a kind. He was a man of principle and conviction, in a world that has too little of either. He was dedicated to helping the little guy, in a business dominated by the big guys. We who had the privilege of working with him hope that he will be remembered as he lived every day: as a champion for people.

His family was the center of his life and it breaks our hearts that his wife of 39 years and his daughter Marcia were with him. Our prayers are with Mark and David and the grandchildren he and Sheila cherished so much.

Check this out...

http://www.technomagik.net/test/index.php

I've made significant progress with my MySQL/PHP/XML/XSLT/XHTML project, and have now passed the first milestone: Loading a (prototype) front page from MySQL to an XML page, then transforming it to XHTML using an XSLT stylesheet, all scripted with PHP.

If that's not acronym overkill, I don't know what is.

Right now, the test site is more of a proof-of-concept than anything else. The next step is to implement topic icons, messages, articles, and write a basic administrative interface for site configuration, adding blocks, articles, messages, topics, etc. Milestone 2 is a bare-bones but fully functional site with web-based administration. Once that's complete, I will be cleaning things up and releasing a 1.0 version of the software (currently named "xml-weblog"), probably under a BSD license, and probably open up the project CVS repository to the public. Until then, check out the test site, and please let me know if you find bugs!

Catching up on a bunch of old news that was taking up space in my inbox. Here's some cool stuff from 1/1/02 - today.

an interesting paper about how the virtual world of EverQuest has spawned a real economy -- buying and selling EQ items, players, etc. on eBay with real currency. Cool, especially from an (my) economist's point of view. Spotted in an article at New Scientist.com. Thanks to LoyalCitizen.

I am writing this from DefCon. And yes, I'm relatively safe because I first connected to a VPN server.

I just hope that this doesn't attract undue attention...

Believe it or not, I will have more to post soon. I'm also working on a new version of the site, a new project I'm working on that runs a basic (for now at least) weblog using PHP & MySQL to build an XML page, which is then transformed using XSLT, so it supports multiple themes & multiple media formats out of the box.

As can be seen on this article on ain't it cool news, Lucas intends on altering several of the original movies by adding a few scenes (and presumably making more money off the new versions). So here is my guess as to the nature of the added scene in ep 6: During the ending celebrations, when Luke looks and sees the glowing Anakin, Obi Wan, and Yoda, he will see Anakin morph into the young (Hayden Christensen) Anakin, and then he'll be joined by a young Padme. They'll hold hands, Obi Wan & Yoda will appear younger as well, and then the closing credits will run.