Take my Link away …. – Shortlinking done differently

Shortlinks, like bit.ly and others, seem to be everywhere in today’s social networks and looking at Twitter or the way some websites are built, or if you just need a short and easy to remember link they do have their uses. Every day I see a new short link service pop up I had never heard about before. Continue reading

The Importance of Being Earnest … – about virtual education

… about virtual education.

When I was still in school my world was restricted to my immediate friends and surroundings. If I wanted to visited relatives or friends living farther away it took quite some time. With the arrival of modems and BBSes my small world became a little bit bigger. And when the World Wide Web and eMail established themselves and virtual worlds began to emerge in the mid nineties my world expanded to include everybody who had access to an internet account. Nowadays the number of people who have access to the internet in some form or the other has multiplied x-fold, and our world is expanding, or maybe I should say our perspective is expanding, the world itsself seems to have become smaller. It is becoming easier to access an ever increasing of information, it is becoming easier to contact an ever increasing number of people without having to use a phone or visiting them physically. Never before has it been so easy for people of different cultures to meet each other in a virtual environment and get to know each other. But has it become easier for us to process this much information? Has the number of our friends (and I mean REAL friends) increased? Continue reading

At the Crossroads – Choosing a WebGUI for your OpenSim

Managing an OpenSim installation with only the tools offered by the console is possible and for some tasks necessary, but especially when it comes to user administration it can be a bit tedious. So at some point or the other every prospecive OpenSim administrator will reach the point where he or she needs to look for a webgui to manage as much as possible. A commercial grid with sufficient funding might be able to pay for a custom development, but most will look for a standard tool that also integrates into a cms.

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For the World is hollow and the Grid is open – Thoughts about OpenSim Security

When talking about OpenSim- and Hypergrid-security I believe several aspects have to be taken into account it is not enough to secure the server and leave the Hypergrid door wide open or vice versa.

On the local side basically all average grid owners can do, is to take basic measures like a firewall and ensuring their system is up to date. It would be advisable though to go a step beyond the usual and use programs like portsentry or fail2ban to thwart and block the casual hacker. If you really have a determined and knowledgable hacker there is not really much you can do to keep him or her out.

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