We actually were able to go online!

INTERNET

Well the first day was typical. Many school students, some professors and… noone else.

Anyways the Internet went down and due to my project being a web app, I couldn’t show anything. I am completely dissappointed from the organising this year, and many volunteers there agreed with me.

I hope that the 2nd day will get better…

Ας κάνω λοιπόν μια γρήγορη λίστα με το τί μου άρεσε, τι με άφησε αδιάφορο και τι δεν μου άρεσε.

Τι μου άρεσε:

• Η ευρύχωρη αίθουσα. Μετά το περσινό στρίμωγμα ήταν λογικό οι διοργανωτές να ψάξουν κατι μεγαλύτερο. Και το βρήκαν
• Οι παρουσιάσεις της Ζαχαρένιας, του Βασίλη, του Γεράσιμου, του Δημήτρη και του Θάνου
• Τα μικρά δωράκια που έκαναν και φέτος την εμφάνιση τους!
• Ο άφθονος καφές που υπήρχε στο break
• To networking που φυσικά επακολουθεί μετά απο κάθε event

Τωρα θα γίνω λίγο δυσάρεστος, θα πω τα πράγματα που με αφήσαν αδιάφορο

• Η παρουσίαση του Γιώργου, κυρίως για το HTML5 (την ένιωσα τελείως εκτός κλίματος)
• Η παρουσίαση του Φώτη (σορυ σειρά, αλλα με έχασες κάπου) και του Αποστόλη (μου φάνηκε αρκετά generic)
• Η παρουσίαση του Γιώργου ξανά για το WordPress στα Windows (μου φάνηκε αρκετά παρόμοια με την περσινή)

Και τέλος θα γίνω πιο δυσάρεστος, τι δεν μου άρεσε

• Η μικρή προσέλευση του κόσμου. Μετά την περσινή επιτυχία, περίμενα περισσότερο κόσμο, τελικώς ήρθαν νομίζω ακριβώς ίδιος αριθμός με πέρυσι. Ο λόγος πιστεύω ήταν η τοποθεσία του ξενοδοχείου που φιλοξενήθηκε το event (εκτος πόλης), το Λιμάνι Αλλιώς και το OpenCoffee που έγιναν ΤΑΥΤΟΧΡΟΝΑ.

H τελική γεύση που μου άφησε το event ηταν πολύ θετική τελικά και ελπίζω σε κάτι μεγαλύτερο πλέον. Το community των “open events” δειχνει να δυναμώνει σε αυτή την πόλη και ελπίζω σε καλύτερες μέρες!

The presentation was part of the Xinis Educational Festival and with me was Basilis Kanonidis talking about WordPress theme and plugin  creation.

My presentation (in Greek)

As I browsed through the Error logs of the system (I am not  a techincian on the hotel, therefore I can only investigate, not solve problem) I found that there was an activity log that was “full” and had to be backed up. The activity log apparently was used to monitor EVERY SINGLE CLICK in the system. The information held in the log was like this:

[username][date][time][workstation][activity][database query][explenatory text of what the query meant]

This shouldn’t be a problem, and it is rather logical keeping logs for some time, the problem here was that the log was NEVER reset! It kept records from 2006! This resulted in an enormous log of useless information (legally the hotel is not obliged to keep this kind of log) which was gathered over the years. The result was a file with size of 50GB! Occupying the whole hard disk where it was stored!

How much is this? The database containing the clients’ data (the usefull ones) was just 2 GB (also there there is the reastaurant charges, EVERYTHING that moved in the hotel from 2006). In comparison: A bit more of the WHOLE Wikipedia’s Database as of March of 2009!

After the initial shock, I contacted the technician responsible (who of course was on vacation) and asked him why there was so much logging. His answer was another shock:

“I have no idea. We bought the source code and rebranded the software. Frankly, we do not have examined the full behavior of the program.”

The solution was simple: “We have to delete the log file” – No shit, Sherlock.

Here’s my solution to them:

• Keep a log within a reasonable amount of time (e.g. a year) Most of the employees found there had either retired or left the hotel
• Keep the usefull data, like who logged in from where, and edits of the database. Keeping a record from just viewing the client’s profile is idiotic.
• Clear the log if it exceeds some disk space.
• Test run your f#*%ing code.

The Eponymoys Anonymous

The report says: “His name was found at an Anon Manifesto, circling the globe. Alex Tapanaris seems to have written 2 documents about the structure and the beliefs of the Anonymous. His name was found on a PDF file used to transfer the documents. He has lost his sleep due to the fear of being arrested and the phonecalls of journalists. [...] His website www.alextapanaris.com has vanished from the web [...] ”

Let’s bash that point by point:

• “His name was found at an Anon Manifesto, circling the globe.” - Anon manifesto? Where was that and why does a Google search shows no trace of it??? (except the Greek sites that reproduced the article from the newspaper?)
• “Alex Tapanaris seems to have written 2 documents about the structure and the beliefs of the Anonymous.” – Structure like what? m00t is the God, mods are fags, and Beliefs, like “You are Anonymous.You are Legion.You do not forgive.You do not forget.And You do not matter.And you are an idiot if you believe the 5 sentences directly above this one.“
• “His name was found on a PDF file used to transfer the documents.” – lol PDF
• “He has lost his sleep due to the fear of being arrested and the phonecalls of journalists.” – Arrested for what? About posting memes like Advice dog and Milhouse? Or viewing gore pictures and posting his penis? Did he took part on a raid? I thought that Anon is safe behind over 9000 proxies. Be serious dude, you are exposing yourself too much.

Advice Dog - possible felony

• “His website www.alextapanaris.com has vanished from the web” – Well it doesn’t seem to be a DDoS attack, most probable is that he shut his own website down.

This is all a publicity stunt from Alex himself. He declared himself  ”hacker” and an Anon. This is a great insult to the Anon community if he had any clue. I bet that thousands of searches with his name were made during the publication of his story, and lots of them lead to some of his work as a designer. Well played Alex.

Also a journalist that respects his profession would have AT LEAST made a research to about the Anonymous before publishing a story like that. Hell, even a 3-second viewing of the E.D. page would have shown what Anonymous is, and Alex isn’t.

Alex Tapanaris right after the 10.000 Google Searches

Here’s a few tips on how I cope with the issue.

Use Ignognito mode or Private Browsing in your browser

This is the first step, the most common one and safe. If the history is deleted, then the user becomes suspicious of someone using his/her “important” PC. By leaving the history intact the user never suspects anything . This functionality allows the user to surf without leaving any cookies, logs, login codes or history. Currently I have tested it with Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox

Use Portable Apps or any other USB powered sandbox.

This software is epic. Load your favorite programs on a USB stick, and enjoy your convinience anywhere. These programs do not require any installation or tweak and they leave no trace.

Optional: Install XAMPP on USB with Portable Apps.

Did I mention that this software is epic? Yes it IS!

My other job is a Web Developer/Designer (more developing than designing though). Which is a very mind consuming job. The daily tasks vary from slicing to custom PHP code, from offering prices to clients for their requested projects to offering coffee to them.

How I cope:

I calculate the time of the day, every day.

Try to find at least a task to complete for the 2nd job every day. From 1 minute to 4 hours.

Staying focused on both jobs

While working, you must pay respect to any job, even if it is the most boring of the world. It is a way for not giving excuses to any of the coworkers or bosses to pressure you  to quit one.

Overlap the time of the jobs but not the phonecalls.

There is a night shift where there is mostly nothing to do. Most of the time is spent by waiting for something to happen. Therefore there is plenty of time to make that bug dissapear…

During the other shifts, any contact for work is best to be avoided for obvious reason. You cannot help anyone if you talk on the phone during the other work.

P.S. Check soon my other blog where I record my experiences of the hotel.