So Regency, So Regency, My Dear

My thoughts and prayers go out to all those touched by the recent atrocity in Mumbai/Bombay.

I visited the city in 1991 and since then I am sure much has changed, not least of which is its offical name. I’d been aware of the name change but was unaware of the origins of the city’s names and reasons behind the change. So I decide to poke around a little to see what I could find.

The name Bombay derives from western influences. It is an anglicised version of the original Portuguese name Bombaim, meaning “little bay”. Gujarati and Marathi speakers called the city Mambai or Mumbai.

In 1996, the city was officially renamed to the Marathi pronunciation of Mumbai in accordance with government policy to rename former colonial entities with names derived from local history.

Reading recent accounts in western newspapers, it seems both names are used in equal measure.

Adrienne Bailon received a lot of exposure recently.  And probably a little more exposure than she’d have wished for. 

From the current series of rumors circulating the story seems to be thus.  Bailon lossed her laptop at JFK at the end of October and promptly informed the Port Authority of the loss.  Shortly after, someone called her record label informing them they believe they had her laptop and requested USD 1000 for its safe return.  A rendezvous was arranged, and the cash and laptop changed hands.  At this point, a marked sigh of relief was probably registered within earshot of Bailon.  However, (there always seems to be a pivotal “however” in these tales) shortly after semi-nude pictures of Bailon from the laptop were offered to several media outlets.  And, lo and behold! much to the disgruntlement of frustrated teenage males everywhere, they are now plastered all over the ‘net.

Although many may applaud the interesting viewing resulting from Bailon’s apparent lack of diligence in securing her laptop, others might be pondering the consequences should something similar happen to them.  What can one do to secure a laptop?  As a long time laptop owner, here are a few suggestions.

There are usually two distinct assets you may wish to protect:  the physical device, and sometimes more importantly the data contained on it.

In order to protect the physical laptop:

• Be aware of the whereabouts of your laptop at all times.  Train stations, airports and similar large, crowded, public spaces are known hotspots for laptop theft.  Be particularly vigilant in these places. 
• Use a shoulder strap to carry the laptop as much as possible.  This reduces the likelihood you’ll put your laptop down when distracted (for example, to search for and answer your mobile phone).
• Alarm options use a more conventional and cheaper means of alerting people to a stolen laptop.  Some offer cables or tags that when tampered with emit an incessant eardrum piercing shrill.

Loss of the data on the laptop can sometimes have more serious and costly implications than the loss of the machine itself, particularly in consideration of corporate and government owned machines, or when the machine holds pictures of your boyfriends half-unwrapped birthday gift.  If this is the case, then consider the following:

• Some Windows (and other) operating systems have an inherent encrypted filesystem.  This prevents your files being read even if a person has physical access to your laptop. If you elect to use these features, be sure to fully understand the implications (for example, if you do not have a backup of the encryption keys and you lose them then you are locked out of your files too.)
• Alternative proprietary encryption systems have been available for a long time but remain underused.
• Tracer technology allows a laptop to register its whereabouts when connected to a network.  This means that if the thief puts your stolen laptop on the internet, it broadcasts its whereabouts enabling you or a third-party to locate it.
• The kamikaze approach is also available via remote kill options.  This might be useful in a corporate setting.  Essentially, it allows the option to destroy the drive contents via a remote trigger.

With greater prevalence of expensive mobile technologies, laptop theft has become a sad modern day inevitability.  Adhering to some basic laptop security practices can help keep your privates private.

Probably not, I hear you all say.  But I couldn’t help noticing recently the power of rumor for generating web traffic.  Poking around at Google, I ran across the part of their site that reflects current trends in web searches, called Google Trends.  I was particularly interested in the headline “Taylor Swift Pregnant” which seems to have started early morning (before 6am) PST on November 5th, peaking around 7pm PST with a 250-fold increase on normal search volume, before tailing off to normal levels within 6 hours.

So, if you want to generate a lot of good quality Internet traffic hastily (and relatively easily), then begin a creative rumor mill on newsworthy topics. (”Prince William in Shotgun Wedding!” or “Warren Buffett Files Chapter 13 Bankruptcy” etc.)

WordPress has many nice features but, for me, one of the least endearing features in the latest version, version 2.6, is the post version editing feature.  For a large blog with many contributors and editors, I can imagine this to be a very nice and useful enhancement.  However, on a small blog such as this, the intermittent (and incorrect) reminders that a more recent post exists are just a hindrance.  So I looked in to how one might turn it off, and it seems quite straightforward.  In order to disable the post revision feature, simply add the following line to your wp-config.php file:

define('WP_POST_REVISIONS', false);

And that should be the end of it.

As a relative newcomer to blogging and WordPress in particular, I’ve recently partaken of a common ritual amongst seasoned and novice WordPress users alike:  experimenting with plug-ins.  Having looked over fifty or more plug-ins, I have compiled a list of plug-ins I think all bloggers would benefit from using.  Additionally, I give three more plug-ins I found very useful. 

3 Must-Have WordPress Plug-ins

 1.  Akismet.  It is a sad fact of life that link spammers treat blogs as potential fodder for comment spamming runs.  However, Akismet is remarkably efficient at detecting comment spam and dealing with it appropriately, leaving you free to write blog content instead of deal with the wailings of the kiddies who still deal in content spam.  You’ll need to register for a free API key to use this plug-in. 

2.  All-in-one-SEO-pack.  In order to maximise the impace your site has on visiting search engine spiders, be sure to use this plug-in and tune the settings to your particular liking.  Search engine spiders pay particular attention to certain HTML, in particular <title>.  Among other useful tweaks, the all-in-one-SEO-pack ensures each page has a page <title> tag that is specific to the page’s content.

3. Google XML Sitemaps.  This very handy plug-in rebuilds your blog’s XML sitemap and notifies Google and other search engines of changes and fresh content - this can be very useful when seeking to index fresh content swiftly.  If you make subsequent changes to the structure of your blog, do not forget to manually rebuild your site’s XML sitemap.

3 Notable Mentions

1.  StatPress.  There are many stats plug-ins from WordPress including the WP-Stats API written by one of the WordPress developers.  However, I have been very impressed with StatPress.  It is light and gives real-time stats in the WP admin dashboard.

2.  AdSense Manager.  This is a must if you plan to run advertisements on your blog.  It is highly configurable and works with a myriad of advertising schemes, including AdSense, Yahoo Search Marketing, AdToll and several others.

3.  Flexi Pages Widget.  This is a very useful addition for building custom navigation menus and menu widgets that display differently on each page.  For an example of this widget is use, I found this Fishing Reels site that demonstrates it well (click the menu on the left hand side to see how).

The rain, the rain.

Like a pendulum whose motion is ever so slightly dampened, the weather seems to be swinging back and forth between rain and shine at increased frequency.  I do not recall such rain during the summers of my youth.  I recall long, hot summers and all the accompanying delights such as uninterrupted play at Wimbledon, strawberries and champagne in shirt sleeve order at the Lord’s Test, boating and picnicking on the Thames, all without even the suggestion of a drop of rain.  Oh, happy days.  And, lest we forget, the dreads too:  sitting three-hour A level and degree papers in the suffocating heat of overpopulated enclosures, apologetic underground announcements as we stand sardine-like and slowly broiling, delayed in the bowels of the great city, and on.

Mankind has incurred the wrath of the weather Gods.  Our journey is fuelled by the momentum of previous generations.  The excesses of our fathers have set us on a very uncertain journey.  We roll on inexorably to a future of changed patterns, changed habits, changed lives.  The joys of my youth will remain as long shadows cast back across the landscape of time, unlikely to be enjoyed by my children.

I seem to be going through a phase where men in Prada sneakers find me attractive.  (A rather grand opening for a first entry, I agree, but recently it has nudged to the forefront of my thinking.)

Not abysmal, and partially redeemed by a cutely dimpled smile, the most recent attempt could, very charitably, be considered unimaginative at best.

“Is this seat taken?” he offered as the mid-afternoon tube train rumbled out of East Putney toward the teeming city beyond.  As mid afternoon trains leaving East Putney go, this was one of the fuller, with four other people occupying the carriage, all equally spaced and at various stages of texting, examining a newspaper or gazing off in to space, daydreaming the dreams of a daily tube-rider.  Nonchalantly, I peered over the top of the latest Evanovich to glance at the empty adjacent seat then the face of my Prada-sneakered interrogator before replying, “I don’t think so.”

And there commenced the series of butter-fingered twitchings that involved an iPhone, a book, a heavily worn A&F messenger bag and a series of conspicuously unaesthetic leg-crossings before the  train rattled in to South Ken. and I made a hasty exit with a coy smile.

Have to be a little quicker next time, sunshine.