My DigitalZone

Have you ever considered disabling the AutoSave feature of WordPress? WordPress is great software for blogging and other things. It is very user-friendly and intuitive to use. One thing I didn’t like is its Autosave feature. When auto save kicks in while writing a post, it slows down my writing/editing.

Furthermore, every time autosave kicks in it inserts a new row in the data base. I first noticed it when WordPress told me that “there is a post with a later time stamp, do you like to revert back to it?” Then, it showed me various versions of the same post saved at a different time. At first, I thought it was a cool feature because I didn’t have to lose a lot when my laptop freezes.

Almost ten times more rows than the number of posts
So, I took a look at the database itself. In the database, wp_post table is where all the posts are saved. In my other blog, I only have 121 posts. The number of rows for wp_post is, however, a whopping 1,402 rows! That’s almost ten times more than the number of posts. That’s a lot of waste of disk space, and I’m sure it will slow down the web site access as the table is much bigger than it needs to be.

The wp_post table has a column called post_status and it has either “publish” or “inherit”. I thought about deleting all the rows with marked with “inherit” but reconsidered as there may be some issues unknown to me.

Disabling Autosave
Basically, there are two ways to disable autosave. You either have to edit the configuration file or use a plugin. Both are not difficult. Here’s how.

• Editing wp-config
  Back up to the current version of wp-config.php with a different name so you can revert back if you don’t like what it does. Then, add the following line anywhere in between the php opening (< ? php )and ending (? > ).
  
define('WP_POST_REVISIONS',false);

• Using a plugin
  This is what I want to try first because I haven’t used too many plugins that made my site slow. There are different ones available but I think I like this one.

  I’ll let you know how I like this plugin.

Venture Beat cited an article published today @Business Week that twitter is profitable. I know what twitter is. Actually, I have an account there but I haven’t used it much. I didn’t see too much action there, well, because I didn’t use it much.

Now I’m thinking. I haven’t really kept up with all of those. It’s probably about time for me to start using some. The social media, some of which started as media for small circles, has grown so much virally. We hear about twitter and facebook almost every day on TV.

I’ll probably explore other social media also, such as Digg and Delicious.

Phishing is a general term associated with a fraudulent attempt to gain access to a person’s important personal information, such as credit card account numbers, user names, and password, and in some cases, the social security number. The number and variety of phishing attempt are increasing rapidly. Bad guys use emails to deliver an innocent-looking email with malicious contents. Sometimes, they use text messages asking for a person to call a certain phone number to obtain personal information.

The email/text message pretend to be from financial institutions (banks, credit unions, or credit card companies), PayPal

Obviously, emails and text messages appear to be from legitimate sources so the recipient think that they need to take some actions (click on a link in an email or call a certain phone number) to remedy the situation described in the email. Those situations include that:

• your account is being suspended;
• your account is being deactivated;
• unusual transaction on your account; or
• missing information on your account.

The above are examples of phishing attempts pretending to be a financial institution. There are some new varieties that pretend to be a package delivery companies, such as UPS, FedEx, or USPS.

Here’s an example email for the UPS case.

Sorry, we were not able to deliver postal package you sent on October the 19th in time because the recipient address is not correct.
Please print out the invoice copy attached and collect the package at our office.
If you do not receive package in ten days you will have to pay 6$ per day.

Your UPS

Apparently, we need to be able to distinguish the legitimate email from the bogus ones. Here are some basic rules to spot the bad ones.

• generic greetings
  Example: Dear XXXX Bank customer: (instead of Dear your_real_name
• legitimate-looking link in the body of the email
  The link may look legitimate but if you hover the mouse over it, the real link address is pointing to a different address.
• legitimate-looking attachment with “.zip” or “.doc” extension.
  Don’t be fooled. The only thing that the bad guys want is for you to click the link.Just one click on the fraudulent email will install and deploy some executable file that contain a trojan horse (a malicious program that opens a back door to your PC and steal your personal information by sending your keystrokes of your important user name and password.

So, the key is not to click a link in an email and do not click the attachment unless you are sure it is from a legitimate source. The Chase (credit card) site has an extensive example of fraudulent email here.

Like most of you, I use the internet online access to manage a lot of things, so I do receive many legitimate emails from them. I’ve make it a rule not to click any links in an email. When I receive an email about one of my account, I open up a new internet session and access it separately, not from the email.

Hope this helps you a bit.

I must admit…. I like electronic gadgets. I usually buy new and hot stuff relatively early, especially when it comes to music- or video-related goods. I am not as crazy as those who spend hours and hours in front of a store to get hold of a new product. But I usually buy a new product before its second generation comes out.

For some reason, Bluetooth headsets did not interest me. Well, that is… until recently. I’ve been doing Christmas shopping and noticed that the prices of Bluetooth headsets have come down a lot. I am feeling tempted. So, I started to do some research.

The two main advantages of Bluetooth headsets are:

1. Wireless — frees up hands
   Obviously, not having to use a hand to hold the phone is very, very convenient, especially while driving. Even when you are doing a grocery shopping and calling home to ask your family members about what they want from the store, your hands are free to push the shopping cart or to examine some products. I can see some benefits in this regard.
2. Affordable
   As I noted above, Bluetooth headsets are affordable now. You can find some cheap one for less than $20.00. However, people I spoke with and a lot of online reviewers said the sound quality for cheap units are not as good. You get what you pay for. One person told me that $50.00 is his threshold. Anything above should be decent, according to an IT person who uses Bluetooth at work.

Well, then the question is:”Do I Need IT?”
Probably not. At my work, I sit in front of a computer almost all day with a headphone on to shut out noises and listen to the music. I don’t move around. I don’t get too many work-related phone calls anyway.

My commute time is very short. It’s only a 10 min. drive one way. I do, however, drive 40 min. one way every week for some extra curricular activity. I use a corded headphone I bought along with my new cell phone, LG enV3, so I have a device that let me do hands-free driving while on the road.

My next question to me has an obvious answer. Do I Want IT? Yes, I do. Very much.

What I’ve decided to do, since I cannot decide to buy it now or not, is to buy one as a Christmas present and see how my recipient likes it or not. In other word, I’ll use her as my guinea pig.

Based on my budget (between $50 to $70) and my research, models I am considering buying are the following.

• Plantronics Discovery 925 Bluetooth Headset
  
  • From CompUSA ($49.99)
  • From TigerDirct ($49.99)
  • From Amazon.com ($49.99)
• Jabra BT 530
  
  • From ComUSA ($54.99)
  • From TigerDirect ($54.99)
  • From Amazon ($37.95)

Home wireless (or wired) internet connection can go kaput for no reason at any time. Thankfully, it doesn’t happen too often but once in a while you need to deal with it. Before calling a tech support line, make sure to do the following as the actions listed below are the ones that the technicians will ask you to perform anyway. In most cases, doing these things will fix your problem. If not, you need to call tech support.

1. Check if you TV is working (for a cable modem user) or if your home phone is working (for a DSL modem user.)
   If your TV or your land phone is not working, something is wrong with your line, so you need to call tech support.

2. Examine the modem lights and the router lights.
   Do they look normal? The power indicator light should be solid and the activity lights should be blinking. Then proceed to the second step.
3. Unplug the power code to the modem to initialize the modem.
   Wait for at least a few minutes and plug the power back on. The modem lights will go through the initialization process. At the end of the initialization process, the modem lights should return to the normal state. Check your computer for the internet connection. If it’s still not working, proceed to the next step.
4. Unplug all the cables in and out of the modem and the wireless router. Then plug them back in securely.
   Check your internet connection on your computer again. If it’s still not working, it’s time to call tech support.