Spy Journal 3.0 Filtering the web for you

Just when we had nearly finished the last round of security upgrades Drupal releases a new set of upgrades for 5 and 6 sites. Fortunately we have this process down pretty well now so it looks like aManda is going to be busy for a while performing upgrades.

One really cool module we have found for version 5 sites is the Update Status Module. This feature is included in Drupal 6 core, but had ben missing from Drupal 5. Now we can be notified whenever contributed modules are upgraded and go and replace them.

One of the main reason for the security patches is the chance for users of the BLOGAPI feature to upload malicious files. This includes users of Live Writer and other applications that take advantage of this feature. This fortunately is not too much of an issue because site administrators should only be providing this feature to users they trust anyway.

A note from Tim: Susan Bradley AKA the “SBS Diva”, has been an amazing help to our business with her awesome willingness to assist every time I have had a question about SBS 2003. She has provided information, links to help pages and forums, hot fixes and even posted me a SBS 2003 Best Practices book for free. She well and truly deserves the MPV recognition from Microsoft for her contribution to the SBS community. We’re excited to present her profile today.

Name: Susan Bradley.
Screen Name: Susan (boring, I know). Also known as the SBS Diva.
Personal Blog: www.msmvps.com/blogs/bradley
Social Networks: While I am part of www.linkedin.com and www.facebook.com there are still times that I go, do I really call some of these folks friends?  Social networks have to build off the social part first and foremost.  Twitter is one that I watch other twitterers but my "fake" twitter is actually run by Vlad Mazek (www.vladville.com).  He actually twitters better than I would -- check out www.twitter.com/susanbradley
Current Employment: CPA, Network Admin, Forensic specialist
Location: Fresno, CA, USA

Came back the same way I went. What took 2 hours 20 minutes to go, took 2 hours 17 minutes to come back - thats consistent driving!

Now I am home I have a massive amount of work to do. While I was away I could get into my server and process emails, manage files and other bits and pieces but my laptop does not have the same development environment for coding, making it impractical to try and work on some of the jobs I have to do. Only having 2 screens in the motel made it hard also when I’m used to working on 4.

So today its diving into the code work and getting the piled up jobs out of the way and done. First some paperwork associated with being away, a strong coffee to help with that and then code code code!

Oh and we just got word yesterday on a massive database contract we tendered for in February against Oracle – we won it! So that will kick off in a couple of weeks and I need to be clear of other work. Anybody know of any Excel and VBA developers in Brisbane looking for work? Email me or use the contact form in the menu bar.

I am in Toowoomba now. I am currently in a motel room (pictures below) using very fast ADSL2 Internet service provided free by the motel via wireless network.

I got here the fun way.

When I wrote my motorbike off a couple of years ago I waited for some time before replacing it and eventually replaced it with the Suzuki Swift Sport. Since then I have done 18000 km but no real good driving – just city and highway work. Today I got the opportunity to really go driving with it.

The videos are on YouTube. They are all filmed on public roads using a camera held in my hand while driving and holding the wheel. So the image quality and stability is sacrificed for safety. Additionally I didn’t push the car beyond the speed limit. However the roads are so twisty that was not necessary to obtain some great footage.