blog.scottlowe.org

I’ve written before about del.icio.us, and how I find it extremely helpful in marking useful information I’ve found on the Internet.  (Now we just need a way to keep those pages we’ve bookmarked because they were useful or helpful from suddenly disappearing and making our bookmarks invalid.)  In the last few weeks, though, I’ve noticed something odd: bookmarks are being added to my Inbox (the “links for you” section, where other del.icio.us users can save a bookmark for you that they think might interest you) that don’t appear to be related in any way to links that I normally bookmark.  Am I missing something, or is this the start of bookmark spam?

I’m pretty boring when it comes to links, actually.  Unlike some other users whose RSS feed of links I watch, my “linkstream” is pretty much focused around specific technology areas (virtualization, VMware, Active Directory, UNIX/Linux, Macintosh) and Christian topics.  That’s generally it.  So when other del.icio.us users start adding links to my Inbox for topics outside those general areas, it doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense to me.  I can certainly see the value of the del.icio.us Inbox; after all, everyone’s view of the World Wide Web is different, and someone else might be able to find information that I can’t find (or vice versa).  So I could see someone putting a link in my Inbox that had to do with Active Directory, UNIX/Linux integration, VMware, or a Christian topic (like an up and coming new Christian music artist or something).  Links that don’t really have anything to do with links that I normally track are just like e-mail messages hawking wares designed to augment portions of my anatomy…they are not useful, helpful, or otherwise valuable to me.  That makes them spam.

Is this just me creating a problem where one doesn’t exist, or are others also seeing the same trends?  And what steps are ones taking, if any, to protect against this?  (Admittedly, it is an extremely low-volume and lower-impact problem right now.  I seem to recall saying the same about e-mail spam years ago.)

I wouldn’t dare to describe myself an expert on the use of such sites or services as del.icio.us, Technorati, or other sites that promote the use of “tags” as a means of organizing links or other content.  I do use these sites (you’ll note the “Technorati Tags” added to each post), and I do find them very useful.  However, I’m beginning to shift tactics in my use of tags, and hoping that this change will make these services even more useful.

Up until now, I’ve used tags primarily as categories, as a way of grouping links (or other content) together.  For example, my Linux tag on del.icio.us contains links that all primarily center around Linux.  That makes perfect sense, but what about links that discuss Linux integration with Windows?  With my old system, that creates a quandary, a conflict that is not necessarily easy to resolve.

Moving forward, I’m going to start using tags more as keywords than categories.  This will mean that more items will have multiple tags associated with them (and that makes sense), but it will also mean more tags than I have used in the past.  This will allow me to more easily tag links and content in such a way that I hope will be more useful to myself and others.

I will continue, however, to attempt to use the same sets of tags across multiple sites and services, just as I do now with my del.icio.us links and my weblog content.

If anyone has any feedback on other ways I can make tagging work more effectively, I’d love to hear about it—perhaps someone out there would care to share their tips, tricks, and techniques?

This new blog is just about ready for public consumption.  I just finished configuring the permalink structure so that all posts have a static URL, using a pretty common structure that includes the date of the post in the URL.  (This seems to be a reasonably well-accepted practice.)

With the static URLs for permalinks also come static URLs for category archives and feeds.  Unfortunately, it looks like I’ll have to go back and rework any internal links I created in my own posts.

In addition, I reworked the template to include a hyperlink for adding a post’s URL to your del.icio.us bookmarks.  Now you can add an entry to your bookmark list with ease!

Every now and then, I like to post out here a list of my current “tech projects.”  These are the things that I’m working on for my own network, things that I may or may not start recommending to or supporting for customers.

Here’s my current list:

• InterNetNews (INN):  I had an installation of INN up and running a short while back, but had to resort to an ugly hack with stunnel in order to make SSL work from a newsreader.  To get a clean build, I’ve decided I’ll just start from scratch with a clean installation.  I’ll be using CentOS 4.1 again as I work on transitioning all my Linux-based servers to a newer Linux distribution, and I’ll be compiling INN from source instead of using a package.
• OpenBSD-based antispam gateway:  I’ve got an antispam gateway running right now (uses Red Hat Linux, Postfix 2.1, SpamAssassin, Postgrey, Razor, DCC, and ClamAV), but I want to try building one using OpenBSD 3.8 (just recently released) and newer builds of Postfix, SpamAssassin, and Amavisd-New.  In particular, I’m interested in the advanced integration of newer versions of Postfix and Amavisd-New.
• XC Connect:  I’ve also mentioned XC Connect before as well, but a previous installation proved to be unstable, and the Apache integration was less than stellar.  In fact, the integration was nonexistent.  I’m going to try a clean build of CentOS 4.1 and XC Connect to see if that will correct the stability and integration problems.

I also need to wrap up the documentation for a few completed items, such as the Cisco VPN integration with Active Directory.  Mac OS X integration with Active Directory is also on the “to do” list, but it will have to wait a little while—I’ll need to find another Mac to “experiment” with instead of using my own PowerBook.

As you may recall, the idea behind XC Connect is that multiple applications across platforms could synchronize data with each other.  This would make it possible, for example, for a list of Contacts normally managed inside Outlook to also be shared seamlessly with Linux systems running Evolution and Macintosh clients running iCal.  This synchronization would also be possible, in an encrypted fashion, across the Internet.

Tests of Windows-to-Windows synchronization are very positive.  The but the real test for me is synchronizing between iCal/Address Book and Outlook.  If that part works as well as what I’ve seen thus far, I will be truly excited.  The idea of having a single list of contacts is more enticing than perhaps I can fully elaborate.

I plan on performing some additional tests this weekend, and when those tests are complete I’ll post more information here.

Then all I have to do is figure out why my Treo won’t synchronize fully with my laptop.

…but SSL is not so easy.  I found a workaround for using Stunnel; in order for INN to not think it’s another news server feeding it information and instead treat it like a reader, I had to alias another IP address and bind Stunnel on that IP address.  It works, but it’s not my ideal solution.

To further complicate matters, it looks like I’ll have to compile INN from source myself in order to get SSL support in nnrpd (that’s the component that handles connections from NNTP readers).  It’s not a big deal, I know.  It’s just my history compiling from source has been a bit rocky.

Technorati Tags: Newsgroups, OSS, SSL

My work with INN 2.3.5 as an internal news server is progressing, and I must admit that the configuration of authentication and SSL is going well.  Authentication works like a champ, leveraging PAM and therefore automatically leveraging the Kerberos/LDAP integration with Active Directory I implemented a short while ago.  The SSL stuff is just a bit trickier; I initially tried the old faithful Stunnel, but found that INN thought the connection was coming from itself and not a reader.  That caused INN to respond differently.  I’ll start looking at native SSL support within INN next, but that can wait until tomorrow.

Technorati Tags: Newsgroups, OSS, SSL

I finally managed to get an internal news server running INN 2.3.5 up and running, and transferring data from the proprietary platform that is currently hosting some internal newsgroups.  I decided to use my first real installation of CentOS for the internal news server, and so far it has worked out well.

I have a newsfeed to transfer new postings from the proprietary application over to INN, and I’m using pullnews right now as I write this to transfer the old articles over.  Aside from some limitations and failures which I believe to be the result of the proprietary application’s specific implementation of NNTP (which I, personally, feel is another nonstandard implementation), everything seems to be transferring over rather well.  The next step will be to add authentication to the INN installation, and then add SSL support.

One more nail in the coffin of a certain proprietary groupware application…

Technorati Tags: Linux, Newsgroups, OSS

As part of the process of trying to clean up all the various accounts and subscriptions and what not that I have out there, I have switched to a new del.icio.us account.  You can now find my bookmark list at del.icio.us/slowe.

Does anyone know how to close an old del.icio.us account?