slice of koh

Hunch is an online decision-making tool built by users.  In 10 questions or fewer, it will provide a result for you.  The more questions you answer, the better it’s supposed to predict your behavior.  Hunch allows you to agree or disagree with the answer it gives you.  You can also submit a missing crucial question or result.  It is pretty fun to answer the questions and see what the results are.  The question ranges from really silly questions to serious questions.  It’s free to use.  There does seem to be value when it actually recommends a product or service that matches you.  Most of the time, it’s a good procrastination tool.

Is the new IPhone really worth the hype?  As much as the battery life and processing power have improved, too bad the new iPhone will not fulfill its potential in the near future.  Due to the limitations of AT&T’s network, the new iPhone 3GS owners will probably be disappointed if they are part of AT&T’s network.  Although tethering and 7.2 Mps HSPA speeds are available for the new IPhone, these crucial features will not be available for AT&T iPhone customers in the near future (or at least part of the current data plan).  Knowing AT&T, they will probably charge extra for unlimited data and tethering, and it will likely cost someone an arm and a leg plus more.  In fact, AT&T customers are likely not to see 7.2 Mps HSPA until 2010 or 2011.  By then, a new iPhone model will probably be released.  They even lowered the price for the last generation 8 gig iPhone to $99 with a 2-year contract which is definitely going to send a signal to its smartphone competitors.

I do like the additional features of iPhone 3.0 OS.  Safari can now handle HTML 5, HTTP video and audio streaming, and auto fill with some improvements in JavaScript speed.  MMS is finally available, and new OS seems to be friendlier towards gaming development.  Some new applications such as the ScrollMotion’s Iceberg Book Store (Kindle competitor), Live 6, and Zipcar definitely look promising.  My contract is ending in August, and it’s going to be a hard to decide whether to wait for Palm Pre GSM or make the iPhone conversion.

Training for the marathon is tough.  Not only do I have to commit to running 3-4 times per week and do strength training 3 times per week, but I also have to regulate my diet to prepare for the 26+ miles.  I love food, and it is hard to not indulge in some of my favorite foods (Crisp’s Korean friend chicken is one such food).  There are some foods that I never get tired of, and one of them is pizza.  As a former East Coast resident, I adore thin crust pizza.  Simple mozzarella, basil, and fresh tomatoes are the only toppings I would get.

Now that I’m living in Chicago, the most prevalent pizza is the infamous deep dish pizza.  There is nothing against this style, but it’s really hard to eat without a fork and knife.  It’s also nearly impossible for me to finish one slice, and a deep dish slice is not necessarily a good thing to eat while training for the marathon.

After craving pizza for a few weeks, I ran upon a New York Times article that has a simple recipe for whole wheat pizza dough.  As the summer season brings in a multitude of seasonal vegetables, it is now pretty easy to get my pizza fix without feeling that I ate an entire cow.  Tomatoes are not in season yet, but that does not stop me from making white pizzas with asparagus, Yukon gold potatoes, and a sprinkling of buffalo mozzarella.

I have thought about traveling the world, but I really had nowhere to begin.  World traveling is a huge cost in both time and money, so I would want to do it the right way if I ever decide to take the chance.

Nora Dunn is a professional world traveler and offered tips on how to achieve such a dream for less than $14k per year.  Her article is here.

Last week, my friend helped me discover a line of PHP code that didn’t belong to the rest.  It seemed like when one tries to open this blog on a browser, one would get re-directed to a pdf file hosted by some random Russian website.  After discovering the PHP code, my friend helped me locate and delete the stupid line of PHP code.  One week later, it happened to me again only I haven’t found the source of the error.

Since I am sick of being a victim of insertion attacks, I researched a little on the Internet on how to make my blog more secure.  Below are the results of my research.

1) WordPress version should be always be up-to-date. Currently, the current stable version is 2.7.1.

2) Make sure your plug-ins are up-to-date.

3) If you have third-party plug-ins, keep in mind that there may be security risks in the code.  I think this is where my issue was because it’s hard to keep plug-ins updated if you have a lot of them.  As a result, I stripped down my plug-ins to the ones I actually use including my security plug-ins.

4) Install useful security plug-ins.  You can Google or WordPress Plug-in search for “spam blocker,” “security scan,” or “firewall” for a few good ones.  I would recommend reading about these plug-ins online before you install.

5) Read this WordPress Security Whitepaper for more things you can do to secure your WordPress blog.  If you attempt any of the SQL queries shown in this paper, make sure you BACK UP your database before writing any sort of SQL query.