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I caught the following on MSNBC this morning. jesus_playboy

Playboy magazine is set to pull the plug on its Portugal edition after the July edition of the magazine showed an image of Jesus Christ on a bed with a topless woman, according to news reports.

The magazine’s Portuguese subsidiary, Frestacom-Lisbon Media Publishing, reportedly neglected to show the cover to Playboy before publication, thereby breaching the licensing agreement between the two companies.

Inside, the Portuguese edition of the magazine ran a photo shoot featuring Jesus Christ among topless models. A long-haired, glimmering Jesus-like figure is shown among various naked women. One of the women, who is heavily tattooed, appears to have died in his arms, reports say.

The photo shoot was meant to be a tribute to Nobel Prize-winning author Jose Saramago’s “The Gospel According to Jesus Christ,” which is a fictional retelling of Christ’s life, depicting him as a flawed, human character, the U.K.’s Daily Mail reported.

Theresa Hennessy, who is vice president of public relations at Playboy, told the newspaper:

“We did not see or approve the cover and pictorial in the July issue of Playboy Portugal,” adding that “it is a shocking breach of our standards and we would have not allowed it to be published if we had seen it in advance.”

“We are in the process of terminating our agreement with the Portuguese publisher,” Hennessy said.

[Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38152750/ns/business-media_biz/]

Spies like Russ

One of the more interesting current news stories just also happens to be a very good IT article explaining what not to do.

The 11 Russian spies recently discovered in the US had their fair share of computer problems exacerbated by their lack of understanding of the technology and how to protect their resources. From open wifi hotspots to actually writing down their password on a PostIt and putting it on the monitor of the computer, these users show how inept the spy trade has become in the former Soviet Union.

Some people just don't have a clue. See if you get the title reference from the blurb below.

Minnesota e-commerce company Digital River is suing a New York man after a database of nearly 200,000 of its customers' sensitive information made its way into his hands. Eric Porat allegedly tried to sell the information to a Colorado direct marketing company for US $500,000. The company refused the offer, and when he persisted, the company contacted authorities. Porat claims to have obtained the information from India, but declined to provide details. Digital River's legal team believes that Porat "hacked the hacker."

http://www.startribune.com/local/95584209.html

Securing your Desktop and Server Systems

Whether you are using Debian, Windows, Snow Leopard or any other operating system, there are standard practices for securing your environment to limit exposure to your critical systems. They are not hard to follow. Especially when someone provides step by step documentation on how to secure every operating system on the planet. That is exactly what the folks over at the Center for Internet Security have done.

Bear with me through site changes

DreamHost had a hell of a deal for Cinco de Mayo, so I have moved my site to their service. Unfortunately, the transition was not as smooth as I would have liked it, but overall is not too painful. Articles have all been transferred, however, there are still a few things that need to be completed.

Images in articles did not transfer. Currently trying to repair the issue.
Links in articles need to be reconfirmed. This is a slow process of going article by article.
Some modules used on the previous site are either upgraded or no longer available. Most of this only affects the back end of the system, so you will not notice them.
FireBoard is replaced with Kunena. This means I had to recreate all forums for article discussion. The Quick Post and Discussion links may not link to the correct forum. If you wish to discuss a particular topic, please go to the Forum tab and search for the article name. I will be working to get these repaired, but there is no bulk procedure as forum ID numbers have all changed.
I am sure there are other issues I have not run into yet.

The great thing about the change (sorry Tony) is that I now have unlimited storage and unlimited bandwidth. What does that mean for you? More training videos. I have long wanted to supply walk-throughs for various administrative processes, but aside from the time it takes to produce these videos and voice-overs by myself, there were bandwidth considerations with the previous RackMounted server. No more.

As a final thought, if there are any extensions or additions that you would like to the site, feel free to drop me a line and I will see about getting those added. And as always, please stop and sign the guestbook just to say hello or tell me what your thoughts are.

Oh yeah. The tremendous deal? $110 off for a year of unlimited hosting. That made it $9.26 for a whole year of unlimited bandwidth and storage. Sorry if you missed out.

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