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Blogvaria » Personal opinions http://blog.evaria.com The personal pages Wed, 21 Jul 2010 09:31:41 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 News Corp. in early talks for ‘Avatar’ sequel http://blog.evaria.com/2010/news-corp-in-early-talks-for-avatar-sequel/ http://blog.evaria.com/2010/news-corp-in-early-talks-for-avatar-sequel/#comments Wed, 03 Feb 2010 14:04:59 +0000 Thomas http://blog.evaria.com/?p=1198 Went to see Avatar recently in Full 3D HD with my son. To me it was a fantastic experience. The Hi-Res 3D movie experience brings new levels to what to expect at the movies (in my opinion). Therefore, it’s with great optimism I read yesterday’s announcement at the Hollywood Reporter;

Asked about potential “Avatar” sequels, chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch said on his quarterly earnings call Tuesday that the conglomerate is in “very early talks about it.” Director James Cameron “has ideas” for a sequel, he said, adding: “We will be pushing for one.”

But he cautioned analysts not to “hold your breath for an early one” in a possible reference to Cameron projects often taking a long time to come to fruition.

News Corp. deputy chairman, president and COO Chase Carey interjected that both sides want to make another movie. “We certainly both intend to have one,” he said.

The executives said financing of a sequel like of any movies these days would be key as News Corp. likes to lay off risk, especially since Cameron films tend to go over budget. But given the success of “Avatar,” financing details could come together.

Full story to be found here: www.hollywoodreporter.com

]]> http://blog.evaria.com/2010/news-corp-in-early-talks-for-avatar-sequel/feed/ 1 Happy New Year! http://blog.evaria.com/2009/happy-new-year-3/ http://blog.evaria.com/2009/happy-new-year-3/#comments Thu, 31 Dec 2009 22:59:50 +0000 Thomas http://blog.evaria.com/?p=1186 Wishing you all the best for 2010 – with the famous song from ABBA to go along with it;

Happy New Year!!!

Share This

]]> http://blog.evaria.com/2009/happy-new-year-3/feed/ 0 Merry Christmas everyone! http://blog.evaria.com/2009/merry-christmas-everyone/ http://blog.evaria.com/2009/merry-christmas-everyone/#comments Thu, 24 Dec 2009 16:42:58 +0000 Thomas http://blog.evaria.com/?p=1182 Here’s a special tribute from my family and me wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

]]> http://blog.evaria.com/2009/merry-christmas-everyone/feed/ 0 Upgrading to WordPress 2.9 http://blog.evaria.com/2009/upgrading-to-wordpress-2-9/ http://blog.evaria.com/2009/upgrading-to-wordpress-2-9/#comments Sun, 20 Dec 2009 16:42:46 +0000 Thomas http://blog.evaria.com/?p=1180 I guess most of you’ve already noticed that a new version of WordPress is available. And like many times before I thought I’d give you a heads up on the upgrade just in case there’s something problematic ahead. Again, I can assure you that moving from WordPress 2.8.x caused no issues either through automatic or manual upgrade.

A big thank you goes out to the development team for yet again giving us something to “play with”. I especially liked the enhanced Ajax features – NICE But most importantly you can now edit your images online! This is the most sought-after feature in my book for sure.

There’s a lot more stuff as well which you can read all about here or just watch the video below:

]]> http://blog.evaria.com/2009/upgrading-to-wordpress-2-9/feed/ 1 10 days with an empty server http://blog.evaria.com/2009/10-days-with-an-empty-server/ http://blog.evaria.com/2009/10-days-with-an-empty-server/#comments Mon, 23 Nov 2009 08:57:45 +0000 Thomas http://blog.evaria.com/?p=1175 As I’m sure a lot of you have noticed my blog has been gone for the last 10 days. Reason being a complete new set-up on the server which is kindly hosted by my brother by the way. I wont go in to too much details but let us just say that a new structure with increased security was needed…

Therefore, should you be running your own Linux server with Apache please feel free to share your favuorite tricks that makes your server “bullet-proofed”.

Thanks in advance, and looking forward to hearing from you all

]]> http://blog.evaria.com/2009/10-days-with-an-empty-server/feed/ 0 The girl who silenced the world for 5 minutes http://blog.evaria.com/2009/the-girl-who-silenced-the-world-for-5-minutes/ http://blog.evaria.com/2009/the-girl-who-silenced-the-world-for-5-minutes/#comments Tue, 20 Oct 2009 10:02:25 +0000 Thomas http://blog.evaria.com/2009/the-girl-who-silenced-the-world-for-5-minutes/

]]> http://blog.evaria.com/2009/the-girl-who-silenced-the-world-for-5-minutes/feed/ 0 Apache halts and freezes http://blog.evaria.com/2009/apache-halts-and-freezes/ http://blog.evaria.com/2009/apache-halts-and-freezes/#comments Sat, 15 Aug 2009 09:32:41 +0000 Thomas http://blog.evaria.com/?p=1133 As some of you may have noticed my blog has been unavailable quite a lot lately. The reason seems to be that there’s a memory leak issue with Apache (on our Debian ran server). Concequently, the server stops responding after a certain time as too many processes and memory are in use. Several measures have already been taken but the scary part is that the logs doesn’t clearly specify which process(es) does the ugly bits.

It may be that 1GB memory on the server (+ 2GB switch) just isn’t enough any more. Anyway, it appears that more people have been experiencing issues with Apache and multiple processes that in the end brings the server down.

If you’ve had similar experiences on your server I would be very grateful for any tips or ideas to what to do. Please either leave a comment or send an email through our contact form if you so prefer.

Many thanks

Now, on to update to WordPress 2.8.4 – which needs to be done manually because of security settings on the aforementioned server…

]]> http://blog.evaria.com/2009/apache-halts-and-freezes/feed/ 0 Happy New Year http://blog.evaria.com/2008/happy-new-year-2/ http://blog.evaria.com/2008/happy-new-year-2/#comments Wed, 31 Dec 2008 16:05:32 +0000 Thomas http://blog.evaria.com/?p=1046 new-year-fireworks

new-year-fireworks

Happy New Year! For those brave enough to venture out into the streets, hope you found your way home safe and sound.

Thanks for all comments and interaction throughout 2008. Let’s go all the way live in 2009 in everything we do in every single moment of every single day!

Thanks again!

The Blogvaria Team

]]> http://blog.evaria.com/2008/happy-new-year-2/feed/ 0 Running on WordPress 2.7 http://blog.evaria.com/2008/running-on-wordpress-27/ http://blog.evaria.com/2008/running-on-wordpress-27/#comments Sat, 13 Dec 2008 10:21:49 +0000 Thomas http://blog.evaria.com/?p=1040 As most of you already know WordPress version 2.7, codenamed Coltrane, was released on Thursday. I installed it yesterday spending approximately 15 minutes doing my usual upgrade routine. In short that’s deactivating plugins, complete DB backup, delete old files, upload new files and reactivating the plugins.

Besides the giant improvement on the admin section I was also happy to see that all plugins were working fine. So for those of you that haven’t updated yet – do it!

The WordPress theme has also released a visual introduction to what 2.7 is:

As always I would really appreciate feedback should you notice anything out of the ordinary on this blog or in 2.7 in general. Thanks

Last, but certainly not least, this may be the last time you ever have to manually upgrade WordPress again. The WP theme have heard how tired you were of doing upgrades for yourself and your friends, so now WordPress includes a built-in upgrade that will automatically notify you of new releases, and when you’re ready it will download them, install them, and upgrade your blog with a single click. How great is that!!!

]]> http://blog.evaria.com/2008/running-on-wordpress-27/feed/ 0 Care to download Wikipedia? http://blog.evaria.com/2008/care-to-download-wikipedia/ http://blog.evaria.com/2008/care-to-download-wikipedia/#comments Wed, 24 Sep 2008 09:37:44 +0000 Thomas http://blog.evaria.com/?p=992 Sounds a bit strange I know, but if you really want to you can! Since the launch back in 2001 more than 10 million articles (in 253 languages) have been published. 25% of these are written in English.

The content is free and available to anyone under the GNU Free Documentation License. However, this doesn’t mean you can start running your own Wikipedia but you may download and use the information for your own personal/private use.

From time to time the complete database is dumped as static HTML files, the last available release was “dumped” in June earlier this year. You will need something like 7-zip to unpack the files which is available from this location. The English version, a massive 14GB download is found here (at the bottom).

You might ask yourself WHY on earth you would want to download it?! Well, to be honest I really don’t know. But in case you are going somewhere without an Internet connection or similar it could possibly prove useful…

]]> http://blog.evaria.com/2008/care-to-download-wikipedia/feed/ 0 Why the SPAM problem continues http://blog.evaria.com/2008/why-the-spam-problem-continues/ http://blog.evaria.com/2008/why-the-spam-problem-continues/#comments Wed, 20 Aug 2008 13:58:57 +0000 Max C http://blog.evaria.com/?p=945 What do sex, drugs and software have in common? They are the top three things purchased off spam email.

Have you ever thought about why you receive so much spam every day (for me it averages between 20 and 50 messages a day even after SpamAssassin has done its filtering)? Well, you can blame the 29 percent of Internet users that admit to purchasing items from spam email, according to a recent survey. Often these goods are pirated, counterfeit, or cheap knock-off’s that would be difficult to come by through the legitimate market.

More than 150 billion spam messages circulate daily, accounting for more than 85 percent of the total number of emails sent throughout the world. The sheer volume of spam consumes an enormous amount of bandwidth and remains one of the Internet’s biggest security problems.

And there’s little incentive to stop the spam. Recent FBI prosecutions of “bot-herders” suggest that the going rate is as little as $5 to $10 per million messages. Response rates are generally low – approximately 10 purchases are made for every million spam messages sent – but enough people purchase from spam to make it worthwhile for spammers to continue waging battle on your “Junk” folder in the hopes that one will slip through into your Inbox.

The top spam sellers include sexual enhancement pills, software, “adult material” and luxury items such as watches and jewellery.

The survey of Internet users was done by in June and July of 2008 by Marshal’s Threat Research and Content Engineering (TRACE) team. Marshal’s research indicates that just five botnets account for 80 percent of the world’s spam.

In 2004, only 20 percent of Internet users copped to purchasing items off spam email, according to a similar survey by Forrester Research. The increase in the last few years has led to a dramatic influx of spam email; reports indicate that global spam volumes doubled for the year ending June 2008 from the previous year’s levels.

The trend is not moving in the right direction as you’ve probably noticed. The question is how to fix it!? Maybe the ISP’s should be more active along with all hosting companies offering email services? What do you think could make this problem go away?

]]> http://blog.evaria.com/2008/why-the-spam-problem-continues/feed/ 0 Thoughts on Google Street View http://blog.evaria.com/2008/thoughts-on-google-street-view/ http://blog.evaria.com/2008/thoughts-on-google-street-view/#comments Wed, 13 Aug 2008 09:36:59 +0000 Thomas http://blog.evaria.com/?p=932 There’s been a lot of talk about Google Street View lately and Google has received complaints from several countries for various reasons (USA, Australia, France, Italy, Australia and Thailand). Last weekend the following image from Sherwood, Arkansas (US) was “captured” by the Google Street View team:

Even though it has received massive criticism the photo is still available.

In Thailand you can clearly identify persons “associating” with ladies of easy virtue (probably other places as well). Furthermore, photos of persons caught during personal crisis or under unfortunate circumstances seems to fire up under the debate whether this new map service is indeed an invasion of privacy.

Google on the other side claims that there isn’t such a thing as absolute privacy any more IF you are photographed and published while in public areas.

As far as I can understand this service is supposed to be a map service. Therefore I can’t understand why people and “events” should be displayed as they/it have/has nothing to do with the service itself. Concequently Google needs to “filter” this service before publishing in my opinion and only display what is really relevant.

Seeing your house on fire, or anyone doing something they’re not supposed to be doing for that matter doesn’t serve anyone any good. I understand the photo team has limited time in order to keep everything up to date, but then again they could replace some images with others (previously taken) if something out of the ordinary is taking place at the time of “capturing”.

What’s your take on this? And have you come across anything special on Google Street View’s lately?

]]> http://blog.evaria.com/2008/thoughts-on-google-street-view/feed/ 0 Don’t miss the opening ceremony http://blog.evaria.com/2008/dont-miss-the-opening-ceremony/ http://blog.evaria.com/2008/dont-miss-the-opening-ceremony/#comments Fri, 08 Aug 2008 11:08:16 +0000 Thomas http://blog.evaria.com/?p=924 In less than one hour the Olympics will be officially opened at the Olympic stadium in Bejing. The Chinese are going to fire 35000 (yes 35 thousand) rockets (firework, not missiles) into the air during the show. Below is an image of how it looked like during the “rehearsal”;

I do indeed hope everything goes well and best of luck to all you Norwegian athletes!

]]> http://blog.evaria.com/2008/dont-miss-the-opening-ceremony/feed/ 0 Can Apple access your iPhone? http://blog.evaria.com/2008/can-apple-access-your-iphone/ http://blog.evaria.com/2008/can-apple-access-your-iphone/#comments Fri, 08 Aug 2008 08:49:50 +0000 Thomas http://blog.evaria.com/?p=920 Rumours has it that Jonathan Zdziarski, a well-known iPhone developer, has discovered a page on the Apple site that could possibly be used to “kill” applications downloaded from App Store.

Deep down in the configuration files in the latest iPhoneOS (version 2.x.) there’s a link to this “suspicious” Apple page that could possibly be used to block unauthorized applications.

The list is currently more or less empty but in case of an emergency (trojan, virus) there’s reasons to believe that your iPhone (if you have one) will connect automatically and deactivate any application that is found listed on this page.

This might also prove to be a way for Apple to block or alter additional hacks and workarounds that you have installed (at least with later versions of the OS).

Zdziarski has just written a brief note on his personal website to “clarify” all these conspiracy theories, but who knows for sure?

Noticed anything funny with your iPhone lately…?

]]> http://blog.evaria.com/2008/can-apple-access-your-iphone/feed/ 0 Out of nowhere http://blog.evaria.com/2008/out-of-nowhere/ http://blog.evaria.com/2008/out-of-nowhere/#comments Mon, 28 Jul 2008 09:46:04 +0000 Thomas http://blog.evaria.com/?p=912 Hi all!

As you might have noticed already I’ve been completely absent for the last 11 days. Why you ask? Well, I’ve been on a well deserved holiday travelling and spending time with my family.

Our beloved server also took a tiny holiday yesterday as the temperature ran crazy in the server room. Luckily now hardware was injured…

I’m now back at the bloggers desk and preparing updates and fixes in the days to come. Please let me know if there’s anything you would like me to look at after the recent WordPress 2.6 update.

Finally, to all you loyal readers, thanks for sticking with me

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