WordPress.com adds script that makes blogs fail markup validation!

I hate it when this happens. WordPress.com has added some sort of stats script that has rendered the markup of my blog as invalid.

It seem like they do this stuff on Friday so they don’t have to listen to people bitch when they close support until Monday. It never ceases to amaze me. But alas, this is a free service (for some, not me because I have custom features that Blogger provides free of charge). Both wordpress.com and Blogger seem to output invalid markup when inserting photos into a post. You’d think that things would improve over time in that arena, but it seems to have gotten worse over time on both platforms.

Here is the string that seems to be causing the problem:
ex_go({’crypt’:'D6|,Y1mqNx-yA+1i3rQelciT]DG]j7VlB-/O%sa2%P&Wvchd4Y4%8~sP,ah.wA.LT&62urF+mUJpMsVIWKEhl86qt-GD8wdc5q%b3RfIC2y/?V+W[RsU|TYmw.pQjfjWEE+0IV/YBviB-2J/_x’});
What is this? WordPress.com, can you please remove it or use something else that does not cause my markup to fail validation please? It seems to be a stats script of some sort. IT SUCKS!

I will say that my main reason for staying on wordpress.com, rather than switching back to Blogger is that wordpress.com usually validates to XHTML 1.0 Transitional. But now it doesn’t anymore. Why sacrifice all of the other other features available on Blogger then? I’ve gone through this 1001 times and I’m torn between the two at this point. It seems as if I will never be satisfied here, because although many of the features are great, the ones I truly want are unavailable for “security reasons.”

What to do…I just want simplicty, and yet be able to use my blog as best as possible? I want validitiy if I am going to stay on wordpress.com, that is the bottom-line. I hope this gets resolved, then all is good. If not, I will be permanantly moving to Blogger.

I was happy for about one month, and now I’m angry again.

By the way, before anyone says a word about hosted WordPress, I will tell you off the bat, I’m not interested in paying any money for my blog in the future. Blogger is free in every way, and has improved dramatically, including adding hAtom support. Besides, Google rocks just as much as Microsoft now, so why not take advantage of everything at my fingertips?

More to come on my frustrations with this host, and the Open Source community in general…

New Site Design Based on Sandbox

I am currently workng on a new site design based on the Sandbox theme. Do you like it so far?

It’s hilarious because I have literally been meaning to do this for a year now. I finally have dedicated the time necessary to do it, and I am happy to say that I am very pleased with the results so far.

Sandbox is amazing for the fact that it is so customizable as a theme. Almost every tag has a .css element associated with it so there is just a ton of flexibility, as long as you can manipulate the css.

I was bad, and neglected my blog for a long time. Over the last year, I have a shameful amount of posts. The truth is that I was extremely busy. But I must find time for blogging!

Also, since I have this nice new design, I have a new found zest and motivation for blogging. In fact, off all my designs, I think this is the best one since I have been blogging on wordpress.com (2005).

I am motivated and look forward to taking my blog to the next level.

Constructive criticism is welcome. And yes, my xhtml and css validates! More to come…

Trojans Hosted on Blogger.com

So I was just surfing the Internet. I ended up at a blog with a blogspot.com domain, hosted at Blogger.com. After I was done reading what I was reading, I clicked the “next” link in the top bar that Blogger calls the “navbar”. This directed me to another blog hosted on Blogger.

I clicked through the “next” link quite a few times, mainly because I came across so many lame blogs; I just kept going. Eventually, I came to a blog that had the “navbar” with the “next” link removed. Before I had a chance to click the back button in my browser (which by the way was Firefox — yes, it was infected, Microsoft haters), I was given an alert!

I happen to be using the Microsoft Windows Live OneCare trial. It detected the trojan immediately, and deleted it. That actually took a minute or so –it seemed a bit slow, but it did its job.

I can’t believe I got a trojan just from blog surfing on blogs hosted by Blogger! What is going on? I could see if it was some little company with no credibility. We’re talking about Google here!

Is this a company that you trust with your information? How on Earth have they allowed this to happen?

WordPress.com may have some of its limitations, but I’ll take those over compromising security any day of the year.

Blogger may offer a lot as far as being able to insert scripts and other codes. It’s very cool, but because of that freedom, a few jerks will ruin it for everyone else. That really kind of sucks, because now I am apprehensive about visiting blogs hosted on Blogger. Also, there is a beautiful simplicity about a blog that is just a blog.

WordPress.com rocks! This incident will never again make me question which is “better” between WordPress.com and Blogger.com. It’s a no brainer. Seriously, if I can get infected with a trojan (it was deleted but still), just from looking at the site, and not even clicking anything, that is crazy. In this case, I wouldn’t even necessarily call it a phishing site, because nothing lured me there, except for the “next” button in the “navbar”.

This is not very impressive to someone like myself considering a move to Google Apps. Someone should be fired dammit!

New Year’s Resolutions

The year has gone by so fast! I can hardly keep up these days. I feel like I am starting to get old…

So what happened in 2007 to Brent Roos?

I landed a kick-butt job, and after several months of bumps in the road trying perform in a newly invented position at the company I work for, have mastered a pretty good system.

I gained a bunch of weight and now most of my clothes are a bit tight on me. I’m not a fat-ass by any means, but my workout routine pretty much diminished to dust over time.

I didn’t blog a whole hell of a lot after I landed the new job.

So what will I do in the next year to adjust my life and make the personal improvements that I feel that I need to make? I will just do the opposite!

Instead of eating like a glutton and not getting any exercise, I will eat the right foods, and exercise everyday. How can this be accomplished? One of my biggest problems is not having any kind of diet schedule or routine. I pretty much just eat whenever I am hungry (and sometimes when I’m not).

I need to routinely eat more fruit. They say “an apple a day, keeps the doctor away”. They also help you poop good.

I used to run religiously. I lived in the country then, away from a lot of traffic. Since then, I have moved to the city, and there is traffic everywhere. I’d like to get a mountain bike –one that I can afford. I’ve seen one that I like at a local bicycle shop for just a few hundred dollars. It’ll be a wise investment I’m sure. Not only that, but I do not want to waste my money, so I will use it. Although I never use my gym membership for which I pay very little.

I will also go to the gym.

I will blog every day.

I will buy a new car.

I will be getting back into study mode to pursue yet another degree (in computer science of course).

As you can see, I will be very busy in 2008 — just as much, if not more than in 2007. I am excited for 2008 because of the opportunities to improve my life, both professionally, as well as personally.

What resolutions do you have? Why don’t you share them in the comments section of this article?

What a Busy Year!

I regret that I have been so busy this year that I have neglected my blog. One of my personal resolutions for the next year is to try to make at least one entry per day in my blog, like I used to back in the day –before I became a workaholic. I will just have to make time to do it.

It’s amazing how quickly this year has passed. And there’s so much going on in the world today, so much here in America to talk about! We have an election coming up, which is shaping far differently than the conventional wisdom told us to think it would. What else is new? For one, my favorite football team is playing in the Rose Bowl this year.

I have some work to do with this blog. I plan to upgrade to Sandbox 1.0. I will be designing a new interface in the not too distant future.  I also need to reconfigure my categories and tags, since now all of a sudden we all decided to change the way we think of them.

More to come…