Administrative

Spring cleaning in February 1

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It’s time to give this site a new focus and look, now that I’m not spending as much time writing for income. See the homepage for a discussion of the changes.

I should replace the site’s default image, a medieval scribe, with something more exciting. That will come later.

Update: I now have a new image, of the author of Common Sense and The Age of Reason. I hope you like it.
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Note on mcgath.com

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Update: mcgath.com is now hosted by Dreamhost and is working.

I just learned that the SSL certificate on my companion website, mcgath.com, is broken. The problem is with HostGator, which messed it up just a few months ago and then allegedly fixed it. It’s time for me to migrate to a competent hosting company. Unfortunately, due to other stuff I’m dealing with, this will take a couple of weeks.

It should be reasonably safe to click through any warnings, since the site serves only static content and it’s unlikely to be worth anyone’s while to set up a man-in-the-middle attack. Use common sense if you see anything suspicious, naturally.

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Within the past month, my WordPress site has stopped sending me emails telling me there are pending comments, or at least I’ve stopped receiving them. This will mean longer delays before I notice a comment and approve it (or, in rare cases, reject it). HostGator keeps getting worse. Sorry.

ActivityPub access to this blog

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Theoretically, you can now follow this blog on ActivityPub compatible services such as Mastodon. The handle to follow is @gmcgath@garymcgath.com.

So far I can’t follow myself, but a propagation delay may be responsible. Let me know if you can or can’t use it.

Update:The WebFinger URL was returning a 404. I installed the WebFinger plugin. It’s still returning a 404. I’m going to deactivate them both and look into this later. Sorry.

The WordPress ActivityPub plugin

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The ActivityPub protocol, best known as a key element of Mastodon, is catching on for multiple uses. There’s an ActivityPub plugin for WordPress, which makes a site’s feed available through ActivityPub. When you add it to your site, people with Mastodon accounts can use them to read your blog. (Some Mastodon sites put limitations on reading long posts.)

The current version is in beta and has limitations. The WordPress site has to be in your root directory. Because of the way I set this site up a long time ago, that locks me out. But recently Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, has taken over development of the plugin. The result should be faster development and fewer limitations. Matthias Pfefferle, the plugin’s developer, will continue to work on it (and hopefully get better paid for it).
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Barnes & Noble data breach

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Barnes & Noble was hit with a cyberattack that may have exposed customer information, though they say payment data isn’t affected. Customers have reported being unable to access their Nook library. It looks as if either the breach made systems malfunction, or B&N has taken some servers offline while going after malware.

I mention this since some of you may have purchased The Magic Battery or Files that Last from Barnes & Noble. Hopefully all will be well soon.