Red Green Software

How hard is it to output some simple XML? Apparently, quite difficult, and impossible for some.

I love RSS, it allows me to keep track of new things happening in the world, like the latest scam:

Using TDOS (Telephone Denial Of Service) to attack victims while they abuse their on-line accounts.  Wow, that's creative, but sick.

But, more and more, I am finding websites with broken RSS feeds:

http://www.thebackgroundinvestigator.com/ with broken RSS feed.

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/ with broken RSS feed.

Really! Don't write XML using print statements.  Use an already written and well tested XML Library.

Yes, you can laugh at the rest of the world that uses XML Libraries and our valid RSS feeds, while you pat yourself on the back over the few lines of code you barfed into your editor to do the same thing.  Except it doesn't do the same thing, it doesn't handle the odd quirks of XML.  You miss escaping special characters, just like in HTML.  You even mess up when you try doing defaults like wrapping all your text in CDATA.  Please, re-use existing code libraries that work!

Instead you end up doing the worse thing in the world:  Alienating people that are interested in your feed.

And what am I going to do?  I'm going to write a RSS feed filter, that cleans up broken XML so I can still keep an eye on what's going on in the world.  That, and it'll give me a chance to prove that perl really does stand for "Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister".

Validating is Hard

And expensive.  Ok, there are many RSS validators on the web, for free, just google!

http://validator.w3.org/feed/

And, because YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO.  Yes, validate my feed!

I finally got tired of getting Montastic alerts for red-green on a weekly basis.  So let's see how 1and1.com does.

Google has Public DNS available.  http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/index.html 

Yawn.  In other news, scientists around the world predict that the sun will come up tomorrow.

Usually Google does great things, but this time I'd say their efforts were next to useless.  Or, maybe Google doesn't google, and they aren't aware of what is already available on the Internet as far as DNS service providers go?

I highly recommend OpenDNS for all of your DNS needs.  They do filtering of bad sites (NSFW), anti Phishing and Malware site protection, as well as blocking of time wasters.  And much more, I can't do their service justice here!  Here's the overview of OpenDNS services.

Compared to the Google DNS, I would pay for using OpenDNS.  Google DNS –  I'm still not sure I understand why you would bother to use their service.  If you want secure DNS then run your own DNS server.  It's not that hard to setup, really!  Why would someone that attacks DNS go after individually run, low volume DNS servers?  They would attack something bigger, and something worth their while.

Ok, now I will admit, Google Public DNS is hundreds of times better then the DNS services provided by some ISPs, namely Verizon.  Verizon likes to 'help you', and instead of returning NXDOMAIN like DNS is supposed to for missing domains, it directs you their catchall website.  Google Public DNS currently reports NXDOMAIN, so you won't get useless screens of advertisements for what they think you wanted.  So Goggle did get at least part of DNS service right.  But how long before Google wants to also 'help you' by directing you to their own search page?

Yet another painless WordPress upgrade.  

The Internet Storm Center monitors the state of the Internet, and reports when there are problems due to worms or DOS (Denial Of Service) attacks. 

http://isc.sans.org/infocon.php