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WordPress Three Dot One

WordPress 3.1 was released on February 22 and is codenamed “Reinhardt” in honor of the jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt. WordPress 3.1 is a major release and it includes a lot of enhancements for normal users and developers.

The release is sure to contain some security fixes too so and I immediately backed up my WordPress blog and updated via WordPress admin console just like what I did in 3.0. WordPress 3.1 aims to make WP installation an ultimate CMS mean machine. Quoting WordPress blog

This release features a lightning fast redesigned linking workflow which makes it easy to link to your existing posts and pages, an admin bar so you’re never more than a click away from your most-used dashboard pages, a streamlined writing interface that hides many of the seldom-used panels by default to create a simpler and less intimidating writing experience for new bloggers (visit Screen Options in the top right to get old panels back), and a refreshed blue admin scheme available for selection under your personal options.

There’s a bucket of candy for developers as well, including our new Post Formats support which makes it easy for themes to create portable tumblelogs with different styling for different types of posts, new CMS capabilities like archive pages for custom content types, a new Network Admin, an overhaul of the import and export system, and the ability to perform advanced taxonomy and custom fields queries.

I like the new admin bar dashboard, I find it really useful.

To my fellow WordPress bloggers out there: Have you updated to WordPress 3.1 already?

Feel free to leave some comments below.

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Free Six: San Francisco Food

The RSA Conference 2011 is over but I have not blogged about all about my San Francisco adventures. I do not know where to start, but I guess it will be good to begin with great food.

So in the tradition of my free six video, my six cafe world cheats, my six free wow cheats, my six foursquare mayor cheats and my six new Philippine money wishes, here are some six photos of San Francisco food that I really enjoyed during my short stay in SF.

First on the list is of course Panda Express’ Orange Chicken, Mandarin Chicken with Fried Rice. Yum!

Next is Panda(ren) Express’s Honey Walnut Shrimp, Mushroom Chicken with Chow Mien and Fried Rice. And it’s funny that I blogged about panda express in 2010 too.

Next, my teammates and I enjoyed Hana Zen’s Assorted Maki plates.

These assorted maki have a good combination of spice and taste. I consider Hana Zen a good find in San Francisco.

We also had sushi and sashimi, but I don’t fancy raw fish 🙁 so I just enjoyed the hot sake 🙂 and the friendly chat with my teammates.

Last but definitely not the least, is the mouth watering Boudin’s Clam Chowder in sourdough bread bowl. And just like last 2 years,any San Francisco trip will not be complete without the chowder.

Hope you liked my six San Francisco food post.

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RSA 2011 Day 01

What is RSA Conference? The RSA Conference is one of the biggest information security conference held annually in San Francisco (and other parts of the world too).

RSA 2011 kicked off today February 14 and will continue up to Friday February 18 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California, USA.
RSA 2011 is dubbed as The Adventures of Alice and Bob. This year, RSA conference is celebrating its 20th year, and this is the reason why I missed the TrendLabs event last weekend.

Just like my RSA 2009 and RSA 2010 posts, I will share some highlights, insights and other RSA stuff here in my blog.

And in tradition of my free six video, my six free wow cheats, my six foursquare mayor tips, here are some six random pics for the RSA 2011 Conference Day 01:


RSA 2011 Banners are all over the place


Even on the floor 🙂


Monday is a windy and rainy Valentine’s Day at the Moscone Center


RSA 2011 listed the twenty years of Information Security milestones from 1992 up to 2011.


Wondering who’s Alice and Bob? Alice and Bob are of course the main figures in many cryptography lessons. Remember the classic lines:

Alice sends a message to Bob encrypted with his public key

Yup. That’s them 🙂

and last but not the least is my favorite cute pic of Mallory running with the Alice’s E.

I guess I will be multi-tasking this week with the conference activities and other official business tasks. But I will do my best and blog about it so watch out for more RSA 2011 posts here in my blog soon.

To know more about the RSA Conference, kindly visit the RSA 2011 website, and check them out on twitter (hashtag #RSAC) and Facebook too.

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Vote for TrendLabs Malware Blog in SC Magazine’s Best Corporate Security Blog

I just recently learned that our TrendLabs Malware Blog was nominated in SC Magazine’s Annual Social Media Awards.

I love the TrendLabs Malware Blog and I post some articles there every now and then. This post is a shout out to my friends and readers to help me and the TrendLabs Team make our Malware Blog the top blog.

Kindly vote for TrendLabs Malware Blog for SC Magazine’s Annual Social Media Awards in Best Corporate Security Blog category.

Here’s how:
1. Kindly go to SC Magazine US Site
2. Look for the Second Annual SC Social Media Awards Voting Poll
3. Choose TrendLabs Malware Blog (Trend Micro) from the list in “best corporate security blog”

4. Click Vote

Feel free to vote for your other favorite security bloggers and security tweeps in the next 2 polls.

Voting will end on Friday Feb 11th 8PM (EST) that’s Saturday, Feb 12th 9AM (GMT+8).

Thank you in advance!!!

Good luck to TrendLabs Malware Blog!!!

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Free WoW Cheats: Kinect + WoW is a Good Fitness Alternative

I remember that Kinect hacks were so hot last year. An open project company even offered hack bounty to lure developers to submit their open source drivers for MS Xbox 360 Kinect motion controller. I even heard that Microsoft was seriously considering suing those who would dare tamper their Xbox 360, as they want to protect Kinect motion controller since its their proprietary hardware.

Honestly, I lost track of the Kinect hack issue until I found the video below showing WoW: World of Warcraft being played using Xbox 360 Kinect, OpenNI and FAAST middleware.

As per video uploader description, FAAST or Flexible Action and Articulated Skeleton Toolkit is a middleware that facilitates integration of full-body control with games and other virtual reality applications. The middleware currently supports Microsoft Kinect using the OpenNI framework.

Video courtesy of Youtube and Evansuma

I find this video cool so I am sharing it here at menardconnect.com.

I am now convinced that World of Warcraft + Kinect will be good fitness activity alternative in the near future 🙂

For more free wow cheats, free wow mount and free wow pets advise, kindly visit my WoW posts.



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Trend Micro Titanium, Sodexho Pass and Special Gift Packs Awaits


Do you want some free Trend Micro Titanium Maximum Security antivirus software?

How about if we add some Sodexho Pass worth P500?

Ok let’s increase the wager and add some Trend Micro Gift Pack (includes Trend Micro Shirt, Trend Micro 2011 Calendar and other TM freebies)?

If your answer is a big YES to all, then you are lucky. Read the details below:

Trend Micro will be having Power User Group event this coming weekend (February 12 and 13, 2011). My teammates are looking for laptop users who are willing to be part of Trend Micro’s standard product development process. In this event, my teammates will ask you to install Trend Micro Titanium 3.1 antivirus software in your laptop (minimum requirement is Windows 7 OS installed) and answer a set of questionnaire. My teammates will also be present at the event venue to support and assist you if you will have problems related to the product (installation n stuff).(note: I’d love to join you guys n gals in this event, but i’m not free that day. I’ll post my reason here soon I’m out for the RSA 2011 conference)

Below are the event details of the Trend Micro Titanium Intensive Beta Testing

WHERE:
TrendLabs Philippines
9th Floor | Tower 2, The Rockwell Business Center Ortigas Avenue, Pasig City (Beside The Medical City).

WHEN:
Session 1
February 12, 2011
Saturday, 1:00 P.M. to 5:00 P.M.

Session 2
February 13, 2011
Sunday, 1:00 P.M. to 5:00 P.M.

Note: Snacks will be served during the event

To qualify for the program, users must bring in their personal laptops running Windows 7 and IE 9.0 on the event day and install Trend Micro Titanium Maximum Security 3.1.
If you meet the minimum requirements, just follow the steps below to join.

  1. Subscribe to my RSS Feed OR my email Feed
  2. Fill Up the Zoomerang Survey or click the click here image below
  3. Kindly put my name, Menard Osena or Menardconnect.com to the field = “Who referred you to this testing”
  4. After signing up, you will receive a confirmation email from the Trend Micro Beta Team if you are qualified to participate.

Reminders: The slots are limited, so hurry, grab this opportunity and join now!

Registration closes on February 10, 2011, 12 noon.

Feel free to forward this blog post to your friends, family members or relatives to share this opportunity with them. If you have Facebook/Twitter/Plurk/etc, feel free to share/tweet/plurk this blog post too so that others can know about it.


Lastly, some disclaimer:
I’m an employee of Trend Micro. This blog post is _NOT_ a paid post by Trend Micro. The information contained in this blog post is taken from Trend Micro Beta Team (with permission to repost in my blog). To know more on what I do full-time kindly visit my about page. To read this blog’s disclosure policy in detail, kindly visit my disclosure page.

Image Credits: Trend Micro Beta Team

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Blog Comment Spam Part 02

I have observed that popular posts here in menardconnect.com are getting attractive… to comment spammers. I mentioned in my old spam comment post that I’d update my readers when I see some new and interesting comment spam so here we go:

The screen capture below from my admin console. As Akismet and reCaptcha caught it I’m kinda cool about it.

Looking at the URLs, the comment spam seems to be optimizing adult related keywords and redirects to several <dot>info domains.

What’s interesting is that these <dot>info domains? They are using one nameserver (nameserver is <xxx-digit-number><dot>info) and the nameserver is acting weird (and suspicious too).

So bye bye comment spams 🙂 You won’t make it because of my strict comment policy in place 🙂

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Free WoW Cheats: Gamon needs 300 Orcs to Take Him Down

I found this epic video last month, and I almost forgot to put the legendary story of Gamon here in my blog.

But who is Gamon? Gamon was a low level Tauren Non-Player Character (NPC) based in Ogrimmar, the Horde Capital. He is a favorite punching bag of both low level and high-level players for a long long time. Players even compete on how far can they kite him (I heard reports that Gamon kiting even reached Silithius in 2006).

But after WoW Cataclysm, things have changed… a lot.

Gamon is now a mean fighting machine with around 2M health and can critically hit players up to 100K.

How mighty and strong Gamon have become… It now requires  some 300 Orcs to take him down 🙂

Below is his WoW Gamon epic video:

Video courtesy of Youtube and GameBreakerTV

For more free wow cheats or free wow mount advise, kindly visit my WoW posts here 🙂

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Happy New Year of the Rabbit

Kung Hei Fat Choi!!!

Image Credit: www.chinesenewyear.me

I wish you all good luck, good health and good fortune this year of the Metal Rabbit!!!

Happy Chinese New Year y’all!