Category Archives: geeky-stuff
UKChatterbox, a history
A number of people have discussed the beginnings of UKCB, most versions lack facts, so here’s mine, using various sources and my own knowledge.
Bobby Amlani (30), (nick alias: Blaster) founded UKChatterbox whilst studying at the Anglia Ruskin University, along with his brother Parul, aka Paz. This year marks it’s 10th anniversary, during which time, the service has seen a lot of changes, users, staff members and problems. What follows is an in-depth history of UKChatterbox (UKCB) from it’s beginning as a small IRC network, upto the present day, the largest moderated UK based chatrooms provider with ~2 million registered users.
Firstly, UKChatterbox didn’t first appear on the net as “UKChatterbox”, it’s beginning dates back to 2001. A website called gasbubbles.com created by Bobby, provided chat targeted at university students. Profiles had more details then the current UKCB, with users allowed to post contact details for IM (AOL, MSN).
UKCB’s predecessor; Gasbubbles
Gasbubbles was a laid-back service, few rules and regulations. In time the website-side of it would fade as UKChatterbox grew, although for a large time UKCB’s chat rooms were on the same server as GasBubbles, eventually these would merge.
Mid-2002 saw the first appearance of UKChatterbox, this was accompanied by UKStudentChat and UKTeenChatrooms, all with their own sites, although seemingly all sharing the same database, little-known fact, ukstudentchat.co.uk will, to this day take you to ukchatterbox.
UKChatterbox was aimed at both users in the UK, and users from outside, who just wanted to talk … Read the rest
Showing someone a direct Facebook pic, regardless of privacy, friends.
A quick how-to for Facebook this time, although the tool is already there, most people struggle when it comes to showing a picture from someone else’s photo album to someone who isn’t a friend of the user, or doesn’t even have Facebook, or the persons privacy settings limit who can view it.
- On the old Facebook image albums you could right click an image select “open..” this would open the image directly as it’s saved on Facebooks servers, allowing you to show anyone else. This isn’t possible with the new image viewers. From the album, click the image, opening it in Facebooks image “slider/viewer”.
- To the right of the comments, and underneath the image and album info is a “Download” link, right click it and select “Copy link Location/address” (exact wording will vary depending on browser).
- You should now be able to paste the link anywhere eg. https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/179836_10150392776725167_892115166_16729198_2760362_n.jpg?dl=1
This link will not just open in a browser like we want, it will ask if you want to download/save/open it. This is easily fixed by removing the ?dl=1 from the end. Giving us https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/179836_10150392776725167_892115166_16729198_2760362_n.jpg
For a more advanced how-to on downloading videos from Facebook using Firefox’s cache check out http://lethality.me.uk/2011/08/getting-that-facebook-video-advanced/… Read the rest
Small rant RE: MySQL(i) vs PDO
So this has got me ranting enough that I need to type, well done do-gooders! If you’re reading this you’ll probably already know what MySQL(i) is, it’s a database management system, most sites will use mysql, it’s “improved extension” mysqli, sqlite or mssql for Windows users 
PHP has long has a MySQL extension, this was fine for most. Then along came MySQLi, the i meaning “improved” this was faster, and allowed other stuff like prepared statements, multiple statements and better debugging. PHP have announced they’ll soon drop support for the old MySQL interface, forcing people to get with the programme, and use MySQLi or PDO, now what is PDO?
PDO (PHP Data Objects) is basically a database abstraction API that works with different types of remote databases, eg. you can create code, one line defines the database driver you’re using, be it mysql, sqlite, etc, you can then switch between drivers without editing your actual queries, that’s the main benefit, along with prepared statements and OOP.
So my rant is this, the difference going from mysql to mysqli is marginal, the step to PDO is a much larger one, don’t get bullied by people in the trade into using PDO just because it’s “hip”. I’m about to start building a new site, and renovate another, I will be using mysqli as I have no intention of ever switching databases so this suits me fine. If you’re building for other people and/or are in the trade, PDO would be useful to … Read the rest
UKCB’s arrogance, a post that shouldn’t be necessary.
As the title says, this is a post that shouldn’t be needed.
The subject: UKChatterbox’s outages, this isn’t just the outage within the last 2 weeks, this goes back to July 1st.
The post on the UKChatterbox “Service Status Page”:
There was a disruption to both the web and chat services from 18:00hrs Friday 1st July 2011 to 21:00hrs Sunday 3rd July 2011 due to a machine failure. This has now been resolved.
What happened was, (and this will no doubt be denied by them) was that the website was attacked using a popular form of exploit (SQL Injection aka sqli), this is when a user inserts extra characters and commands for example, when using a login form, to carry out tasks such as logging a user in as an admin, returning information that shouldn’t be available publicly. UKChatterbox has had problems with sql injections in the past, and apparently never bothered to fix them properly or learn anything, the website (whilst most users are blindly happy with it’s presentation) is full of old, out-dated code. Updating the code to use newer methods of accessing databases can stop this. Incidentally the recent bold red maintenance message on the homepage was fluentcode fixing these issues now they’ve been made fully aware of them.
Anyway, back to UKChatterbox’s delayed downtime notices. Their next step was a server migration:
July 6th 2011: A major migration of the UKChatterbox website has been performed in order to remedy earlier problems. Access to the website may
Online security
I see more and more people online handing out new addresses and profile names because their msn/facebook’s been hacked, or some other website or social network’s been “hacked” into. Why does it happen to these people? Are the people doing it really that malicious and greedy or is it more likely that the users own stupidity and lack of concern for security has left a seemingly irresistable open door?
The largest problem is identity theft and getting someones so-called “personal details”, it’s had plenty of coverage in the news, with people finding out their bank statements and other important documents had been pinched from their bins yet people happily put personal information on websites, allowing the public to view it.
The problem with this? I’ll give a real-life example: A user creates a Windows Live or Google account, they then select a password they think is secure, even though in reality it’s probably something quite simple, and here’s where they come unstuck, the security question they will use in the event they forget their password. Examples are “mothers maiden name”, “mothers birthplace”, “first school”, “the name of a pet”. At the time (bearing in mind this has already been done years ago before you made your facebook), it seemed like a good secure question and answer, but is it?
The answer is, most probably not. You’ve probably put half of those details on Facebook, Myspace or some other social network / blog service without even thinking about it, details to … Read the rest
Getting the old MSN messenger. [Basic]
This is a real basic how-to, but something I constantly find people asking about. Most people don’t like the new Microsoft Live messenger, and soon regret ever updating to it, hard to avoid in the first place as Microsoft flag it as recommended in Windows updates.
Not many people know, but Microsoft do keep the old messenger themselves, this is to account for people on Windows XP, which doesn’t support the new Live essentials stuff. Follow the steps below to uninstall live essentials and get the old messenger back, if you don’t have the new messenger skip to step 2.
- Removing the new Live Messenger and Essentials. This is the part most people have problems with. Click the Windows Orb (Start button) , then Control Panel. Under Programs click Uninstall a program. Go to the bottom and you’ll see “Windows Live Essentials 2011″, this contains Live messenger. Right click it then click Uninstall/Change. Select “Remove one or more Windows Live programs”, for the old messenger to install we need to lose all trace of Essentials, so select ALL of the boxes then click the Uninstall button. Afterwards you should restart your pc.
- Go to http://explore.live.com/windows-live-Messenger-XP. This is the old msn that everyone used to know and love, allowing you to block users, etc. I recommend getting it from here and not one of the 3rd party sites. Next to the download button, select your language, then click Download.
- Once it’s downloaded select messenger, you’ll probably want the