I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ve experienced many instances where the Auto-update feature in WordPress fails to update either a plugin or WordPress itself.

The solution to this problem is remarkably simple, and hopefully will be fixed soon by the WP core developers in an upcoming release. The problem seems to be caused by a messy previous upgrade in which files are left in a temporary “upgrade” directory with the wp-content directory.

In order to solve the problem, you simply need to delete the “upgrade” directory in it’s entirety and then try the upgrade again. I’ve yet to find an instance on several blogs across multiple machines where this didn’t solve the problem.

Windows security is sad. Although most of you have probably already read my article about using strong passwords, even the strongest passwords won’t keep your Windows login account from being penetrated. In fact, it takes only a couple of minutes to gain complete access to a Windows system using nothing more than a free CD ROM.

Now, if there is any good news – people are constantly locking themselves out of their personal laptops and home computers by forgetting the password. And recently I’ve had two different friends do this within a period of a couple of days. So you guys know how this works… when I start getting requests, I document the solution.
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OK folks, before I head off to Alaska… As a result of multiple requests I’ve put together the following 15 minute video tutorial that demonstrates how I use RoboForm to securely and easily manage my passwords. This is my first video tutorial ever, so please be gentle… (Ted, PlasmaCAM videos will follow once I get these technical details worked out! :-))

But before we go any further I want to share some full disclosure. I am personally a customer of Roboform. I purchased the full version as well as the add ons for Palm Pilot and Pocket PC. As of a couple of days ago, they are now paying me a small commission when people buy the software (yeah!), and 100% will go to charity. (See my Sponsors page.)

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This is a fascinating 6 minute video, created by a reporter living in Colombia named Matthew Bristow, documenting the process that cocaine goes through from the point at which it is a plant growing in the ground until it is refined enough to actually use as a drug.

They stop just short of the point that it gets sold to a drug trafficker or guerrilla – who further refine the drug.
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