10 things to learn on April 27th

10 things to learn from the almighty WWW today:

Drugs in Portugal: Did Decriminalization Work? – TIME


At the time, critics in the poor, socially conservative and largely Catholic nation said decriminalizing drug possession would open the country to "drug tourists" and exacerbate Portugal's drug problem; the country had some of the highest levels of hard-drug use in Europe. But the recently released results of a report commissioned by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, suggest otherwise.

The paper, published by Cato in April, found that in the five years after personal possession was decriminalized, illegal drug use among teens in Portugal declined and rates of new HIV infections caused by sharing of dirty needles dropped, while the number of people seeking treatment for drug addiction more than doubled.

Lifehacker – Essential Tools for Starting Up Your Side Business – Entrepreneurial


Finally getting serious about turning your hobby into a side business? Dozens of free and cheap do-it-yourself tools make setting up a professional virtual storefront easy.

Photo by intenteffect.

Now that you've paid your income taxes, you want to turn your nights and weekends into an extra income stream (and business expenditures into tax deductions). With the recession in full swing and pink slips getting handed out at the job, now's a great time to take the leap and set up shop on your own. Whether you're selling t-shirts, building the next great webapp, or contracting your brilliance out to clients, several handy tools can offer small biz services you need for free or cheap. Let's take a look.

Top 100 Free eBooks for Business Students and Entrepreneurs | Best Online Colleges


Whether you’re enrolled in a business school degree program or desperate for a review of b-school basics as you start your own company, it’s hard to pass up free study materials. These 100 ebooks on marketing, management, ecommerce, and finance are all free and worth checking out.

18 Wordpress Security Plugins & Tips To Secure Your Blog | MakeUseOf.com


Without a doubt, for a self-hosted blog, WordPress is the best blog CMS that you can get. However, being a popular and open source software, it also means that hackers have full access to the code which they can scrutinize to find any exploits they can use to hack into any WordPress-enabled site.

On the good side, one of the best things about WordPress is its plugin system that allows anyone to install any plugins or create your own plugins to extend its functionality, including improving security.

Here, I have listed some wordpress security plugins (and a couple of tricks) that you can use to secure WordPress blog.

All the plugins and tricks listed below are meant for WP 2.7 and above. If you are still using an older version of WordPress, it’s time to upgrade your blog.

Lifehacker – Five Best Malware Removal Tools – Malware Removal


The internet—unfortunately—isn't a never-ending buffet of secure open-source software and Bollywood-style musicals starring LOLCats. There are people and organizations that delight in stealing your personal data, hijacking your computer, and making a general nuisance of themselves through malicious software. This week we're highlighting the top five tools for removing software with ill-intentions from you PC.

The Comprehensive Guide for a Powerful CMS using WordPress | Noupe


Today we are introducing “The Comprehensive Guide for a Powerful CMS using WordPress”, a three-part series, an attempt to show off a number of WordPress features, tips, tutorials, hacks, plugins and best practices from the World’s Leading WordPress web-developers to be published in the coming weeks, with the first article coming this week.

SpaceSniffer: explore a “treemap” representation of your file and folder sizes | freewaregenius.com


SpaceSniffer is a free program that displays the size of your files and folders in a visual “Treemap” representation. It allows you to browse your folder structure, drill in and out of represented elements, and filter the display by any combination of criteria (filenames, extensions, size, date). It also allows you to access your Windows context menu for on-the-spot file/folder manipulation.

10 easy steps to writing the scariest cyberwarfare article ever | Net Effect


With daily reports of severe breaches in national cybersecurity and devastating cyber-attacks on government infrastructure, many journalists are in dire need of a manual to enlighten their writing on the subject. Here are my ten(rather cynical) tips to make your cyberwarfare story succeed.

Dead-Frog – A Comedy Blog


Dead-Frog is my small attempt to raise the bar in how people talk about comedy. Comedy is very binary by nature: funny or not funny. But there are shadings and, with some insight, an appreciation can be found for something that didn't make you laugh before. Or even better, the next time you see a show or performer you didn't get, you'll laugh yourself silly. Some highlights include…

Securing a Web server


Web servers are one of the many public faces of an organization and therefore are potentially an easy target. As a public resource, a Web server is like "shark bait" for some. But it doesn't have to be: Learn how a Web server can be public and safe at the same time.

Web servers are one of the many public faces of an organization—and one of the most easily targeted. Web servers represent an interesting paradox—namely, how do you share information about your organization without giving away the so-called store? Solving this dilemma can be a tough and thankless job; but it's also one of the most important.

Before I get too far, though, let's take a look at some of the threats that your server faces by virtue of being one of the "troops" on the front line.

Threats against Web servers

Now, there's a tremendous number of threats facing a Web server, and many depend on the applications, operating system, and environment you have configured on the system itself.