Anticipating new music for the rest of 2021.

September 2021 is a few days away and I am really excited in anticipation of “Senjutsu”, new album by the legendary band Iron Maiden. Scheduled to be released on September 3, 2021 worldwide. It is the follow up to Iron Maiden’s “The Book of Souls” from 2015. Two songs have been released as singles so far:

• The Writing on the Wall (July 15, 2021)
• Stratego (August 19, 2021)

As a longtime and diehard fan of Iron Maiden, I have of course preordered the album. Hopefully the retailers who shall remained unnamed would deliver the records on time as promised.

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Second album I also have preordered is “A View from the Top of the World” by Dream Theater, which is scheduled for release on October 22, 2021. The first single form the album “The Alien” has been making my playlist on my daily commute.

Having been a huge fan of Dream Theater since “Images and Words”, I preordered the A VIEW FROM THE TOP OF THE WORLD LTD. DELUXE 2CD + BLU-RAY ARTBOOK + DIGITAL DOWNLOAD. It comes with the album, instrumental mix, 5.1 surround sound mix of the album with visuals, and documentary about the making of the album.

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Third album I preordered is “Persona Non Grata” by Exodus, coming November 19, 2021. I have been revisiting Exodus music in the past few years. I was talking to a friend who worked with Gary Holt during his stint in Slayer, we talked about Gary’s guitar playing style and songwriting. That prompted me to revisit Exodus music catalog.

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There are a lot of music released in 2021 that I like so far. Maybe, someday I would “talk” about them.

macOS High Sierra “root” User is Enabled by Default with Blank Password

 

Apple will be issuing Software Update to disable “root” user which is inadvertently enabled by default with blank password in macOS High Sierra.

To disable “root” user, follow the instruction from Apple or the instruction below:

Disable the root user
Choose Apple menu () > System Preferences, then click Users & Groups (or Accounts).

Click the Lock, then enter an administrator name and password.
Click Login Options.
Click Join (or Edit).
Click Open Directory Utility.
Click the Lock in the Directory Utility window, then enter an administrator name and password.
From the menu bar in Directory Utility: Choose Edit > Disable Root

In previous incarnations of macOS/OS X/Mac OS X, “root” user is disabled by default.

Note:
Anyone with physical access to your Mac potentially can reset your password.

Re-Master of Puppets

Due on Friday, November 10, 2017

Master of Puppets is the third of Metallica Remastered series, following Kill ‘Em All and Ride The Lightning.

Currently Master of Puppets (Remastered Deluxe Boxset) is available at Amazon for $137.49. It is also available for purchase directly from Metallica for $174.99 plus shipping & handling.

You can also watch Master Of Puppets (Live At The Roskilde Festival) video from the boxset.

I pre-ordered the Deluxe Boxset the day it was announced. Master of Puppets is definitely one of the best records ever made.

Note: This is a mirroed post from our main site.

Disclaimer, again:
The Amazon.com link here is laced with an Amazon Associates tag, thus we get a small kickback every time you use it to purchase products from Amazon.com.

DreamHost is Under DDoS Attack, Again.

DreamHost confirms that they are under yet another Distributed Denial of Service attack again in the early A.M. of Saturday, August 26, 2017.

[Identified] Our engineers are continuing to mitigate the Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack that is targeting our network. At this time, partial service has been restored.

We first noticed the disruption in the service approximately at 01:30 A.M. and at that time DreamHost Status did not show any disruptions yet.

It is unknown at this point if this DDoS attack is related to the one on Thursday, August 24, 2017.

Dreamhost is under DDoS Attack

From @Dreamhost:

“Our engineers have identified the cause of the DNS degradation as a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. dreamhoststatus.com“

Dreamhost is currently in the news as the Department of Justice “demands that DreamHost hand over 1.3 million visitor IP addresses” for a site hosted by the company.

Wordfence chimed in:

The DDoS appears to be unrelated to the DoJ request above. It looks like it may be an Anonymous attack targeting the Dreamhost DNS to try to take a white supremacist website called ‘punishedstormer dot com’ offline. The website came online today and is hosted at Dreamhost.

We will closely follow this news.

Kitten Diary: Runts of the Litter

Out of six kittens we found, these two are the runts of the litter. They are visibly smaller than the other four. you can see the size difference in the video I posted a few days ago. We are going to wait another week before they are ready for adoption. We also will capture their feral mommy kitty and get her fixed.

I thought this photo is worth posting here after I posted it on our own site.

Another Pile of Kittens

It is another pile of kittens that we found on a neighbor’s backyard. They are so cute. Click on the picture above to play a short video.  We hope to find good homes for them really soon.