It has come to my attention that the 1.1.4 package currently available at getvanilla.com is slightly broken. I am currently out of town with limited access, so I cannot fix it right now.

For information on how to fix it until I can re-release the package, check out:

Vanilla 1.1.4 Released # 27

Update: The new package has been uploaded and is now available at getvanilla.com.

Vanilla 1.1.4 fixes a serious SQL injection vulnerability.

Once again, I must mention that I did almost no work in this release - it was entirely (and quickly) handled by the folks at the bug tracker and here on the community forum. And again, I have to thank Damien Lebrun (aka Dinoboff) for taking the torch and keeping me informed about everything that has been going on.

For more information about the vulnerability:

The original report
Bug tracker issue

Upgrading instructions:

http://lussumo.com/upgrade

I've brought up this issue before, but the last time it was funny.

It is no longer funny to me just how many junk mails I get each day. It used to take me about three minutes to get rid of my junk mail before I could start reading my actual mails. Nowadays it takes me up to fifteen minutes to get rid of my junk mail.

I use Thunderbird, and it has a pretty good junk mail filter. But it takes a while for Thunderbird to download the mails and parse through them. So, I'll start the program, let it run, and go look on the forum for new applicants while it does it's thing. Eventually I return to find somewhere in the area of 150 new emails since I last checked (roughly 8 hours before). Usually about 10 to 20 of these are legitimate emails.

I spend the next few minutes scrolling through to make sure that none of my legitimate emails have been marked as junk - Every week or so I'll find one that was very important that was marked as junk, while somehow "Microsoft Off|ce Pro -New Vista/XP Edition- 79$, Save 999.95$ 0ff Retai|" manages to slip through and not get marked as junk.

Eventually I run Tools -> "Delete Mail Marked as Junk in Folder", and I'm ready to start reading mails.

This ritual has gotten so frustrating and time consuming. And the worst part of junk mail, in my opinion, is the fact that I get them constantly all day long and Thunderbird notifies me of it every time. Every time I see it pop up in the bottom-right of my screen with something like "We provide for you a real advantage to turn her on" (as it did when I wrote the last sentence), I'm left wondering: Why doesn't it check to see if it's junk before notifying me that I have new email? and then Why does it notify me at all? Can I turn that damn feature off?

I get roughly 500 junk mails every day (just got another one). That's 20 junkmails per hour, or one every three minutes.

How many do you get, and how do you handle them?

Have you ever emailed me? Did you get a response?

I recently got around to cleaning up my inbox and I have to apologize to so many of you for never responding to your emails. I thought I was pretty good at responding to everyone, but apparently that is untrue. During the cleanup process I came across more than 50 people who never got a response from me. Some of them from so long ago that I don't see the point in responding now.

These emails are everything from requests for support for Vanilla, to job offers from various companies around the world. To all of you who have ever emailed me and not received a response, I send my humblest apologies. I wasn't ignoring you, my email inbox is just an ever growing amoeba of text that is hard to fathom sometimes.

I am pleased to announce the release of Vanilla 1.1.3. This is a public release for anyone and everyone who uses Vanilla. A summary of security, bug, and feature changes/additions can be found on the change log.

Once again, I must mention that I did almost no work in this release - it was entirely handled by the folks at the bug tracker and the community forum. And again, I have to thank Damien Lebrun (aka Dinoboff) for taking the torch and keeping me informed about everything that has been going on.

I am pleased to announce the release of Vanilla 1.1.3.rc1. This is a release candidate for developers and early adopters. A summary of security, bug, and feature changes/additions can be found on the change log.

I must mention that I did almost no work in this release - it was entirely handled by the folks at the bug tracker and the community forum. In particular I have to thank Damien Lebrun (aka Dinoboff) for taking the torch and keeping me informed about everything that has been going on.

This is just a quick note to let you know that everyone has been working hard on fixing bugs and filling patches in the Vanilla 1.1.2 release over at the bug tracker, and there will be a new release of Vanilla this coming Monday (Sept 10, 2007).

If you want to get any new delegates or fixes in before then, please ask on the community forum.

I removed them on Monday morning to little fanfare. I'm sure this change will get less than half the response that adding them did. [EDIT: I stand corrected. Matt Mullenweg just made a very generous donation to the project. Thank you, Matt!]

By the way, I'd like to thank those of you who felt it necessary to send me hate-laced emails describing all of the ways I should enter hell.

I would genuinely like to thank those of you who sent kind words of support.

I've added a donation button to the Vanilla download page, as well as the side panel of the community forum.

Have a great day, and a link-free Vanilla.

Apparently I haven't made it clear enough how these new links in Vanilla work, and apparently I haven't been clear enough as to why I am doing this. So, let me be perfectly clear.

The Links in Vanilla are Optional
You have the ability to opt-out of them during the install process, or afterwards by using the "Application Settings" form. You do not need to use them, and they are now very easily removed.

I want to work on projects for Lussumo
I do. I want to work on Vanilla, and Swell, and Lemonade, and Cilantro, and every other wacky named project I (or we) have dreamed up over the last few years. But I can't do it as long as Lussumo doesn't make any money. I've tried various methods to make money in the past, and I'm trying another one now. If it doesn't work, then I'll stop doing this one and I'll move on to something else. If you don't want to help out in this regard, or take offense to the links, or you just don't want to use them: remove them.

Not entirely unrelated to what we do here at Lussumo, I just wanted to mention that this Friday (August 24, 2007) the second series of The IT Crowd airs on Channel 4 in the UK.

If you haven't seen series 1, it is out on DVD now. Sadly, those of us in North America will need region-free DVD players to be able to watch it.

I'm also a big fan of Graham Linehan, the guy behind the show (who was also behind the absurdly funny Father Ted) and I read his blog religiously.

You should check it out if you can.