Just posted a series of php tutorials about how to draw text on photos with ImageMagick and PHP over at my new coding blog.

Here's an example of a photo created with the code...

The image was obtained from Wikimedia Commons. It's author is ltshears, and it is licensed under a Creative Commons 3.0 Share Alike license.

[I posted this to Facebook, but I felt it deserved posting to my blog too.]

Today is Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day. This attempt to exterminate an entire people didn't happen in an ancient biblical kingdom where a king went mad or was influenced by evil advisors. This happened in a modern European democracy in the middle of the 20th century.

We need to remember the Holocaust, because it is not an ancient parable, and not only Jews are at risk. "Cleansings" based on ethnicity or religion are still an ever-present threat to everyone, everywhere.

Somewhere in the world, someone who isn't like you doesn't like you and thinks the world would be a better place if people like you were forcibly changed or removed. Remembering the Holocaust means staying vigilant and making sure that those people do not rise to positions of enough power and influence to start another Holocaust against *anyone* ever again.

Looks like the Scottrade scammers from yesterday have started a new scam.

===================================
This message has been sent as an automated response.
Please do not reply to this email, as we are not able to respond to messages sent to this address.
===================================

Our security department records indicate missing and/or incorrect information stored for your account(s).

Please click the link below to proceed with verification process:

http://www.schwab-tax.com/

2012 Charles Schwab & Co, Inc. All rights reserved. Member SIPC (2044-04421)

They didn't make the spelling mistake in the sender address they made yesterday, but they are still impatient. The Schwab-tax.com domain was created at 4:39 a.m. THIS MORNING and registered with GoDaddy's privacy proxy to hide the identity of the actual owners. And they're using Dreamhost (super-low-price web host) to host the site.

Folks, this isn't Schwab. It's phishers trying to get your personal information and/or hit you with a drive-by malware exploit. Don't click the link. Ignore this e-mail.

ACTION REQUIRED: ScotTrade Notice (ID:17175056898)

is a scam.

The phishers were smart, because they got an official-looking domain of scottrade-inc.com, but they made a couple of mistakes.

1: The e-mail was from "scottrade.costumer.alerts@scottrade-inc.com". I'm sorry, but how theatrical is this company that they have costumer alerts?

2: Running whois (can be done from a terminal on a Mac or Linux system with "whois scottrade-inc.com" - if you have windows, use an online lookup like GoDaddy's) shows not only that they're hiding the true ownership of the domain behind GoDaddy's proxy service, but that the domain was registered just hours before the scam e-mail went out. The domain has a creation date of today.

Don't click the link, don't give them any info, mark the e-mail as spam.