There've been a lot of people that tried to integrate 4.2.0 into their LDAP infrastructure using one of the latest LdapContrib beta releases, and failed unfortunately. That's been a major headache for all of us and it turned out that 4.2.0 did a bad job refactoring its authentication and authorization code. While digging into the code we not only found it to be suboptimal in terms of performance and internal API, but also containing some sublte security bug when using non-alphabetic characters in a login name. That's been weeded out in 4.2.1 now. However, the latest LdapContrib betas will have to be rewritten once again to meet the changed internals of TWiki's user code. LdapContrib will continue to support TWiki-4.1.x, as well as TWiki-4.2.1 onwards, but not 4.2.0 as this simply was too buggy.

Anyway, a lot of people take a deep breath of relief that this patch release finally made its way out into the field and we are now able to concentrate on the next major release rolling your way with yet more exciting stuff under the hood.

Read on on what's new in this patch release, go get it here.

True, you could just meet in a nice pub nearby and talk everything through. But most of the time you are located in different areas, not having time to meet face 2 face. Other options are telephone conferences or web conferences. Still, wikis are simpler and more sustainable. Wikis are helpful for a wide range of applications for yourself only, a group of friends or for project management in a corporate environment.

Simply set up a page that says ``Guestbook'' and you get loads of it. They buzz around the net like blowflies sh**. Anyway, I opened up this blog for anonymous commenting again in the hope that the newly installed AntiWikiSpamPlugin will keep them away.

Could not resist in all that hype about Google acquiring JotSpot and made a quick shot in putting together a bit of css to style this site jotspottish but still use TWiki. So even when I can't afford JotSpot at least I can pretend I was using this great wiki that learned so much from TWiki itself.

Here is a demo page to show some of the elements being covered by the style til now. I am not trying to make it complete and cover every dialog but just as a demonstration ... and a reason for a story with a little different twist.

Congrats to Joe Kraus for making a living selling his company.

Update 2006-11-08

Ok we had our fun. Now I want my own theme back. Here's a screenshot of what the jotspot style looks like if enabled:

The permalink to this posting will be displayed using the jotspot style while the remaining site goes back to normal operation.

Lots of these things keep being repeated all the time like bad mantras. So maybe they are no myths, maybe you just made it up yourself being a victim of SelfFUDDing. Definitely, TWiki -- as every other software -- has its dirty corners. The important point to remember is that while you can overcome most of the technical issues you cannot gain back as easily the lost reputation once everybody internalized a certain amount of FUD. Get me right, I don't want to conceal deficiencies. But the TWikiCommunity has to stop shouting at each other and be more productive.

The fact is that the TWikiMyths are already out there. Let's take it with a bit of salt ... and leave the kitchen clean (mov).

Thanks goes to Vintage Paperbacks & Digests, all those marvelous artists and ``The Normals'' for their crazy song. Hope you don't mind I took some of those covers and mocked them up.