While I always see interesting things while I’m at Kaveh Kanes, today Barrett and Justin hacked together something where the public FreeBSD box can only be administered through the serial port, in their case using a old Radio Shack TRS-180, which Justin informed me was the “first laptop.” This is one of the coolest things I’ve seen, check out the pictures. I believe that Justin is going to put a HOW-TO online and I’ll link to it when it’s up.
Monthly Archives: October 2002
New Alarm
Those of you who have lived with me before know that sometimes I have trouble waking up. Anyway it what may be the biggest waste of sophisticated hardware ever, my fancy desktop machine has graduated from playing music to also being an alarm. This works on a number of levels, because I can wake up to the music I want to rather than whatever is on the radio. Also while my normal stereo can do an alarm, I was having to change it every night because my schedule is different on Tuesdays and Thursdays than the rest of the week, and I would often forget to set it to the earlier time. The stereo being by my bed was also a problem because sometimes I would just hit the power button without even opening an eye. I found a nice plugin for Winamp 2 that does just what I need, although it looks like it is going to bug me to pay for it in a bit. It has all the features I need, and doesn’t look to bad either.
Let It Be
This site looks different in different browsers; that should be a given. All I can do is offer the HTML up to the world and let people take it from there. Now I do some testing in different browsers mostly because I use a number of browsers normally, however on this site I write the code for the code itself, not with the presentation quirks of any particular browser in mind. That said, I think the overall design looks better in Mozilla than it does in Internet Explorer, which is funny because IE is what I used the entire time I was putting this site together, even though I coded some things into the CSS I knew IE didn’t support (yet). Speaking of which, is anyone else perturbed that with IE6’s service pack they didn’t fix any of the CSS bugs? I guess they’re doing all they can to keep up with security venerabilities. Back to the topic, if you haven’t tried this site out with Moz or one of its derivatives yet, give it a run, if just to see what things are intended to look like, and will look like whenever IE gets the act together. The reason this all comes up is I’m bopping so much to this Daoist groove that it is really painful to go back to commercial projects where I spend thrice as much time tweaking things in 5 different browsers on half as many platforms then I do on the actual design, which is not right. Now it’s a skill like any other, and I consider myself pretty good at it, but I hate it. It’s not what the web is about.
Gallery: 10-25-2002
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Pun-A-Day #16
An ancient Babylonian general was once involved in a plot to overthrow the king. His plot included a number of followers in the upper ranks of the army. However, his plot was uncovered, and the king threw him in jail. The king sentenced him to death without a trial. However, from the jail he was able to secretly contact his followers to arrange to escape, meet his followers, and attack the king’s palace at night. So the night before his scheduled execution, the general managed to escape from prison. He fled to a ziggurat several kilometers away, where his followers would meet him. However, the ziggurat was one of several in the area, and he wasn’t sure if his cohorts would find the right ziggurat. By this time it was twilight, so he lit a small fire and sent smoke signals to indicate in which structure he was hiding. However, the king’s loyal soldiers saw the smoke coming from the ziggurat, and came to arrest him before he could meet his followers. He was executed later that day. The moral of the story? Warning: The searching general has determined that smoking ziggurats can be extremely hazardous to your stealth.
Hey Ma
Hey Ma by Cam’ron featuring Juelz Santana is the song of the day:
Now I was downtown clubbin’, ladies night
Seen shorty she was crazy right
And I approached baby like
“Ma, what’s your age and type?”
She looked at me and said “You’s a baby right”
I told her,
I’m 18 and live a crazy life
Plus I’ll tell you what the ’80s like
And i know what the ladies like
Need a man that’s polite,
listens, and takes advice
I can be all three . . .
Buy the CD, PressPlay it, listen to the radio for five minutes (they’re playing it all the time), or whatever.
Extreme Performance
It looks like AMD is going on the road again. I missed them the last time they came through Houston but I’d like to check them out this time. Some of the events sound like fun too.
Gallery: 10-24-2002
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Google Compute
The toolbar on my desktop just asked me if I wanted to participate in the Google Compute program and donate my spare cycles, a topic which has been covered in depth. I haven’t decided whether I’m going to run it or not; right now my spare CPU time goes to finding aliens.
Pun-A-Day #15
There was once an island kingdom whose people were all fabulously wealthy. Even though they could have afforded to live anywhere they wanted, tradition dictated they stay on their tiny island home. Eventually, their king became frustrated and called a meeting of the tribe’s elders. He said he wanted them to figure out a way he could enjoy his wealth, and stay within traditional guidelines. After much consideration, the elders suggested he build a magnificent throne. When he objected there was not enough room in his hut for a throne, the elders suggested he call in an engineer to solve the problem. Soon, the king’s tiny hut was rigged with an elaborate system of ropes and pulleys. He could lower the huge throne for use during the day, and at night, he could haul the throne up, and lower his bed. This was truly the best of both worlds for the king. Unfortunately, after a few months of constant use the roopes frayed, and one night, the throne slipped and came crashing down on the king, killing him. The wise men of the island recognized a lesson in this experience and added to the lore of their people this statement: “People who live in grass houses should not stow thrones.”
More updates when things slow down . . .
Gallery: 10-23-2002
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I’m Wired
Have you ever looked at your server logs and gone “Whoa s—“? Neither have I, but there has been a considerable spike in traffic from this article on Wired.com. The article deals with Apple’s viral marketing where they include a number of stickers or decals with every new Mac sold. The article is worth reading but if you’d like you can skip straight to the picture. I’d like to offer an extended caption: I’m sad to say that it is not my car, currently my car has a jazz sticker, a Free the Mouse! sticker, and a Redhat hat sticker. The picture was actually taken at my constant hangout House of Pies on Shepard, where I was eating with Julie, Rachel, and Josh. (Pictures) The car with that sticker was parked right outside of our window and my mind immediately went to my friend Alex who is an Apple enthusist, and how much he’d like it. So I snapped a picture (actually two) through the window. Leander Kahney found the picture through a Google search I mentioned recently. And there you have it. I just noticed that a thumbnail of the picture is on the front page!
Hah!
What do you say when Republicans dominate tech-friendly votes, except that I’m glad that the party that makes the most economic sense is evolving to align with my views on technology as well. The article is by Declan, which means it is excellent. Now all we need is a tech-savvy president. Vote for Matt in 2020! (At which time I’ll be 36, the youngest I’ll be able to run.)
Gallery: 10-22-2002
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Pun-A-Day #14
These two potatoes get married, and have a new potato. The new potato grows up, goes to college comes home and announces “I’m getting married!”
Momma potato says, “that’s wonderful, honey! Who’s the lucky boy?” The new potato replies, “I’m marrying Dan Rather!”
The father almost blows a gasket. “By God, No! You are not marrying Dan Rather!!!”
The new potato bursts out crying, and says “Why not??”
Papa potato says…………. “because he’s a common ’tater”
Today’s groan courtesy of Kelly Dean.
Block Those Ads
I’ve seen some pretty good host files in the past, but this one looks like the most thorough. Not sure where the name comes from though. “. . . so quite simply this file tells your computer to try to access itself whenever a banner advert is requested from a server that is in its ‘black’ list, so instead of contacting the advert server your computer simply tries to request itself and as your machine doesn’t contain any adverts (if you are not running a web server on it) nothing will be shown.”
TopStyle 3 again
Well I’ve gotten a copy of the 3.1 beta I mentioned in the previous post and I’m going to be doing a review of it for the Web Tech SIG sometime within the next couple of months. My initial impressions of the program are very good. The user interface is really well done. I’m going to start putting it through the heavy paces later tonight. My approach to reviewing this product is going to be to just throw my self into it, so I’m associating it with all the files it can possibly edit, I’ve edited the registry to make it the default source view for Internet Explorer, and I’m going to be using it for all the coding I’m going to be doing. I’ve found in the past that this is the best way to really get to know a product and its quirks. Wish me luck :).
Topstyle 3
I’m still on my eternal search for the perfect editor I’ve come across Topstyle 3 again. Topstyle has always been my favorite CSS editor by far, but I’m not sure how it would work for other things. It is from the creator of Homesite, which has been my favorite editor thus far. What has really caught my eye is the 3.1 beta includes PHP syntax highlighting, which might be the killer feature for me. Like I’ve said before, I actually really like the PHP editing in Dreamweaver, but I hate the rest of the junk that comes with using that program. I might just end up using what I do on the server, GNU/Emacs in PHP mode. Or even better yet, Pico :). Does anyone have any favorite editors? I probably spend the most time with PHP code, but I like a robust HTML editor, and long walks on the beach. Will I ever be happy?
Gallery: 10-21-2002
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Share the Scripty Love
There’s a new feature on the scripts section of the site where if you’re using a particular script or code snippet you can post your site. It’s stark empty now, so please try it out! It’s called “Celebrity Endorsements” :).