Category: Geekdom

I’m Still Blogging, Just Not Here

I had a conversation a while back with somebody who was convinced (because of my lack of activity for exactly two years on here) that I wasn’t writing or blogging any more. I am, I’m just doing it at the day job more, specifically, on Weston’s blog where I’ve written the content on there for quite a while now (even some of the stuff under somebody else’s name, but don’t tell anybody).

While much of the content there is targeted towards our managed clients or prospective managed-service clients (business in Central Oregon with 10 or more employees running Microsoft-powered desktops and servers), there is some content there that my past regular UtterlyBoring.com readers might find interesting — like my monthly tech headlines posts. So if you’re looking for me, you’ll find me over here.

August 28, 2015

Every-three-month(ish) Link Dump

OK, so I know I’m totally neglecting things here. My new job at a local outsourced IT company is going well, but keeping me busy. And yes, I did just try to give them some SEO linkage there because they need it. But after dealing with computers and people’s issues with their computers all day long, sometimes I just don’t feel like turning mine on in the evening. But otherwise, it’s going well, the people are cool, and I have health insurance for the first time in 11 years (which would have came in handy nine years ago).

That being said, I’m still collecting a link pile, and have some to share, so enjoy!

November 29, 2012

Mass Link Dump

Something old, something new, all in one big pile. Enjoy!

September 11, 2012

Stupidly Massive Link Dump

So obviously my life is far too chaotic at the moment to post here much, but that doesn’t mean I’m not collecting links to share. To keep everybody occupied for a bit, enjoy;

July 12, 2012

Reading Material and Updates

Been slammed the last couple weeks working on personal projects, moving clients around from server to server (had one die last weekend), and doing the whole “attend every one of your kids function that you can” dad thing, and I’ve collected quite a few links here. On the bright side, I’m typing this all up on my new Sager 8150, still trying to get everything copied and setup from my other system, but boy is this thing fast.

Selection Sunday is today. Have you signed up for the NCAA Pick ’em? Why not?

OK, loads of links this time…

TSA Nude Body Scanners Made Worthless by Blog — How Anyone Can Get Anything Past The Scanners.
normalize.css is a good alternative to a traditional CSS reset file.
Splash Screens == sloth.
Spider silk spun into violin strings. I’m sure those are nice and strong, as well as nice and expensive.
A Texas Hold ’em Experiment: Ice Cold Decks.
California removes all state funding for CA libraries (read the comment that’s highlighted, as that’s really what’s worth the read).
Call of Apathy: Violent Young Men and Our Place in War.
The Camera Obscura project mapped the journey of a disposable camera that was left in the middle of a park with a note to take a picture, relocate, and leave it for the next person. The picture map is pretty fun.
If you need to test in old versions of MSIE, Microsoft has virtual images that should make it easier.
If you’re looking to pretty-up your Facebook timeline, there are some great ideas here.
Screw emoticons, Emojicons are so much better.
Ideal City Design: Optimized by Transportation Layout.
Social buttons done in CSS.
This is why you should Google something.
Awesome! YouTube and NBC Will Livestream the Entire Summer 2012 Olympics For Free.
PHP vs Perl vs Python vs Ruby reference sheet.
The world is ending, here’s what you need to pack.
Hacking Hacker News.
Frightening mashup of Toy Story and the Shining: Toy Shining.
Making a fast website. Google takes this stuff into consideration now, so it’s important.
NPR’s goal is the truth in reporting, not the “he said, she said” crap.
phpVirtualBox is a VirtualBox interface written in PHP.
Postcards Then and Now has a bunch of old postcards from the early 20th century compared to Google Street View today.
Redesigning the Windows logo.
The US is spending $120 billion per year to hunt down 50-75 terrorists.
For the Zelda fans: Saving Zelda.
Square is just a slick product, especially now that it has cash register functionality.
Stop paying the jQuery tax.
Best tips for speeding up your Windows PC.
Star Wars saga suggested viewing order (note: Episode 1 isn’t even included, which I agree with).
Apparently we don’t even need SOPA if the government can pull crap like this.
WTF QR Codes.
HP releases iLO app for Android and iPhone (that’s for the server geeks like me who have iLO on a couple servers).
Ikea launches $86,000 flat-pack DIY home.
Is antivirus software a waste of money?
How OpenStreetMap handled Apple’s unattributed switch.

March 11, 2012

Reading Material

Few oldies but goodies here (new for me, at least…)

The Transparency Grenade makes the process of leaking information from closed meetings as easy as pulling a pin.
Teller gives “his bastard son” a few tips on saving his career.
How Web browsers work behind the scenes.
escapes.js allows you to relive your BBS days. Its a small JavaScript library for rendering ANSI art.
Boss breaks cover during “Undercover Boss” episode, shuts down restaurant.
Great montage of Flash preloader graphics.
Everyone’s trying to track what you do on the web. Here’s how to stop them.
A hack you can perform (at your own risk) on Western Digital Green Drives to make them a bit less green but more server friendly.
Kickstumbler allows you discover Kickstarter projects you’d never see.
Will Slovaks walk all over Chuck Norris to Austria?
Entypo is a set of 100+ carefully crafted pictograms available as an OpenType font, vector EPS and web font. All released for free.
Tumblr Architecture: 15 Billion Page Views a Month and Harder to Scale than Twitter.
If I didn’t like the bullet-proof nature of MovableType’s static-page-building model, some of the plugins for WordPress are pretty dang cool. Latest example is WP Remote which is free and provides easy ways to monitor and backup your WordPress site.
Download 128 pre-made Windows 7 shortcuts (finally getting a full-time Windows 7 PC for my self here soon — more details soon).
Clever ways to secure your home from intruders.
Five great tricks to get the most out of Wireshark.
Nearly a year later, and the before and after pictures of the Japan Earthquake are amazing.
Think you’re a good hacker? Play a bit of capture the flag.

February 23, 2012

Apple Confirms Data Center Plans for Prineville

I’ve been playing catch-up after a weekend of concerts combined with a couple days of flu-like crapiness, but this couldn’t wait: Apple’s moving in next to Facebook, plans on building a data center in Prineville.

February 21, 2012

Reading Material

Ladies: Having a hard time figuring out your clothing size? This little web app will help.
Fun with math: Dividing one by 998001 yields surprising result.
Fun Android toy: Wreak havoc on (and RickRoll) unsuspecting Wi-Fi users with the click of a button using Network Spoofer. Might as well just install Linux on your phone while you’re at it.
Redbox puts the kibosh on WB’s 56-day waiting period.
Monty Python troupe to reunite for film Absolutely Anything.
Tom Green (not that one) vs Tom Green (that one) and who has the rights to @tomgreen (Tom Green the comedian and his fans are idiots, basically).
How can a free conference call be free? Here’s how.
Using Wireshark to capture, filter, and inspect packets.
In 24-hours, Reddit saves an orphanage (read more).
SOPA Protest Day: the largest digital protest ever. Now we just need to get rid of ACTA.
HTML5: Use the new and shiny responsibly. Look up HTML5, CSS3, etc features, know if they are ready for use, and if so find out how you should use them.
Looking for a car on craigslist? Carsabi will make that process a lot easier.
Ever wanted to grab the dominant color or palette from an image? This tool will help (get the code from github).
You knew the day had to come: A Fleshlight-holding iPad case (link safe for work, can’t guarantee that anything past that is).
One hour of video is uploaded to YouTube every second — and YouTube is helping you visualize that.
45 Incredibly useful web design checklists and questionnaires.
Getting e-mail notification overload from all the social networks you’re a part of? Use this site to tame things.
Bellbot is a simple little bit of code you can put on your site that will play a noise (bell, applause, etc…) whenever somebody buys something or does something on your site that triggers the code.
ThemeSquirrel is a great collection of WordPress themes.
Google Public Alerts is Google’s new platform for disseminating emergency messages such as evacuation notices for hurricanes, and everyday alerts such as storm warnings.

February 1, 2012

Web Archive, Reddit, Wikipedia, Mozilla, WordPress, etc… to Go Black Tomorrow in SOPA/PIPA Protest

In an anti-SOPA protest, Reddit, the Web Archive, WordPress, Wikipedia and many, many others are going to go black tomorrow. Google is going to protest on their home page and OpenDNS is going to censor some results. I’ve considering blacking out my site, but am stupid busy at the moment (and have been for weeks) and would need to do some tweaks for things to not break. But you can easily black out your site by putting some JavaScript on your site from SOPA Strike or use the index.html file here or this WordPress plugin.

If you’re wondering what the fight is all about, from a technical standpoint, this is a great write-up that I’m hoping stays up tomorrow. If you need a simple explanation of why SOPA/PIPA is bad, here’s a good one:

Sopa is all encompassing enough to include almost any site capable of hosting user content, from Reddit to Dropbox. This means that the government can and will enforce the law very selectively, which is the entire danger of the bill: it’s a blank check.
They could remove wikileaks because some article they link to has copyrighted material, or take down the site of some political watchdog group because one of their videos has music playing in the background.
The lack of due process also allows the possibility that if a site hosts something the government doesn’t agree with, all it would take is an intern uploading a random mp3 to said site to shut it down.
Very dangerous s**t here.

January 17, 2012

Reading Material

Plugged up with a bit of a head cold, but wanted to get these off my desktop (videos coming…uh…whenever…)

Look at this street view. Now move the camera up.
35 Incredibly Useful Android Apps for 2011 (be sure to follow the links there for links to games as well).
Teardown of the nifty Nest thermostat.
Relive the reboot experience for a bunch of classic OSes.
In case you hadn’t already seen this story last week, PayPal made somebody destroy an expensive violin to get their money back.
Speaking of violins, could you pick the Strad?
Planning ahead on major purchases this year? Here’s the best time to buy anything.
Simple an easy way to record an MP3 on your computer.
Automakers have made great strides in fuel efficiency in recent decades, but the mileage numbers of individual vehicles have barely increased. An MIT economist explains the conundrum.
Professor seeds the web with trojan horse essay, just to see where it ends up. Somebody handed it in.
2011’s Best Posts on MetaFilter (don’t know if this post regarding the music from O Brother Where Art Thou? is included, but it shoiuld be).
From the creator of ClockwordMod created a root-less tether.
Easily clean up your permissions on a bunch of social media sites at once.
If you use fon, be aware your password is being stored in plain-text.
Subway fare and pizza prices go hand-in-hand.
Abbey Road has a web cam with people regularly recreating a certain album cover.
News networks are ignoring SOPA legislation.
Mac Classic II vs. Macbook Air: Which boots faster?
Great list of well-done hacker-journalism in 2011.
Second Crack is a very simple static-file Markdown blogging engine. It’s totally unnecessary and unsuitable for most people (which the author even admits), but it’s still kind of interesting to me.
Looking for sheet music? There’s a large collection of public domain music at IMSLP.
Make a resolution to learn to code.
visitor.js is a handy little script to personalize your web site based on a ton of variables about the visitor.
What’s behind that short link? Found out with unFurlr, created by the awesome folks at Mailchimp.
I really wish I had the hardware to play with VMWare more as its high availability features look awesome. Anybody have some old servers they want to get rid off so I can learn a thing or two as I’d really like to gain some more useful experience in this stuff.

January 9, 2012