OK, this is pretty silly and stupid, but add “?=PHPE9568F36-D428-11d2-A769-00AA001ACF42” to the end of any URL that’s a PHP page, and you’ll get a funny little picture of a dog. Try it here. There’s apparently a different dog/animal/creature depending on your version: See here, here or here). Of course, you can disable this in php.ini if you’re on the paranoid side, but it’s still kind of fun (and yes, I know it’s been around for years, but it’s the first I’ve seen it). Link via digg.
Category: Geekdom
What Firefox Extensions Are You Using?
I finally got around to upgrading my Firefox setup to version 1.5. Why did I do this? Because I tried just doing the quick-and-dirty upgrade to the 1.0 version of the Web Developer Extension and it totally hosed my 1.0.7 install (I need to read directions, I know).
But I figured this was a good a chance as any to just bulldoze my profile and start from scratch with 1.5 (which is the recommended course according to many forum threads I’ve seen over here, versus trying to upgrade on top of the old version).
It was also a chance for me to download and install all new versions of all my extensions, and thought I’d post what I’ve installed here for everybody else to peruse (and so I don’t have to look them all up again), and I encourage folks to comment here and let me know what they’re running so I can see if there’s any other cool little extensions I might be missing (and for anybody who cares, I use the Smoke theme, after using the Noia Lite theme in 1.0.7).
- About This Site
- Allow Right Click
- Bug Me Not (when it’s fixed)
- Colorzilla
- Disable Target For Downloads
- Download Embedded
- Download Manager Tweak
- FasterFox
- Google Toolbar for Firefox
- Linky
- Live HTTP Headers
- Print Image
- Slim Extension List
- Tabbrowser Preferences
- Web Developer Extension
Also of note, I probably will install Greasemonkey at some point as there are a pile of great scripts for it, but I’m going to hold off for now.
So what is everybody else using?
Bend Broadband Offering Phone Service, But Is It Worth It?
As I mentioned before Bend Broadband does sponsor this blog. They have an ad right up there on the top right of this page (which is now linked to the service I’m going to talk about). Part of my agreement with putting up their ads was that I reserve the right to post commentary about their services and products, and this is going to be one of those times.
BendBroadband has introduced a new home phone service. Starting at $40/month (assuming you already have cable TV and high-speed internet with them, otherwise the price goes up), you get unlimited local and long distance phone calls in the lower 48 states, caller ID, voice mail, and a whole slew of additional features.
But $40? Yes, it’s a pile of great features, and since it’s the cable company they can probably give traffic priority to your voice calls and there’s always the convenience of having it everything on one bill (which is Qwest’s big pitch). But it just doesn’t seem worth it to me unless you make a lot of long-distance calls (which I don’t) and even then you can get services like Vonage that are quite a bit cheaper and provide just as many features. Talking to the folks at BendBroadband, they’re considering a “lite” option for folks who don’t need long distance access, but it’ll still probably be too expensive for me. I spend a grand total (including all stupid fees) of $25/month on my phone service from Qwest. I don’t need any of that fancy additional services crap — I just want a phone that will work all the time at a cheap rate. Heck, even if you wanted all those features that BendBroadband provides, there are other local phone companies like BendTel that provide all those services over your regular phone line — no special equipment required — at a very decent price.
So for now, this will be a service of theirs I’m going to avoid, mostly because of the cost, but if anybody else has any input or has tried it (they’re currently rolling out in the Redmond/Terrebone area with Bend coming next month), let me know! I told them I’d be a beta tester if they wanted a review, but haven’t heard back on that one yet (not holding my breath).
Linksys Router No Longer Open Source
This link is mostly for my reference, but some of my geek readers might find it interesting.
I’ve recommended for several people the Linksys WRT54G router. It’s a good router, and, up until v. 5 of the router, used open-source firmware so a lot of great hacks were out there to make the thing a full-fledged firewall solution.
Unfortunately, with version 5 of the router came a firmware from another company that is not open-source, so none of the firewall hacks mentioned in the link above work.
So when you buy one of these routers, make sure it’s either a version 4 (or less) version of the above WRT54G router, or buy their new WRT54GL version of the router which uses the open-source firmware.
More details here. Link via BB.
Horribly Dated Link Dump
I’ve had these links flagged in my RSS reader for quite a while, and I just need to get them out of there before I go nuts with a bunch of six-month-old links sitting there:
- Pyoro (Flash Game)
- Sign F**king (Video)
- There’s A Web Page For Everything (I’m sure this is useful for somebody — as would this, I guess)
- Speed Drill (Flash Game)
- Make The Perfect Pizza
- Subtle Lesbianism in Sports
- Web Economy BS Generator
- Easy Way To Fix Your Computer Monitor
- How Not To Be Eaten By A Duck (Never know when that’ll come in handy)
- A Guide To European Kissing Etiquette (provided by a lip-balm company)
- 21st Century Chastity Belt
- Gyro Ball (Flash Game)
- Domino (Flash Game)
That’s enough for now. I’ve got many more, but it’s late, and this shoud keep you busy for a bit. Many of the above links are from fullalbums.com.
Something I’d Do If I Had More Time
That, and a bunch of tools, but I’d certainly build myself a MAME cabinet using the well-done plans and instructions here.
It’s About Stinking Time
The next version of windows (aka Windows Vista) will not only have system-wide volume control, but you can now set it on a per-application basis. That’s something that I’m immensely looking forward to, as there are some players (**cough**cough**Quicktime**cough**cough) that make it a point to jack the volume all the way up every time you open it, no matter what it’s been set at before.
Thanks Barn for the link.
Search And Replace in MySQL
This is just mostly for my reference so I don’t have to keep digging in the Google cache to get this site:
update tablename set field = replace(field,’search_for_this’,’replace_with_this’);
I’ve probably used this bit of SQL a dozen times in the last week while doing some pruning/cleanup in a work database, I just kept forgetting the exact syntax.
A 4.8-Terabyte Home Brew Server
This home brew project, with its 12 400 gig drives, is frickin’ sweet (read the full thread on the story on how this thing started as a 1.2TB server, it blew up, and he’s rebuilding it — I’m linking to page ten in the first link above as it’s where the action starts again). I think the thing that impresses me the most about the build is the super-clean wiring and the nicely done homemade modifications.
Top 10 System Administrator Truths
If you’re somebody like me who has ever had to manage a pile of computers, servers, etc…, you’ll appreciate these. And be sure to read the comments, as there are a pile of good ones in the comments as well.