I upgraded WordPress to 2.5.1 this morning without too many issues. It took longer to download and install all of the plugins than it did to convert the database over. I would have upgraded before, but I was running an antiquated version of MySQL until the server upgrade this past week. The upgrade itself took [...]
Category Archive for 'software'
I’ve been in the mood to bake the last couple days, but haven’t gotten around to it. So today — federal return completed and furnace filters changed — I decided to make a batch of fudge brownies. Topped with semi-sweet chocolate chips, they made the entire house smell amazing. And they taste pretty good too.
I [...]
Because I said that I’d update on my success.
Bad Behavior has blocked 613 access attempts in the last 7 days. 111 got past the plugin, of which 110 were flagged by Akismet as being comment spam. The remaining 1 comment was placed into the moderation queue due to the number of links. So after a [...]
Comment Spam is Exasperating
Posted in complaints, site news, software on Dec 27th, 2007
I am being flooded with comment spam. Now I know I’m not special in this regard; everyone who uses the Internet has to deal with spam. Whether in email or comments, removal is always more tedious than detection. I’m not a huge fan of closed-source services, but Akismet has been doing an excellent job of [...]
Call for Remote Access Solutions
Posted in software, troubleshooting on Dec 9th, 2007
I’ve got to research some options for remote access. The goal is to provide a Windows-based application — which is rather expensive to license and tedious to manage per-seat — to a group of remote users. The licensing is all taken care of from my perspective, so the remaining requirements are as follows.
Sessions must be [...]
I’ve gotten into the habit of leaving Firefox open for weeks at a time. I like having my tabs available without having to wait. Usually I’ve got Google Reader and Gmail loaded, as well as a few other status screens. I’ve also taken to bitching about the performance problems with the computer. For some reason [...]
I am making progress in my office cleaning project. I tackled three boxes yesterday over a period of two hours. They were filled with a lot of loose items so it was slow going. Most of the things I’m finding now fall into the recycle or throwaway pile, although some of the bigger items are [...]
ProcessLibrary, An Uber-Quick Review
Posted in advertising, software, troubleshooting, web sites on Jul 26th, 2007
I find ProcessLibrary to be incredibly useful when diagnosing Windows systems. The site — with a refreshingly clean interface despite it being an advertisement-page-disguised-as-a-tool — will tell you all about processes that you find listed in Task Manager. A quick summary of whether it is good or bad, but with details of what it does, [...]
Developers Should Not Write Shell Scripts
Posted in complaints, idiots, office, software on Jul 12th, 2007
By the time you write enough Java code to be considered for the self-imposed “developer” title, you shouldn’t try to write shell scripts anymore. Do you system administrator and network engineers a huge favor and :q! now.
There are times when I get the impression that people don’t know what the hell they’re doing. I may [...]
Reboot Your Cell Phone to Fix Menu Lag
Posted in gadgets, software, troubleshooting on Feb 5th, 2007
I noticed this weekend that my Motorola V325 was starting to experience some serious menu lag. When you’d key the Talk button to bring up the “All Calls” list, it would take several seconds before the menu came up. The same thing would happen when attempting to dial someone from the list or the contacts [...]
Gmail Beta, Delivery Problem Exposed
Posted in complaints, google, oddities, software, technology, troubleshooting, web sites on Jan 28th, 2007
I use Mailman to provide mailing list services to friends, family, and non-profit groups in addition to running a few administrative lists. Doing so has recently exposed a problem with Gmail’s mail delivery.
BSD is Dying
Posted in conspiracies, humor, software, web sites on Dec 4th, 2006
I’m an avid user and fan of FreeBSD, despite despising the new space-like logo. The graphic to the right however, now that is progress. Anyways, I got quite a kick out of BSD is Dying: A Cautionary Tale of Sex and Greed as presented by Jason Dixon at the NYC BSD Conference at Columbia University [...]
Author of sudo Lives Locally
Posted in software on Apr 6th, 2006
Todd Miller — one of the people responsible for writing and maintaining sudo — lives in Millersville, Maryland. Anyone want to pitch in to buy him some beer?
Useless System Tray Icons
Posted in software on Feb 22nd, 2006
The system tray in Windows takes up valuable space on the screen, especially when the icons in the tray provide no benefit to the user. The icon for Marimba Tuner is one of the useless ones.
A Painful Visual Studio .NET Install
Posted in software on Feb 1st, 2006
Microsoft Visual Studio .NET takes forever to install. It copies a gazillion files to disk and and makes a utterly huge amount of registry additions. Needless to say the install discs could benefit from some re-vamping.