Chris Curtis dot Org

Time for Comments Again

2009-06-12T01:12:07Z

I turned off commenting quite a while back due to the fact that the overwhelming majority of comments the site received were spam. I got tired of being reactive and cleaning it up and since this site really doesn’t get much legitimate commenting (hey, I can accept that I’m not popular, heh), I decided the easiest solution was simply to turn comments off altogether.

Well, somehow I missed the news about the Akismet and TypePad AntiSpam services over the last couple of years. They’re services that’ll essentially try and “verify” for you whether a comment is spam or not. So, I found the Low NoSpam addon for EE (it’s actually a combination module and extension, I believe). It seems to work pretty well so far, at least.

So, enjoy your commenting again. If anyone’s out there, at least!

Holy Paladins - a.k.a. Healadins

2009-06-03T02:27:25Z

Warning: if you don’t care about WoW, you won’t care about this. =) However, since WoW is one of my bigger pastimes - and I’m woefully slacking on posting to the site - I figured I might as well share some info.

My main character is a protection paladin, Teneral (Shadow Council realm). However, with the recent dual talent ability addition, I decided to give healing a try, so I’ve been working more on my healing gear and learning quite a bit more about that aspect of the class. There’s an amazing amount of information available “out there”, but a lot of it is outdated and other information just isn’t that good. Finding the useful stuff can take some effort. So, I figured I would share some of the information I found on the off chance that others might be able to make use of it.

HolyPaladin.net has a great variety of information useful to, well, holy paladins. Some information’s also much broader than that and is applicable to other specs/classes. The Choosing Gear section is, of course, all about how to choose your gear. Haste, crit, Mp5, spellpower, etc. There’s other information about tactics and strategies to take in both PvE and PvP.

For recommendations on specific gear, what I found on I am a Paladin came in very useful. The author put out a 3-part guide regarding Ulduar gear (and more). Part 1 covers gems, spec/glyphs, and macros. Part 2 covers the majority of the gear slots. Part 3 continues the rest of the gear slots and then talks about enchants, flasks, and food. There are plenty of other useful posts on the site, as well.

These are far from the only good resources out there (Elitist Jerks, anyone?), but they should give other people in a similar position to me somewhere to start. Enjoy!

WoW Raid/Buff Stacking

2008-10-28T15:22:01Z

Mostly a convenience link for myself, this lists how the different buffs do/don't stack in WoW post-3.0. #

Gimme My Keys, Firefox!

2008-08-10T18:03:01Z

I’ve been a long-time user of Firefox, but for a while now I’ve actually been browsing with Camino as the regular browser on my mac. After using Firefox 3 (FF3)for a while at work and my other computers, I figured it was finally time to switch back on my mac, too. So, I downloaded and installed it, copied over my more recent bookmarks, and went about my life.

That is, until I noticed that FF3 wasn’t following one of the altered keyboard shortcuts I’d set up the last time I used Firefox to change the Quit shortcut. (For me, ⌘-Q to quit the app is dangerously close to ⌘-W to close a tab.) I use the standard OS X method to alter/reassign keyboard shortcuts, so I just went back and redid the Quit shortcut change for Firefox like before. Except it didn’t work. Sure, my reassigned shortcut of ⌘-⌥-Q worked, but so did the old ⌘-Q, rather defeating the purpose.

So, I started my hunt for an answer. A Mozilla support thread let me know that I wasn’t alone in this frustration and also pointed me in the direction of a Macrumors thread. This, in turn, gave me the actual Bugzilla entry for the issue, including discussion from some of the developers and users. Apparently, a fairly late change in FF3/Gecko 1.9 made it so that system-assigned shortcuts weren’t being observed and it’s unlikely to be fixed really soon. One of the developers mentioned it ought to be possible to get around this with an addon/extension, though.

Now it was off to find an extension to help solve my problem. After far more searching than I’d prefer, I found Keyconfig, an extension by “doranado” that’s been around for quite some time, but looks to have been recently updated. I installed the extension, restarted FF3, reassigned some of the shortcuts (you’ll find the option under the main Tools menu to open up Keyconfig), and held my breath. Thankfully, this seems to have done the trick and I no longer need to worry about accidentally hitting Q when I meant to hit W on a shortcut. I figured this info might be useful for other FF3 users out there.

Tips For Your Vehicle Gas

2008-05-09T20:34:01Z

I recently received one of those “chain letter” type emails, this one purporting to be from someone working in the gas/oil industry and giving some tips on how to get the most out of your gas. (It also, of course, encouraged me to email it on to ten friends to “get the word out”, but that sure ain’t happening!) I typically don’t much care for those sorts of emails, but this one actually had some pretty decent sounding advice. So, I figured I might as well look into it to see how legit the advice was.

Not surprisingly, snopes.com has an article dealing with these very tips. The consensus point is that following the tips certainly shouldn’t hurt you (aside from possibly taking extra time), but that for the most part the gain you’ll see in practical terms is pretty modest. Anyway, I figured it might be worth passing this info along to anyone else interested.

FreakAngels

2008-02-18T01:31:00Z

A free, online comic by the master: Warren Ellis. I've been a huge fan of Ellis for years and this new comic looks pretty darn good. #

Warcrafter

2008-01-19T13:38:00Z

Searching around for something to allow me to "try out" gear, I found Warcrafter, which is pretty neat. It's still "beta", but lots of nice features. And, of course, there's Ghrikk. #

VeriSign’s at it Again

2008-01-12T06:09:00Z

Well, it looks like VeriSign (aka Network Solutions) is at it yet again: being one of the scum of the internet. This time, they’re proactively squatting on domains that people are looking up. Check that link for details, but the short, short version is that if you do a who-is search that uses a VeriSign/Network Solutions service and the domain wasn’t previously registered, VeriSign puts a hold/lock on it that means you can only purchase it from them and not other registrars. I’ve mentioned VeriSign multiple times before. Clearly, they’re not one of my favorite companies.

Still More 24 Ways

2007-12-18T13:53:01Z

For the third year in a row, Drew McLellan is serving up another 24 helpings of web design/development goodness. I’ve mentioned the other two years previously, but the annual 24 Ways site is always great.

So far, the day one Transparent PNG article, the trick for warning about CAPSLOCK, and the table of available fonts look particularly good. However, just about everyone should be able to find something useful in this batch of wonderfulness.

Neighborhood Walkability

2007-12-15T07:27:03Z

Neat site that utilizes Google information and maps to get a quick look at how "walkable" your neighborhood is. I'd love to live somewhere that I could walk to lots of stores and such rather than having to drive. #

Free With Mats

2007-12-05T17:40:00Z

Nice, upcoming WoW site that lets you find gems/enchants as well as has user-submitted information on tradeskill crafting. Once more profiles are added, it should be a nice way to find people to craft items, do enchants, etc. #

Cleaning out OS X Languages

2007-11-08T14:37:00Z

I used "Monolingual" myself a while back, but here's some good info on possible options. Be sure to read the comments, too. #

Are Compact Fluorescents Worth it?

2007-10-30T13:29:00Z

Someone does some quick math showing just how much you can save in even a single month by switching your lights from regular incandescents to CFLs. #

Leopard’s Blue Screen of Death

2007-10-30T13:05:00Z

Most Windows users are at least aware of the existence of the dreaded “Blue Screen of Death” (BSoD) that can occur when a particularly bad error surfaces. Rarely do Mac OS X users encounter the same sort of thing, but apparently that isn’t the case for some people upgrading to the newly released OS X 10.5 Leopard. According to most reports, the BSoD is caused by old versions of Unsanity’s Application Enhancer (APE) being present on the system.

Everything I’ve read about APE makes it sound pretty shady and it definitely isn’t something I’d install myself, so I figured that I’d be pretty safe once I get around to upgrading my own system. Well, Daring Fireball reveals that APE actually gets installed behind the scenes when the Logitech Control Center (LCC) is installed. Want to guess what I have installed? Yup, you got it.

So, before I even think about upgrading to Leopard, I’m going to have to figure out how to uninstall (and never reinstall; curse you, Logitech!) the LCC as well as make sure all remnants of APE are gone. So much fun.

Next Midrange Graphics Card

2007-10-29T13:36:00Z

If the AnandTech review is accurate (and I've always liked their reviews), the forthcoming NVIDIA 8800 GT card may be a fantastic compromise between great performance and moderate price. #