Fix Log

Fun with Applescript, VPN and Proxy

2011-11-09T01:05:00.002-07:00

I have a lot of digital pictures and home movies, and I'm supposed to be smart enough not to lose them by mistake or hardware failure. So part of my backup process is to backup files off-site across the internet using Crashplan. This worked fine at first, but over time something happened and my computers just couldn't see each other unless I connected over a VPN. Bringing up the VPN is a manual

Stop form input from capturing/ignoring certain keypresses

2011-04-04T03:29:00.000-06:00

Too many web forms have some stupid javascript that tries to limit what keys you can press while you are focused in a certain input element. For example, in my bank billpay system, they have javascript that makes it so you can only type numbers while you are in the "Zip Code" field. When they do that, it disables me from using the CMD+v to paste a zip code in the field, because "CMD+v" is not a

Review of OWC 480G SSD laptop drive

2011-03-26T00:35:00.016-06:00

After waiting for SSD notebook drives to get big enough that I could fit everything on it that I carry around on my Hitachi 500G 7200 rpm mechanical drive, OWC finally came out with a 480G SSD last summer that was over a thousand dollars. Just recently, they lowered the price a lot and I got mine for a total of $908, including Fedex 2 Day shipping and a $25 rebate for using Amazon Checkout when I

BoA Nickname Payees Greasemonkey Script

2010-01-20T14:18:00.014-07:00

Bank of America does not let you create "nicknames" for your payees on its Quickpay online billpay webpage. This means that if you have more than 1 account with the same entity, or different individuals with the same bank, it is very hard to tell your payees apart when you go to make a payment. This can result you sending a payment to the wrong payee. You may end up with identical looking

Thinking about using itshidden.com

2010-01-03T17:11:00.003-07:00

I was thinking of using the anonymous VPN service from itshidden.com. I was even thinking of paying for it, despite not knowing the reliability or trustworthiness of those on the other end. So I signed up and got this: So, just nevermind.

Review of new Seagate 500g 7200rpm laptop hard drive

2009-05-19T22:29:00.028-06:00

When my 1 year old Hitachi laptop hard drive died in March, I started shopping for a bigger one. That's when I found the new Seagate Momentus 7200.4 model ST9500420AS with 500 gigs of space at 7200rpm.At that time though, the drive was out of stock everywhere as Seagate seemed to have stopped production to fix some engineering problems. Since even now (May 2009) this is the biggest and fastest

use jQuery AJAX to create options in a dropdown menu

2008-12-08T23:41:00.043-07:00

If you love to hate Javascript, that half-breed, amateur-magnet language, and every onload() and eval() you ever saw, then jQuery just rained on your parade. Now, with jQuery, so many things are elegant and easy - the opposite of everything you've ever known about Javascript.Here's how to populate a select menu's option list (values and labels) with data retrieved from an AJAX request. The

Reasonable Backups of Filevault

2008-03-02T20:47:00.011-07:00

It doesn't take much web searching to come to the conclusion that the new Time Machine in MacOS 10.5 does not work well with Filevault. The problem is that to Time Machine, a home directory protected with Filevault is just one big "sparse image" encrypted file. Although it will happily backup this file, doing that defeats one of the purposes of TM, which is to give you snapshots of every

Interested in GPL code for your closed source project?

2007-11-16T17:07:00.002-07:00

This post does not really fit the theme of this blog as a "fix" but may may help someone avoid broken-ness in the first place.Question: If I am writing closed source PHP software intended for distribution (not just for use as a web service, see http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/07/the_gpl_and_sof_1.html), and I incorporate a few GPL components, does my software become "infected" and

Dog Boots don't exist for a 80lb. steel spring

2007-08-30T14:13:00.003-06:00

Review of Bark'n Boots Grip TrexThese boots display great quality materials (Vibram sole, neoprene/cordura uppers), smooth stitching and great craftsmanship. They are far better than anything else available such as Walkaboot, Ultra-Paws, Neopaws, etc). This whole shoe looks as good as any made for human children. HOWEVER, they did not fit or stay on, at least for my dog, who is like a tightly

Toyota Tacoma Seats

2007-07-30T16:59:00.004-06:00

I came across this scanned document (click for full size view) describing the available seat types for 2005-present Toyota Tacoma while ordering waterproof neoprene seat covers from Wetokole.com.In case Tacoma owners didn't know, the passenger seat folds flat into a table with a plastic tray for tabletop, and in between the seat back and seat bottom of the passenger seat, some models have 2 metal

Recovering (or stealing) a domain registration

2007-02-22T22:19:00.005-07:00

Most organizations don't think much about their domain registration until it either expires -- disabling their website and email -- or until the day before they intend to launch a new website at a new webhosting provider.Often the internal employee who originally purchased a domain registration for a company no longer works there, or the web host that handled the registration as a middleman

Could Santa Exist?

2006-12-24T20:09:00.002-07:00

Spending Christmas with girlfriend's kids ages 4 and 6 who ask questions about how Santa delivers all these presents to good boys and girls while they sleep on Christmas eve. I say I don't know the answer, but let's figure it out together using some basic math and a few conservative assumptions. We assume that Santa only delivers presents during the night while you're sleeping. That's why

Itiva, quanta, venture capital, snakeoil

2006-11-22T15:13:00.002-07:00

Recently came across a startup called Itiva, claiming to have technology to bring high quality media to PC's without bandwidth worries. It involves a lot of long noun chains, new paradigms, and revolutionary but proprietary Quanta™. Sounds like snake oil to me. "Itiva provides the first scalable, reliable and economic Internet video delivery platform" False. There are plenty of scalable, reliable

Paypal module passes STORE_NAME instead of item

2006-09-20T20:24:00.005-06:00

The PayPal payment module (paypal.php,v 1.39 2003/01/29) for OSCommerce does not pass a meaningful item description to Paypal as a transaction is processed. Instead, the developer of this module programmed it to send the name of your store instead: tep_draw_hidden_field('item_name', STORE_NAME) . The result is that when the transaction completes, Paypal sends the store owner an email notification

Getting your deposit back

2006-09-12T15:11:00.006-06:00

My friend gets jammed up a lot. In July it was over his deposit on a residential rental that he shared with some roommates. The landlord stopped by two days before their lease expired to express some very demanding expectations about how her crummy little shack should be returned, otherwise it was coming out of their deposit.Landlord's list of intended charges included:the brown, unwatered

Windows Key to access Ubuntu Start Menu

2006-09-08T17:44:00.003-06:00

I was so used to using the Windows Key on the keyboard to open the Windows Start menu, I just expect it to work on Gnome panels too.If you don't already have an Ubuntu "Main Menu" item on your panel, you can add one by right clicking on the panel, choose "Add to Panel," then scroll down to "Utilities" and click the "Menu Bar" item and then the "Add" button. If you want to move that item around on

Stop gnome-terminal screen clear

2006-09-07T23:44:00.006-06:00

Gnome-terminal (and Mac OSX Terminal.app) clears your screen when you quit a pager or editor and I don't like it. You won't like it either if you need to refer to the thing you were just looking at after you exit back to shell. This happens with man, less, more, pico, vi and others. Here's an example of gnome-terminal automatically clearing the screen when exiting a pager. This is what needs

eBay Scams Use Good English, Too

2006-07-03T23:17:00.002-06:00

One of the comments to my original article said messages from people speaking poor English should be assumed to be a fraud, and that spotting fraud is basically as simple as that.While that strategy will help one avoid some fraud, it does not permit one to enter a legitimate transaction with non-native English speakers. It also does not protect against attacks that come using good English, like

Second Chance eBay Scams (Part I)

2006-06-03T08:33:00.001-06:00

The ConOnline scammers operate in many ways. All of them are designed to get at your personal and account information so they can steal from you. Sometimes, they take this information by force, through viruses or spyware. Other times, they expect you to just gladly hand it over! One setting where you're likely to do that is with big ticket items from eBay that seem too good to pass up.I had been