I did something useful yesterday, other than just working. Actually, I did a few things, but this only concerns two of them.

Wednesday night, I was making some changes to the natd configuration file on Saturn (soon to be renamed, but that's another story). I made a mistake that I've made several times before. I forgot to add a blank line at the end of the configuration file. Even though there is absolutely no need for it to be there, the code enforces it anyway. To fix the problem, because natd wouldn't restart and I no longer had remote access to the server, I had to drive the ten minutes to work, sit in the parking lot to type 34 keystrokes to fix it and drive back. (I counted the keystrokes involved on the way back.)

I have wireless access that I can (just barely) access from the parking lot (and yes it uses some security), but that still involves driving to work if I make the mistake remotely. This is the third or fourth time I've had to drive to work to fix it in the last 2 years, so I wasn't happy.

When I got to work yesterday morning, I finally sat down with the code to natd. As I suspected, there really is no reason for it to check for a newline at the end. All it does is convert it to a null character (C's end of string character).

I made a quick patch to the file and submited a problem report to the FreeBSD project with my patch. I really hope it makes it into the code because I really hate that behavior. And also because then I can say I wrote part of FreeBSD, even if it is only like 3 lines.

I also submitted an upgrade to a port I submitted a couple months ago. The developer released a small revision, so as the maintainer of the port, I felt obligated. It only took about 20 minutes (and most of that was looking up how to submit a maintainer-update because I'd never done one before.

I've been fighting with PHPNuke off and on for awhile about incorporating images into my posts. I've added the img tag to the $AllowableHTML in config.php, but sometimes it will still mangle my tags. I think I've finally solved the problem.

In mainfile.php, there is a function called check_html. In this function, there is a line that says "$str = eregi_replace("]*)[[:space:]]*>", ', $str);". This comes before it checks the AllowableHTML. By commenting out that line, I seem to have solved the problem.

I've just installed it to one of my computers so that I could get a look at what's to come.  I've installed a few previous versions, but this one is a bit different.

I'm still not quite sure what to make of the new UI features.  They have merit, but I think it'll take a bit of geting used to before I decide if I really like it or not.  Things are starting to flow better though.

Overall, I'm intrigued...

A few days ago, I promised to tell what I've been up to for the last couple weeks. I blame Microsoft.

In October, Microsoft released Visual Studio 2005 (which supports the .Net 2.0 framework). About two weeks ago, I got my copy.

I have a couple of work projects that were written in C# (Under Visual Studio .NET and Visual Studio .Net 2003) that need some updating. I realized that I should learn about the new features in the 2.0 framework in a seperate project before tackling my older projects. This left me with the dilemma of deciding what to work on.

I've been evaluating trouble ticket systems for the last year or so, but I've never found one I liked enough to implement at work. So i've decided to write one.

It's been two weeks (as of tomorrow morning) since I started the project (called GHelp). Originally, I'd envisioned this as being a couple of days worth of work, but to get the functionality I really want out of it (and to be able to market it as well), it's going to be a couple of months.

I've got a lot of the functionality worked out, but there's still a lot of implementation to be done.

As a teaser, I'm including a few images from the project in the full text of this article.

Sorry, Rachel, this one isn't about you.

I went to Office Depot the other day to buy some DVD-Rs.  I picked up 2 bundles (buy one get one free) and started to browse around the store.  I wandered around for a bit and ended up on the keyboard aisle.  I try to look at the keyboard aisle in computer stores at least a couple of times a year on my quest for the perfect user interface device.

Since 1997 or 1998, I've been using the Microsoft Natural Keyboard Elite almost exclusively.  I've never found anything that seemed as comfortable for me to use.  That has now changed.

There, on that aisle, I came across the Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000.  When I put my hands on it, I fell in love instantly.  The picture in that link just doesn't do it justice.

I stood there for a few minutes, then proceeded to put back my DVD-Rs and buy the keyboard instead.  (I couldn't afford to get both that day.)  Now I just have to talk my work into buying me one for there too.

I was wearing a shirt the other day that I got for free while working as a Storyteller at SCaRE 2003 (South Central Regional Event) which was run by the Camarilla Fan Club. They were very amused by the disclaimer at the bottom which said "Surgeon General's Warning: Arguing with the Storyteller can be hazardous to your character's health."

This got us on to the point that I actually designed the shirts for the event, and then from there, we got to the point that they wouldn't let me use my original idea. While designing those shirts, I also designed the other shirt that never got made. The only reason it never got made was that I could never really afford to do a run of them so that I could sell them.

Below are images of the unprinted design. As an addendum to the copyright notice at the bottom of this page, I would like to state that you may not use these images without my permission. Feel free to link to this article though. (Read: If you want to get some printed up, let me know so I can have one, etc.)

Right Sleeve:

I haven't posted anything lately. Let's see if we can change that. I've got a bunch of boring (for some) posts to make about what I've been up to the last couple of weeks, but before I get to that, I have something else to share.

I received an email with a virus attached (in a zip file). I wonder how many people aren't going to catch the logical fallacies in it:

Disregarding the fact that it's just not proper letter writing, the first thing that I noticed was that it was supposed to be from the CIA. That just doesn't make sense. The CIA doesn't have jurisdiction on this kind of thing. FBI, Homeland Security or Secret Service maybe, but not the CIA. It amused me so I thought I would share.

I've recently upgraded my servers to MySQL 5.0.15.  I like the new features, and it's stable enough to run on a production server.  I have run into a few snags along the way.

First off, a lot of the code I'm running websites on has been some poorly written SQL JOIN statements.  I've had to rework those and report them myself.  I still have a few more to do though, but that's for a project I haven't gotten fully off the ground yet, thankfully.

Second, I found a problem in my own code.  Part of the problem was that the function I was using for password hashing didn't say not to use it when I wrote the code.  It does in the documentation now.  It used to return a 16 character result.  It works differently now.  I've since switched everything over to using MySQL's MD5 function instead and it works great.  I just had to reset all the passwords for a website I run.  That sucked.

I was looking for something for MediaWiki and came across this. I thought I would share.

From wiktionary.com

That doesn't sound quite right. Let's try something else.

From wikipedia.org

While I like the pun involved here (Don't ask. I'm not going to explain), I don't think the word applies in this situation. I think frustration is more along the right lines. Stupid people frustrate me. But I digress. I had a thought today and wondered if it was wrong.:

Is it wrong to ask someone if they'd like to be shot in the hand because they frustrate you? Is it still wrong if you've been through the experience and know exactly how that feels? I wondered if I'd get special dispensation for having been through the experience myself. That's what I get for looking through my photo gallery when I'm frustrated.