Phrases to add to your vernacular:
"Oops"
and
"Hehe. That was stupid."
Category: Technology
All things geeky.
Twitter’s OLDER link will return
Twitter suffered a Denial of Service attack and had to temporarily remove the link to preserve performance on the site. Reported on the Twitter blog. You can follow the mundane details of my day on Twitter.
What am I doing to my brain?
The mental exercise of jumping from one project to another at a rapid pace with breakneck deadlines is like making a bootleggers turn at interstate speeds particularly when the environment of each project changes slightly or even drastically such as CF with MS SQL to CF with MySQL to ASP with MS Access. I’m sure this either good for me or the seed for a tumor.
Why I could never work in an office again #6243
I am most productive when burning some Sandlewood.
Consultants – Warranties
Every now and then you get a phone call that goes something like this "That code you wrote for us a year (or more) ago doesn’t work anymore. We were thinking of doing more work with you but if we can’t get this fixed we may have to go with someone else." The proper answer is "No problem. That will be $x per hour to troubleshoot since we do not currently have a contract." The real answer is usually "ok. I’ll look into that real quick." because a) you know darn well the real answer will send them packing b) you are a nice guy and like them and c) you haven’t yet reached a level of financial stability to be blowing off customers (note: you’ll fix c if you use the real answer more often).
When your code doesn’t change and after a length of time it suddenly doesn’t work, the problem is almost always with the web host or the client. Sometimes they have discovered a very well hidden bug but rarely. In my case, the permissions on the directory which the application used to upload files had changed to not allow for uploading. How do permissions magically change? They don’t.
HOAX Your next battery might last 30 years!
The US Air Force Research Laboratory has invented an environmentally sound battery that can last 30 years and it could be available in the next 2-3 years.
The breakthrough betavoltaic power cells are constructed from semiconductors and use radioisotopes as the energy source. … Although betavoltaic batteries sound Nuclear they’re not, they’re neither use fission/fusion or chemical processes to produce energy and so (do not produce any radioactive or hazardous waste). … The best part about these cells are when they eventually run out of power they are totally inert and non-toxic, so environmentalists need not fear these high tech scientific wonder batteries. If all goes well plans are for these cells to reach store shelves in about 2 to 3 years. [Source]
Ooops. Remember, even if you are busy, check your sources! BoingBoing Gadgets explains. Until I can find something more redeemable than this, I’ll assume that Next Energy News is a farce.
Today’s Computer Utility Recommendation
Have you ever unexpectedly been unable to move, delete or rename a file because of a "file sharing violation?" Perhaps you have been frustrated by one of these messages:
Cannot delete file: Access is denied
There has been a sharing violation.
The source or destination file may be in use.
The file is in use by another program or user.
Make sure the disk is not full or write-protected and that the file is not currently in use.
Cedrick ‘Nitch’ Collomb has written a fantastic program to deal with these annoying situations without even having to reboot the computer! It is called Unlocker 1.8.5 and I highly recommend adding this to your toolkit! I also encourage giving Cedrick Collomb a paypal donation. It’s worth it!
Everyone needs a talking rabbit on their desk
BRAINS! Braaaainnns!
Since you do not have enough to worry about, I suppose you probably want to hear about the Zombie Amoeba. That’s right. There is an amoeba that wants to eat your brains! If I recall my science lessons correctly, an amoeba is a single celled organism. This simple thing is taking people down.
According to the CDC, the amoeba called Naegleria fowleri (nuh-GLEER-ee-uh FOWL’-erh-eye) killed 23 people in the United States, from 1995 to 2004. This year health officials noticed a spike with six cases — three in Florida, two in Texas and one in Arizona. The CDC knows of only several hundred cases worldwide since its discovery in Australia in the 1960s. [Source]
Where does it thrive? Heat and stagnant water. So as global warming worsens and people flock to the lakes to cool themselves, the Naegleria is going to eat their brains.
Though infections tend to be found in southern states, Naegleria lives almost everywhere in lakes, hot springs, even dirty swimming pools, grazing off algae and bacteria in the sediment. [Source]
How do you know your brain is being eaten? Basically you have the same symptoms as everything else.
People who are infected tend to complain of a stiff neck, headaches and fevers. In the later stages, they’ll show signs of brain damage such as hallucinations and behavioral changes… [Source]
And how does it eat your brain? Through your nose!
Beach said people become infected when they wade through shallow water and stir up the bottom. If someone allows water to shoot up the nose — say, by doing a somersault in chest-deep water — the amoeba can latch onto the olfactory nerve. … Beach said people become infected when they wade through shallow water and stir up the bottom. If someone allows water to shoot up the nose — say, by doing a somersault in chest-deep water — the amoeba can latch onto the olfactory nerve. … "Usually, from initial exposure it’s fatal within two weeks," [Source]
Can this be prevented?
"You’d have to have water going way up in your nose to begin with" to be infected … The easiest way to prevent infection … is to use nose clips when swimming or diving in fresh water. [Source]
Thanks to BoingBoing, my wife will never let the children near water again.
I want to work for iRobot!
Since a child, I’ve had a fascination with lasers and robots. My path steered away from those. iRobot rocks! iRobot will bring us closer to the Jetsons much sooner than I could have hoped. They have now introduced the Looj gutter-cleaning robot! What a great reason to put guttering on the house!
Makezine explains that iRobot is also accepting applications to beta test their next robot which will have a web camera built into it allowing people on the Internet to control your robot and speak to you. It’s iRobot meets Nabaztag meets Childrenview meets Camstreams.
Cool! AIR meets Analytics
Programmers, particularly those Adobe fans, know about AIR apps. People who deal with websites know about Google Analytics. Now AIR meets Analytics and you can get in on the beta!
Today’s focus: ColdFusion! (with a side of Access)
Today I will use ColdFusion for PDF manipulation of data received by fax and saved as gifs or jpegs. I will also generate lots of reprots with ColdFusion, I will make data dance on the screen, and I will get MS Access to produce a printed book from its 14 tables of data.
This evening I’ll take the boys to their scout meeting.
Consistency, who needs it!
So I work in ColdFusion a lot. I also work in PHP a lot. Just did a round of work on ASP. Working on web applications involves integral knowledge of Javascript, CSS, HTML, and a variety of other buzz words like Flex, AIR, AJAX, and so forth. It also means decent familiarity with databases such as MS SQL, MySQL, and MS Access and others.
Tonight I work in the one I dread the most…MS Access! I wonder what it would be like to go to work and do the same thing day in and day out.
I DO need a Macbook!
Because I also want to follow 5,700 Twitterers!
The ASP Butt Kicking Saga
Hurdle 2 is now complete! The host’s local SMTP server is not configured correctly. The website is hosting its pop/smtp email else where. Using Method 3 of Sending email using CDOSYS ( THE REAL DEAL ) I was able to finally get email to send!
Method 3 ( Using remote mail server )
<% Dim ObjSendMail Set ObjSendMail = CreateObject("CDO.Message") 'This section provides the configuration information for the remote SMTP server. ObjSendMail.Configuration.Fields.Item ("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/sendusing") = 2 'Send the message using the network (SMTP over the network). ObjSendMail.Configuration.Fields.Item ("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpserver") ="mail.yoursite.com" ObjSendMail.Configuration.Fields.Item ("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpserverport") = 25 ObjSendMail.Configuration.Fields.Item ("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpusessl") = False 'Use SSL for the connection (True or False) ObjSendMail.Configuration.Fields.Item ("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpconnectiontimeout") = 60 ' If your server requires outgoing authentication uncomment the lines bleow and use a valid email address and password. 'ObjSendMail.Configuration.Fields.Item ("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpauthenticate") = 1 'basic (clear-text) authentication 'ObjSendMail.Configuration.Fields.Item ("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/sendusername") ="somemail@yourserver.com" 'ObjSendMail.Configuration.Fields.Item ("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/sendpassword") ="yourpassword" ObjSendMail.Configuration.Fields.Update 'End remote SMTP server configuration section== ObjSendMail.To = "someone@someone.net" ObjSendMail.Subject = "this is the subject" ObjSendMail.From = "someone@someone.net" ' we are sending a text email.. simply switch the comments around to send an html email instead 'ObjSendMail.HTMLBody = "this is the body" ObjSendMail.TextBody = "this is the body" ObjSendMail.Send Set ObjSendMail = Nothing %>
In addition to what you see here there are plenty of properties you can add to these examples.
Here are a few examples.Carbon Copy
ObjSendMail.CC = “someone@someone.net”Blind Carbon Copy
ObjSendMail.BCC = “someone@someone.net”Send Attachment (we hard code it here, but you could specify the file path using Server.Mappath as well)
ObjSendMail.AddAttachment “c:\myweb\somefile.jpg”and a ton of other things you can do…
[Source]
Pages I found useful during this hurdle:
- CDOSYS or CDONTS, Which Will It Be?
- Send via ASP Page w CDONTS – Mail Stuck In SMTP Queue – Please help!
- Localhost mail stuck in QUEUE
- Mail Stuck in Queue Folder – IIS SMTP Virtual Server – Windows XP Service Pack 2 This one advised adding two crlf’s to the end of email.
See also Microsoft’s CDOSYS Documentation.
The final hurdle is rewriting their document management system. Presently, they have an admin piece that uploads documents to a single directory. The documents are then accessible to their customers. They want the ability to classify those documents. The approach will be to allow the documents to live in subdirectories representing the categories. This should be interesting.
