Reality Me

Category: Technology

All things geeky.

  • DIY Spider

    A little wire, 2 leds, a watch battery and a pager motor makes a robotic spider. DIY via Flickr pictures.

  • Flip 0 and 1

    As a programmer you often have to track the state of something. Let’s say your application shows a report for night and a different report for day.You would want a variable that lets you know if you are looking at the nighttime report or the daytime report. Lengthy programming discourse follows.

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  • Progress!

    Wahoo! A small project that I slipped into my schedule to help a friend out has finally made its way off my plate. Funny how the "small" things get big so fast.

  • Bicycle Pacman Chases Ghost

    What a brilliant idea for the wheels of a bicycle!

  • Exercise + Food = Strong Mind

    BoingBoing points to another study showing exercise and proper eating being very beneficial to our brains. This complements the information in Make Smarter Children.

  • Grouping UNIONed Data

    Calling all programmers. Soliciting your help! The following is a bunch of coding stuff. Click MORE to view post.

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  • Malware Evilness

    HuntBar has got to be the worse thing I’ve ever encountered! It’s near impossible to remove and if I’m not mistaken it removes files as I install things. A service I extend to people is cleaning their machines of viruses and malware (spyware, adware, etc) but Huntbar has me questioning the sanity in this!

  • ICANN settles with Verisign

    Those not in the business might not know that Verisign owns Networking Solutions (until 1999 the only company allowed to sell domain names). Network Solutions was sold to Verisign from SAIC. SAIC is a fantastic company but due to the nature of their work can create good bureaucracy. Verisign still has ties to SAIC.

    ICANN oversees the assignment of domain names and ip addresses.

    The board of the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers said Wednesday it has approved a set of agreements settling a dispute between ICANN and VeriSign Inc. (VRSN) (VRSN).

    ICANN said the settlement includes a new registry agreement relating to the operation of the “.com” registry.

    I bet this settlement implies an increase in the cost of the .com tld.

  • Free USB Key From Microsoft

    Gizmodo turns us onto a Microsoft promotion giving away free USB key. Just log in with your .NET passport and answer 4 questions (the answers are on the above link). The key should arrive in 6-8 weeks.

  • Xanga has an rss feed

    Want to follow your child’s Xanga in a news reader but can’t find the rss feed? Fear not! Xanga has an rss feed.

    If you wanted to look at my Xanga, http://www.xanga.com/djuggler (yes, Xanga is for school kids. I set this up when comparing blogging software), in rss you first need to know that http://www.xanga.com/djuggler gets translated to http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=djuggler. Now change home to rss for the feed url to look like http://www.xanga.com/rss.aspx?user=djuggler

  • Norton Antivirus 2006 Prevents Viruses By Making Computer Unusable

    You know. Peter Norton was king of dos but when windows came out I think he got confused. But he’s reached new heights (er, lows) with Norton Antivirus 2006. Nav2006 brings WinXP to its knees! Symantec suggestions a solution. I just tried their solution and it is pathethic. Windows XP is totally non-responsive. To uninstall NAV I’m going to have to reboot into Safe Mode (F8 on booting) and run msconfig (start->run->msconfig) to turn off all Symantec references, reboot (since you can’t uninstall from safe mode), uninstall from the control panel, reboot, and install NAV2004 (in leau of nothing else for this client). Client recommendation: drop Norton Antivirus!

    I’ve been an advocate of Symantec for years but this is the last straw. Do NOT buy or install any Norton Antivirus software. There are far superior products in Kaspersky, AVG, Avast, and Trendmicro. The other "top dog&quot, McAfee, has lost their mind too. If I have to deal with the McAfee SecurityCenter on one more machine I’m liable to go looney.

  • Spyware

    For those trying to figure out if loadadv64 (probably in c:\windows\system32\loadadv64 is bad or not, it is bad. Delete it and the associated registry keys. See also and also.

  • Another Anti-PHP Rant

    Another person frustrated with PHP. Oh how I love ColdFusion!

  • Good programmer!

    I love it when I think "I need a document to _____." and then I find out that I’ve already written it. Documentation is such a good thing! Programmers that think they will "get around to documenting after the project" or that "no one ever uses documentation" must suffer a lot on maintenance projects or when additional work comes around. I bet they say "it would be cheaper and easier for me to just start over" a whole bunch.

  • DIY Satellites

    Cool! Now anyone can put junk into orbit!