A story
By: userlame
©2006 userlame.com All rights reserved to everyone

Today, I was peacefully sleeping, as I am wont to do, when an important lesson was heaped upon me. As I lay in my bed, dreaming my happy dreams, a horrific tragedy was brewing not 10 feet from my listless self.

About 1:10 P.M. CST I was awoken by the sound of a loud *POP* and my kitty [userlame.com] flew from his post asleep by my side. Across my stomach he ran, eliciting a guttural "ugh" from deep within. I sprang from my slumber with a brief photogene of light dancing across my eyes.

"wtf?!," I said as I began to panic. "Did the power just surge?" It was raining outside, and I have two fans in my windows running pretty much constantly to keep this datacenter I call a bedroom cool. Could water have leaked in causing a short?

Around my room I ran, seeking out the cause of this disturbance. Nothing that I could find seemed to coincide with what I had heard or believed I had seen. The only evidence I had that anything had happened was the fact that my desktop had mysteriously powered off.

I dug deeper and deeper and still found nothing. I moved the aforementinoed fans, turned them off, checked for water, and still nothing. Satisfied that nothing was currently shorting, or going to explode, I attempted to power the desktop back on. Nothing. I clicked the power supply off and back on again, and still nothing. "Oh shit," I thought to myself, "everything else plugged in to the same power strip is still on. Nothing else has been affected save my desktop." Finding no other causes I decided to make sure the thing was still plugged in. Not that I saw how it could be otherwise, but I had gone through all other things I could find.

So under my desk I went searching for the power cord trailed from the desktop machine. And there, dear friends, is where I found the moral of this little tale. And the moral is this:

DON'T USE CHEAP POWER CABLES.



This cable was just a cheap little number that had been provided with the cheap little power supply that came with my case. And somehow, evidently, the cable had acquired a short inside that picked this very moment to fry. Note also that the cable had not moved, nor was there any other environmental cause for this failure to occur at this time. Random happenstance, it seems.

There is a happy ending to the story, however. I replaced the power cable and my desktop has been once again brought to life. Phew.

So let me reiterate in case you missed it the first time:

DON'T USE CHEAP POWER CABLES.

Thank you, and good night.

A story
By: userlame
©2006 userlame.com All rights reserved to everyone

Today, I was peacefully sleeping, as I am wont to do, when an important lesson was heaped upon me. As I lay in my bed, dreaming my happy dreams, a horrific tragedy was brewing not 10 feet from my listless self.

About 1:10 P.M. CST I was awoken by the sound of a loud *POP* and my kitty [userlame.com] flew from his post asleep by my side. Across my stomach he ran, eliciting a guttural "ugh" from deep within. I sprang from my slumber with a brief photogene of light dancing across my eyes.

"wtf?!," I said as I began to panic. "Did the power just surge?" It was raining outside, and I have two fans in my windows running pretty much constantly to keep this datacenter I call a bedroom cool. Could water have leaked in causing a short?

Around my room I ran, seeking out the cause of this disturbance. Nothing that I could find seemed to coincide with what I had heard or believed I had seen. The only evidence I had that anything had happened was the fact that my desktop had mysteriously powered off.

I dug deeper and deeper and still found nothing. I moved the aforementinoed fans, turned them off, checked for water, and still nothing. Satisfied that nothing was currently shorting, or going to explode, I attempted to power the desktop back on. Nothing. I clicked the power supply off and back on again, and still nothing. "Oh shit," I thought to myself, "everything else plugged in to the same power strip is still on. Nothing else has been affected save my desktop." Finding no other causes I decided to make sure the thing was still plugged in. Not that I saw how it could be otherwise, but I had gone through all other things I could find.

So under my desk I went searching for the power cord trailed from the desktop machine. And there, dear friends, is where I found the moral of this little tale. And the moral is this:

DON'T USE CHEAP POWER CABLES.



This cable was just a cheap little number that had been provided with the cheap little power supply that came with my case. And somehow, evidently, the cable had acquired a short inside that picked this very moment to fry. Note also that the cable had not moved, nor was there any other environmental cause for this failure to occur at this time. Random happenstance, it seems.

There is a happy ending to the story, however. I replaced the power cable and my desktop has been once again brought to life. Phew.

So let me reiterate in case you missed it the first time:

DON'T USE CHEAP POWER CABLES.

Thank you, and good night.

In most window managers, you can resize windows by holding alt and right-clicking anywhere in the window. Drag to resize.

Similarly, you can move windows by holding alt and left-clicking anywhere in the window. Drag to move.

Features that I find helpful, and most people I see using linux seem to miss.

Guess what! You get a bonus second tip for nothing. I just found this cool online imager [codefromthe70s.org] for the earth at whatever time of day it is. Makes a desktop sized image. So...a little bash comes together and you have an automatic updating background. Change the variables to your liking before using it.

----

#!/bin/bash

# Simple bash script to change your desktop background to a realtime image of the earth
# at a specified interval.
# Set the variables to your liking. Exits on the next cycle if X isn't running.

RUNNING=$(ps -e | grep $(basename $0))
if [ -n "$RUNNING" ]; then
exit
fi

# Use the following values for focus:
# 1 = Center on noon wherever that is
# 2 = Center on midnight wherever that is
# 4 = Europe and Africa
# 5 = The Americas
# 6 = Asia and Australia
FOCUS="5"
SCREENWIDTH="1680"
SCREENHEIGHT="1050"
WALLPAPERFILE="$HOME/.newestearth.png"
REFRESHCMD="fbsetbg -c $WALLPAPERFILE >/dev/null 2>&1"
REFRESHAFTER=600 # Time, in seconds

#initial startup delay
sleep 5
while [ 1 ]; do
XRUNNING=$(ps -e | grep 'xinit')
if [ -n "$XRUNNING" ]; then
LINK="http://codefromthe70s.org/bin/desktopearthgen.exe?\
width=${SCREENWIDTH}&height=${SCREENHEIGHT}&center=${FOCUS}&utc=$(date +%s)"
wget --quiet -O $WALLPAPERFILE $LINK
$REFRESHCMD
sleep $REFRESHAFTER
else
exit
fi
done

----

Throw that into a file, make it executable, and put it in your .xinitrc (background it) and there you go.

[Man, do I want those [code] tags done]

I was kind of out of it when I wrote that and new features have been added to the images...here's a slightly better version:

#!/bin/bash

# Simple bash script to change your desktop background to a realtime image of the earth
# at a specified interval.
# Set the variables to your liking. Exits on the next cycle if X isn't running.

LOCKFILE="$HOME/.desktopearth.lock"
PIDFILE="$HOME/.desktopearth.pid"
if [ -f "$LOCKFILE" ]; then
  echo "$0 already running"
  echo "Otherwise clean up $LOCKFILE and $PIDFILE"
  exit
fi
touch $LOCKFILE
echo $$ > $PIDFILE

# Use the following values for focus (where the image is centered):

# 1 = Noon wherever that is
# 2 = Midnight
# 3 = Sunset
# 4 = Sunrise
# 5 = Europe and Africa
# 6 = The Americas
# 7 = Asia and Australia
FOCUS="7"
SCREENWIDTH="1680"
SCREENHEIGHT="1050"
# Generate bars if necessary
BARS="1"
CLOUDS="1"
WALLPAPERFILE="$HOME/.newestearth.png"
REFRESHCMD="fbsetbg -c $WALLPAPERFILE 1>/dev/null 2>/dev/null"
REFRESHAFTER=600 # Time, in seconds
LINK="http://codefromthe70s.org/bin/desktopearthgen.exe\
?width=${SCREENWIDTH}\
&height=${SCREENHEIGHT}\
&center=${FOCUS}\
&bars=${BARS}\
&clouds=${CLOUDS}\
&utc=$(date +%s)"

trap "PAUSED=TRUE" SIGUSR1
trap "unset PAUSED" SIGUSR2
trap "rm $LOCKFILE; rm $PIDFILE" EXIT
#initial startup delay
sleep 5
while [ 1 ]; do
  XRUNNING=$(ps -e | grep 'xinit')
  if [ -n "$XRUNNING" ]; then
    if [ $PAUSED ]; then
     echo "PAUSED"
    else
      wget --quiet -O $WALLPAPERFILE $LINK
      $REFRESHCMD
    fi
    sleep $REFRESHAFTER
  else
    exit
  fi
done

This one also implements a pause which is nice if you don't want to download a huge picture for a while. To use it just send it SIGUSR1 to pause and SIGUSR2 to unpause like

[you@yourbox]$ kill -SIGUSR1 `cat $HOME/.desktopearth.pid`

You could even alias these in your initrc (that's what I do -- [un]pausedesktop). Have fun.

P.S. The focus has gotten all wonky in the latest version of this thing. Play with it till you find the right one.

...when a critical hard drive in a webserver dies? Keep watching.

Anyone wanna shell out some $$ for a new drive or 3 for me? Didn't think so.

I'm just gonna let this thing run itself into the ground. Backups never fail, right? ...right?

No longer being used. This thread will live on forever.

And you haven't heard from the myriad of other places talking about it, go get firefox 1.5 [mozilla.com]! After ughing along with the last version this one feels pretty damn slick. It makes me a lot happier with my browsing.

And you haven't heard from the myriad of other places talking about it, go get firefox 1.5 [mozilla.com]! After ughing along with the last version this one feels pretty damn slick. It makes me a lot happier with my browsing.

This [masswerk.at] is the coolest thing I have ever seen javascript do. That made me say wow.

This is a slim *nix-alike terminal completely written in javascript.

This [masswerk.at] is the coolest thing I have ever seen javascript do. That made me say wow.

This is a slim *nix-alike terminal completely written in javascript.

I have been wracking myself for the last day and a half over one stupid function. I'm going to be using xmlhttp on the new userlame.com to load up some stuff dynamically in pages that shouldn't take a whole refresh. Like the "Show preview" things. Well I had one STUPID function that wouldn't work and kept giving me nonsensical crap. Turns out I forgot one simple little "var" inside a function -- a function that recurses -- so that variable became a global, got overwritten on recursion, etc. And it was a pain to figure out what was wrong! So well...if anyone needs a javascript function to turn an xml node into an html element (turning all child nodes of the xml node into html elements as well) here it is:

function XMLNodeToHTMLElement(XMLNode, elementType) {
if (XMLNode == null) { return; }
var HTMLElement = document.createElement(elementType);
var attributes = XMLNode.attributes;
if (attributes) { var attrCount = attributes.length; }
for (var i=0; i<attrCount; i++) { HTMLElement.setAttribute(attributes[i].nodeName, attributes[i].nodeValue); }
for (var j=0; j<XMLNode.childNodes.length; j++) {
var child = XMLNode.childNodes[j];
if (child.nodeType == 1) {
HTMLElement.insertBefore(XMLNodeToHTMLElement(child, child.tagName), null);
}
if (child.nodeType == 3) {
HTMLElement.appendChild(document.createTextNode(child.nodeValue));
}
}
return HTMLElement;
}

Gah...I'll be happy when the new site is up so I can use [code][/code] tags.

So if you wanted a div from an xml node called xmlnode you would call it like this:
var newDiv = XMLNodeToHTMLElement(xmlnode, 'div');

Ta-friggin-da. That took me forEVER to figure out why it didn't work. I KNEW it was correct. Just don't call it on any xml node that contains anything but html. Untested, and I'm pretty sure that'll break it. Actually, no it shouldn't, but I have no idea what that would do in your browser. I'm pretty sure gecko at least would just leave it as a node with no display attributes. *shrug*

Note: character entities will break this function. Don't send something like &hearts; through it to get ♥. It will break it.

Yep [technewsworld.com].

But Hitachi's got the sweet, sweet video [hitachigst.com] explaining perpendicular storage. That was a great watch.

Yep [technewsworld.com].

But Hitachi's got the sweet, sweet video [hitachigst.com] explaining perpendicular storage. That was a great watch.

I was letting a few domains I had expire cause I didn't have the money to keep em around for nothing. Kinda forgot that I had my dns servers registered as under one of those domains. I started wondering why my last email was from 2 days ago. It took me about 15 minutes before I figured out what was going on.

Sorry if you couldn't get to the site due to improper DNS. My bad.

Anyone wanna renew me a few domain names?

I was letting a few domains I had expire cause I didn't have the money to keep em around for nothing. Kinda forgot that I had my dns servers registered as under one of those domains. I started wondering why my last email was from 2 days ago. It took me about 15 minutes before I figured out what was going on.

Sorry if you couldn't get to the site due to improper DNS. My bad.

Anyone wanna renew me a few domain names?

I just saw this [strangehorizons.com] posted on digg [digg.com], and the title was enough to make me click. It's old, but it gave me a good laugh and I though I'd share.

I just saw this [strangehorizons.com] posted on digg [digg.com], and the title was enough to make me click. It's old, but it gave me a good laugh and I though I'd share.

Woops! I just noticed a bug on the site. Since the board "main" (and other boards once the new site goes live) is really made up of threads from other boards, the "last post" preview section if the last post in a board is to a thread on the front page -- and "last thread" as well if the last thread in a board is to the front page -- are borked. I'm making two previews with the same ids. That won't work.

Try it out. Click the preview for "last thread" in the lounge [userlame.com] right now. It opens the preview up at the top under the main board. It'll work anytime a last post or thread in a board is to a front page thread.

I'm mostly writing this out so I can come back and look at it while I'm working on the new site.

Hrrrrrrrrmmmmmm...

Also while I'm here...Posting links...anything linked within the site should not be tagged as ref="external".

If you declare a class member as static you can't access it through an instance variable. It must be accessed with classname|self|parent::$staticmember.

This caused me some wicked problems that I couldn't find for a long time. My head is still spinning a bit.

If you declare a class member as static you can't access it through an instance variable. It must be accessed with classname|self|parent::$staticmember.

This caused me some wicked problems that I couldn't find for a long time. My head is still spinning a bit.

Nothing's perfect. In case you haven't noticed, I like this browser [mozilla.org]. But really. Quit using IE [theregister.com].

Nothing's perfect. In case you haven't noticed, I like this browser [mozilla.org]. But really. Quit using IE [theregister.com].

I hear that [theregister.com].

Jan 10 10:28:27 orion postfix/smtp[1607]: warning: no MX host for xerophthalmic.biz has a valid A record
Jan 10 10:28:27 orion postfix/smtp[1607]: 1F852B5223: to=<of38keasdk4t6rki36d57pgrpxy@xerophthalmic.biz>, relay=none, delay=65019, status=deferred (Host or domain name not found. Name service error for name=mx.xerophthalmic.biz type=A: Host not found, try again)
Jan 4 17:48:39 orion postfix/smtp[17507]: warning: no MX host for underproof.org has a valid A record
Jan 4 17:48:39 orion postfix/smtp[17507]: E4BF2B5221: to=<mfw8y6dnno2yj.pp3plzxniuy4we@underproof.org>, relay=none, delay=21, status=deferred (Host or domain name not found. N
ame service error for name=mx.underproof.org type=A: Host not found, try again)
Dec 26 04:54:58 orion postfix/smtp[29206]: warning: no MX host for dept2lowest.com has a valid A record
Dec 26 04:54:58 orion postfix/smtp[29206]: B802EB5883: to=<Julianneiobtn@dept2lowest.com>, relay=none, delay=79979, status=deferred (Host or domain name not found. Name service
error for name=www.dept2lowest.com type=A: Host not found, try again)
Dec 26 05:45:00 orion postfix/smtp[29450]: warning: no MX host for bookstall1clamper.com has a valid A record
Dec 26 05:45:00 orion postfix/smtp[29450]: 5D7A6B588A: to=<Jonbbcfl@bookstall1clamper.com>, relay=none, delay=43982, status=deferred (Host or domain name not found. Name servic
e error for name=www.bookstall1clamper.com type=A: Host not found, try again)
Dec 26 06:01:41 orion postfix/smtp[29627]: warning: no MX host for dept2lowest.com has a valid A record
Dec 26 06:01:41 orion postfix/smtp[29627]: B802EB5883: to=<Julianneiobtn@dept2lowest.com>, relay=none, delay=83982, status=deferred (Host or domain name not found. Name service
error for name=www.dept2lowest.com type=A: Host not found, try again)

There's plenty more where that came from.

I hear that [theregister.com].

Jan 10 10:28:27 orion postfix/smtp[1607]: warning: no MX host for xerophthalmic.biz has a valid A record
Jan 10 10:28:27 orion postfix/smtp[1607]: 1F852B5223: to=<of38keasdk4t6rki36d57pgrpxy@xerophthalmic.biz>, relay=none, delay=65019, status=deferred (Host or domain name not found. Name service error for name=mx.xerophthalmic.biz type=A: Host not found, try again)
Jan 4 17:48:39 orion postfix/smtp[17507]: warning: no MX host for underproof.org has a valid A record
Jan 4 17:48:39 orion postfix/smtp[17507]: E4BF2B5221: to=<mfw8y6dnno2yj.pp3plzxniuy4we@underproof.org>, relay=none, delay=21, status=deferred (Host or domain name not found. N
ame service error for name=mx.underproof.org type=A: Host not found, try again)
Dec 26 04:54:58 orion postfix/smtp[29206]: warning: no MX host for dept2lowest.com has a valid A record
Dec 26 04:54:58 orion postfix/smtp[29206]: B802EB5883: to=<Julianneiobtn@dept2lowest.com>, relay=none, delay=79979, status=deferred (Host or domain name not found. Name service
error for name=www.dept2lowest.com type=A: Host not found, try again)
Dec 26 05:45:00 orion postfix/smtp[29450]: warning: no MX host for bookstall1clamper.com has a valid A record
Dec 26 05:45:00 orion postfix/smtp[29450]: 5D7A6B588A: to=<Jonbbcfl@bookstall1clamper.com>, relay=none, delay=43982, status=deferred (Host or domain name not found. Name servic
e error for name=www.bookstall1clamper.com type=A: Host not found, try again)
Dec 26 06:01:41 orion postfix/smtp[29627]: warning: no MX host for dept2lowest.com has a valid A record
Dec 26 06:01:41 orion postfix/smtp[29627]: B802EB5883: to=<Julianneiobtn@dept2lowest.com>, relay=none, delay=83982, status=deferred (Host or domain name not found. Name service
error for name=www.dept2lowest.com type=A: Host not found, try again)

There's plenty more where that came from.

If you're gonna wardrive [urbandictionary.com] for a free network to hack [read: crack] from, I'd recommend just doing what you want to do and getting the hell out. Or else [theregister.com].

Follow up:

Looks like the guys's getting 9 years [msnbc.msn.com]. Damn. Longest computer crime sentence ever.

apparently.

i suppose it could be neat.

Finally. I'll be web-slinging in no time.

::::incomming feed:::::

Greetings, we come in peace and to give you lots of phat info for hacking,moding,and piratin...I mean legally buying things.

So let's begin shal we...we'll before the CIA,and FBI took down this site for being too cool. We had some great info(stuff I'll link back at a later date)In the meantime inbetween time feast you eyes on widgets (yeah so i was pressed for time piss off)

Yes widgets are handy dandy little gadgets for the copy to eother make it look pretty,or increase it's usfulness. Here's the links
and enjoy.

widgets,and desktop stuff

:you tell those ass-worshiping rim-jobbers im only doin' this once a week:

:john your on:

Greeting you wondering people! Whilst I was piddling on the floor with news of my 2nd favorite band's new album I shall indulge in some quality info on how to be 1337 likeI want to be ... LIKE I AM I mean. I know some of you "lose" your cd key for authorization if games, programs, etc. Which is why this link is for you. If it doesn't have everykey you need , well then do a google serch...but it's pretty reliable. Neeext, if I wanted to send something to someone somewhere, and it was too big for e-mail...and takes too long I would want to go through GROUPER!

Finaly, we have a program that simulates an osx feel to windows
the program is calledWinPLOSION


Thats all for now
Be excellent to each other, and PARTY ON DUDES!

I would like to take back what I said about the D-Link DI-524. It is not a piece of poo. I have found the problem I was having (sort of) and the blame lies not there, but with the D-Link DWL-G630 PCMCIA card I got packaged with the router. Now, the card itself is pretty decent, as I've now found. HOWEVER, D-Link, you need to get your shit together. This card was only connecting at 1 Mbps (or very rarely 2) and would drop a connection under full load. Which means I try to transfer a big file from inside my lan to my laptop and BAM. No connection.

But there is a solution! I found through a post [dslrcs.clanspace.com] on dslreports that I wasn't the only one experiencing this problem. Luckily I found the solution here instead of wrenching through 598721345901 different things until maybe I would have found this myself. By recommendation on that site, I downloaded and installed drivers for the Asus WL-138g card (which uses the same chipset) and holy hell. It works like a charm. Full 54 Mbps speed, connection doesn't drop every 2 minutes, it's great!

So like I said, D-Link needs to get it's shit together. If you happen to pick up this card, I strongly recommend picking up the asus driver [ftp.asus.com.tw] [edit: link broken - see below] instead of the one it comes with and using that. I think I'm going to shoot off an email to D-Link and tell them their drivers suck donkey nuts.

I hope someone happens by this and it helps.

P.S. This problem seems to only be related to using WPA-PSK on this card. But I'll be damned if I was going to go down to WEP or completely open and unencrypted.

Edit: I noticed a few people coming here through googling this driver so I figured I'd fix the link. You can download the driver from asus here [asus.com] (please try this link first), or I've hosted the zip here [userlame.com] as well. And hey, if this helps you out, join my forums and let me know! I might actually be encouraged to post more shit and help others.

I dunno, I'm using it now and it hasn't dropped yet. I did move the antenna a bit and I moved it back just a second ago, but I didn't move it that much. :shrug:

...I know I have been for a while. So when a super deal came along for a wireless pci card, pcmcia card, and a router I thought sweet! I'm picking that up! Well, I'd now like to give an in-depth review of the D-Link DI-524 802.11G Wireless Router:



And that concludes my review. Questions?

i like poo.

Yeah here's another piece of advice. Don't ever do what you just did today again. Better yet, prepare for it as though you were going to. BACKUPBACKUPBACKUP YOU FOOL!

Yeah here's another piece of advice. Don't ever do what you just did today again. Better yet, prepare for it as though you were going to. BACKUPBACKUPBACKUP YOU FOOL!