Category: Geek Things

I've been playing a game on my iPod called "Zuma." It's hard to explain, but suffice it to say that it's a fun diversion. It's sort of a mix between a puzzle and an action game.

Someone needs to help them with their translations though... After each "temple" in the game (which consists of 3 levels), there's a bit of text. Here's a transcript:

Temple 1:

Interloper of puny! You suppose the secret of Zuma it is possible to take the knowing so easily? No! There is defect for your thinking! Three mystery shrines protect method! Never you will strike past them!

Temple 2:

I see what?!? You have lived still. Is it possible to be the one of which the ancient prophecy speaks? It was sent in order perhaps to release me from my wicked capture person finally. But no namely this was the story of the exactly old wive. You want to live, now retreat!

Temple 3:

As for me it is not possible to believe! Your power namely that is large! But there is one more temple which you do not find, that the Zuma deeply buried under the land. It was hidden, it is the temple of secret! You the final temple must fight in order to take the cover of position of my jail!!

Temple 4:

The final temple of Zuma was struck! Your extreme power is not possible to be defeated! As for me it can taste the taste whose almost freedom is sweet sweetly. But god of the sun can be imprisoned at only that true house.

We come from the star, return to the star! It is of you to rescue of my star.

Temple 5:

Excellent work, mighty frog one! You obtained your lawful place of the stars, at the side of the ancient ruler of the Zuma. In the future, as for me, you are known as our sibling. I will call you brother, and we control the outer space together! It is joyous news! Now we are to the dance!

It's actually pretty hilarious. I'm assuming it's a very direct translation from Japanese.

I have a new favorite friend. It's a plugin for WordPress called Akismet.

I've had Akismet installed for as long as I've had this Blog. I saw it as a sort of necessity. Even a little blog like mine that isn't even indexed by search engines might be a target for SPAM, right?

Up until about a week ago, the amount of SPAM that Akismet had protected this blog from was barely in the double digits. Somewhere around 12 comments had been flagged as SPAM since April, 2006. That's not bad.

Last week, the number jumped to 260. Someone found my blog and has been FLOODING it with SPAM. The only reason I knew? ONE comment made it through to "moderation." One comment. The rest were flagged as SPAM.

I love Akismet. If I had money, I would give some to Akismet. If I ever have a blog that makes money, I will license Akismet. Akismet RULES.

It's what happens to people that write software.  Often, the problems that we have aren't caused by the code that we write as much as they are caused by the configuration of the particular machine we're running in.

For example, many moons ago, I created a script that automagically backs up the databases on my server and emails them to my Gmail account.  The Gmail account automatically deletes these backups.  Since Gmail keeps 30 days of history in the trash, the practical upshot of this situation is a 30-day rolling backup of my databased.  Perfect!

Then, I changed from one host to another and the script quit working completely.  I messed around with it for an hour or two, but finally just gave up.

It turns out that on the one server, PHP was installed as a CGI module and on the other, it was installed as an Apache module.  All I had to do was add a "shebang" line to the beginning of the script that pointed to the php executable on the new server and BAM!  It started working again.  Woohoo!

I was also having some database problems that was causing a forum to completely not work.  One could view posts and topics and everything, but no new posts could be added.  That makes a forum pretty darned useless.

It was another configuration issue.  I had upgraded the database server and an obscure setting somewhere was changed during the upgrade.  When I finally found it, BAM!  It started working again.

It's always the little things that cause the big headaches.

I'm re-reading Douglas Adams' book Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. In the book, Adams explains my job in an interesting way:

"...If you really want to understand something, the best way is to try and explain it to someone else. That forces you to sort it out in your own mind. And the more slow and dim-witted your pupil, the more you have to break things down into more and more simple ideas. And that's really the essence of programming. By the time you've sorted out a complicated idea into little steps that even a stupid machine can deal with, you've certainly learned something about it yourself."

That's a pretty good description of what I do. Maybe that's why I like both programming and teaching so much.

I've volunteered to create a web site for some of my wife's extended family. I know, it's probably not the smartest move on my part. I'll become the de facto tech support representative when uncle whasshisname can't log in to something. But sometimes you look at the bigger picture and realize that you're doing something for the greater good.

Ha ha ha! The greater good. I kill me! Actually, my wife volunteered my services, but that's what wives are for, right? I mean, that's what a wife is for, right? (I wouldn't want polygamist misunderstandings.)

The family name is packer. Of course, thedomain name I wanted to register is packerfamily.somthing. So I checked into it.

• packerfamily.org - taken
• packerfamily.net - taken
• packerfamily.com - "This domain is for sale" site.

Since packerfamily.com is for sale, I thought I'd find out what the going rate is for domain names like packerfamily.com. I filled out the form and waited for a response from the seller, namegiant.com. Today, I received a response. Here it is in its entirety:

Hi Mr. Me,

Thank you for your enquiry.

A search for "packer family" shows approximately over 26,400 results from
Google.

Names such as packerfamily.com are very much in demand especially as
there are more than 60 MILLION domain names currently registered.

If you consider that just recently Fish.com sold for $1,020,000,
MyPremierCard.com for $135,250, JMM.com for $55,000 and
HorseSupplies.com $52,500 etc there have been many other
5 figure sales - I'm sure that our asking price could be considered
an investment for a domain of this quality.

The price of this domain is £? Great British Pounds or US$?
(close offers may be considered).
This is a one off payment for the rights to the domain, however you
will be responsible for paying the yearly registration (approx $30).

For a currency converter for other currencies please see

http://www.x-rates.com/calculator.html

Please note:

Transactions are extremely straightforward, totally secure, and can
be completed within 24 hours from start to finish.

The sale of the name can take place in one of the following ways,

ESCROW
Escrow act as a 3rd party by holding funds until the transfer is
complete and YOU approve. You may pay Escrow by Credit Card,
Cheque, Wire transfer or whatever method is most convenient for you.
Escrow usually take around 24/36 hours to clear your payment.
(Due to a recent change in Escrow's policy, we can now only accept
US$ payments via Escrow).

Escrow charge a 6% fee which the buyer will need to pay.

PAYPAL
Registration with PayPal takes a couple of minutes and you could
then make payment using any credit card or online cheque. This
would usually be the quickest method and you could be using your
new domain literally within minutes.

It is free to register with Paypal and you will not have to pay any
transactions fees!

Please use info@namegiant.com to set up any of the above
transactions.

Payment can also be made via wire transfer or a UK cheque.
Once payment has been made, we send you the current domain
passwords and you then access your domain, set up details and set
new passwords of your choice thus taking complete control of your
domain.
Alternatively, you are welcome to transfer the domain to any registrar
of your choice.

If you wish to secure this domain or have any further questions,
please do not hesitate to contact us.

Kind Regards,

First of all... Enquiry?? What the heck is an enquiry?

I'm sure that you noticed that in order to preserve some suspense, I've replaced the coffee they normally drink with Folgers Crystals. Let's see if they notice.

Ha ha ha! Folgers Crystals. I kill me! I actually replaced the amounts referenced in the email with red question marks because I want you to guess how much they might want to charge for the domain name packerfamily.com.

Is it more than one million dollars like fish.com? Of course not. Is it more than a hundred thirty five thousand dollars? Nope. It's not a hundred thousand dollars, not fifty thousand dollars. It's not thirty thousand dollars or even twenty thousand dollars. This domain name can be yours for seven easy payments of only...

Ha ha ha! Seven easy payments. I KILL me! But not as bad as these dumb domain squatters kill me. They want to charge seven thousand Great British Pounds. That's $13,930 in real money.

Seriously, they want me to pay almost fourteen THOUSAND dollars for a domain name.

Here's my reply in its entirety:

Hey bozo,

NO WAY! You can keep your stupid domain name. I'm going home to play with my OWN toys.

Signed,

Mister Me.

Ha ha ha! Hey bozo. I KILL ME!! Here's the REAL response:

This is a joke, right?

Seriously, US$13,930 for a domain name for which I can see no commercial use?? Look at the domain name again: packerFAMILY.com. If it were something like rockefellerfamily.com or trumpfamily.com, I could see asking such a ridiculous amount, but packerfamily.com?

How about $50?

DeShawn

I doubt they'll respond. I'm already planning on registering an alternate domain name which is available right now for the low, low price of NOTHING.

Stoopid dumb domain squatters.

I'm playing with a Wordpress theme generator that allows you to create a Wordpress theme without having to muck about with all of the different files. You simply pick your colors and fonts and everything and it generates all of the files for you. It's quite a handy tool.

When I'm done, I'll probably go back to the one I was using before. But this is a good way of testing different color schemes and seeing if they REALLY work before I actually invest too much time in designing a web site with the color scheme. Sometimes seeing something on a virtual swatch card is very different from seeing those same colors in a web site.

So for now, please ignore my theme. This is only a test. If it were a real theme that I had created on my own, airsickness bags would have been provided.

One of my favorite humor sites, bbspot, has an annual geek limerick contest. Today, I entered:

When you’re losing that chic geek physique,
Which is often more rotund than sleek,
Just eat healthy fodder,
And drink lots of water,
And do nothing but Wii for a week.

They announce winners in April.

I just finished upgrading WordPress. They had a major release (called Ella, after the great Ella Fitzgerald). Unfortunately, the blue curves theme that I was using was somehow not compatible with the new version of WordPress, so until I have time to find a new one, this is the look of my blog.

It really looks like a good release so far. I'll try it out for a while, and after I'm sure it's going to work well, I'll migrate the other WordPress blogs that I maintain.

Since I had to move this site because someone is a filthy spammer, I decided to check my spam folder in my gMail account to see what it is that spammers are trying to tell me.

Today, they are telling me that I need product X so that I'll fit into a bikini and that I need viagra, cheap and with out a prescription. WHAT?? Um... Generally speaking, I would need either one or the other, wouldn't I? If I were the type to wear a bikini, viagra wouldn't really help me with a problem dealing with parts that generally aren't found under bikinis. If I need viagra AND I'm into wearing bikinis, then I have a feeling that I might actually go to the viagra SPAM site, because I'll need to spend time with a shrink, not a physician...

It's a bit of a bad thing when you wake up in the morning and find that a rather important email bounced.

Every morning when I'm snuggled deep in my warm bed, an automated process launches itself, backs up all of my databases, and emails the resulting file to my gmail account. Gmail is a good thing. As soon as the email arrives at Gmail, I have a rule that deletes the email immediately. I can hear you now. You're saying "What the?? Then why even BOTHER sending the email in the first place?!?" Well, there's a reason behind this seeming insanity. Gmail keeps deleted emails for 30 days. So what I end up with is a 30-day rolling backup in my Gmail trash bin.

I created this little system back when I had a problem with my web host. Someone hacked their server and put an IRC bot on my account, so they banned me without warning. Normally, I would just switch providers, but unfortunately, I didn't have a recent backup. Once I explained to the web host what I thought had happened, they were (fortunately) very nice and reinstated my account. That's when I decided to DO something about the lack of backups and the above-explained backup system.

Long tangent. Sorry. But it's the backup system that alerted me to a new problem with the web host. My email with the backed-up database files is the important email that bounced. Here's the message that was reported:

This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its
recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

@gmail.com
SMTP error from remote mail server after end of data:
host gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com [72.14.205.27]:
550-5.7.1 Our system has detected an unusual amount of unsolicited
550-5.7.1 mail originating from your IP address. To protect our
550-5.7.1 users from spam, mail sent from your IP address has been
550-5.7.1 rejected. Please visit
550-5.7.1 http://www.google.com/mail/help/bulk_mail.html to review
550 5.7.1 our Bulk Email Senders Guidelines. e13si3902388qba

In other words, Google is blocking email originating from my IP address due to SPAM originating from my IP address. GREAT.

The web host I'm in the process of dumping has been pretty good. The problem is that I'm only paying for shared hosting. This means that there are probably umpteen gazillion web sites on the same server as my web site. All umpteen gazillion of them share the same IP address. This means, in effect, that someone else on this shared server probably WAS sending SPAM, and that caused the IP address to be put on the Google blacklist. I'm probably not the only unhappy camper in this situation.

I think I've found a cure to that problem, and for only $3 more per month than I was paying. I'm moving to something called a "Virtual Private Server," or VPS. A VPS still puts a lot of sites on one server, but from both inside and outside the server, it looks like it's its own separate machine. They use Virtualization Technology to make it appear as if my site is the only site on the physical machine. I will also be the only one using the IP address assigned to my account, so if there's SPAM, I know that I've been hacked or someone is spoofing, not that some other JERK using the same IP address is actually spamming. At that point, I can use my knowledge of network security to fix the problem.

So... If you're reading this article, the DNS has resolved and everything has switched over. There will be glitches here and there, but I'm sure to be happier in my new corner of the Internet.