Comment problem fixed -and- WordPress 1.5.1 released

Just fixed a comment problem on the board; the email address of a person writing a comment was not being logged properly. More info here for those interested WordPress bloggers….also note WP 1.5.1 was recently released as well.

BTW, as mentioned when you comment, your email address is ONLY logged in my database and will not be given to anyone else!! I would rarely even look at them. I do not do mailing lists, etc. I would only use it for personal followup on board topics, etc. If you’re willing to subject yourself to that rare possibility, then please leave your addy 🙂

Following up on that, to ensure your privacy, etc., I’ve decided to shut off the ’email is required’ feature, in order to allow people to post anonymously. But remember your IP is still logged, so don’t get carried away!

Firefox 1.0.4 released

Just FYI, in case you hadn’t heard, Firefox 1.0.4 was released, fixing the critical bugs discovered last week. As well as a couple minor fixes. Highly recommended update…

They gave him the finger, when he tried to give them the finger back

Since I posted previously about the (now-proven-false) finger in the Wendy’s chili, I knew I had to post one about the (now-proven-legit) finger in the custard. Seems a fellow found a finger in his custard he purchased, and it has been proven there was a 23-year old employee who lost it in the blender. Before they knew it, the custard had made it to a customer in the drive-thru.

And at first the customer refused to give it back to the man or his doctor, after discovering it at home! Meanwhile he’s been shown parading it around on TV, idiot! For crying out loud, it’s not yours, perhaps they could reattach it; but alas, now that he tried to give the finger back, he’s been told it’s too late to do any good. Now we don’t know the timelines, but I’m sure this guy went home and bit right into the finger, within hours more than likely? Why did no one try to return it? Apparently this was a small custard shop where the food was made onsite….

Amazing…that and the fact he even got the carton in his possession, why didn’t the manager shut the place down immediately when this guy yelped out in pain?

Yahoo! Music Engine beta released

Yahoo! has finally released the beta of their new music software, Yahoo! Music Engine, supposedly their answer to iTunes and Napster. Surprisingly it looks rather nice, meaning it has a nice, clean interface (read: no ads in the interface), in fact I’m using using the software already; they offer it at $4.99/month paid 12 mos. in advance, or $6.99 monthly fee, plus you can try it for 7 days free. So it’s quite a bargain from Napster which is $14.99/month for the same features (subscription-based access to any music you want). If you have a Yahoo! online account already, it will be used by this software.

They claim over 1,000,000 songs right now, and as I’m currently a MusicMatch user, whom they bought, I notice alot of similarities. In fact I know there’s a signifcant amount of shared code. The download was rather large, around 16MB, but it doesn’t seem as bloated as MM.

Do be forewarned that the installer has a ‘RealPlayer’-like option of installing a bunch of Yahoo!’s other tools with it. But the ‘engine only’ option is a good choice, albeit it still installed Yahoo! IM, as it’s one of the key features in the Music Engine. Not a big deal to me, I shut the IM off right away and the Engine works just fine.

Critical Firefox 1.0.3 exploit discovered

Wow, talk about fodder for the MS people, seems a new critical vulnerability has been discovered in Firefox 1.0.3. Basically a site could create and execute a local file, looks like something related to FF’s pseudo-ActiveX implementation?? Not an expert on that…

Anyhoo, looks like the only known fix is to remove all sites from your download whitelist in the Options. Would highly recommend that for everyone…

Opera 8.01 PR1 released, and update on FF

Due to some widespread problems for some users clicking on links, Opera 8.01 Preview 1 has been released. Mainly just bug fixes…

Also, to followup on my previous post, the 05/07 nightly (trunk) build of Firefox now seems to be stabler, and you can at least install extensions, although I think my problems were I was using an older profile; using a new profile, it works fine (duh!).

However, most of the current themes will break. Apparently there have been some changes in that realm, not surprisingly.

But in general, most extensions I use seem to work, although changing Options for them now involves changing them via user.js, as the Options window interaction for a majority of them seem to be buggy. And a few just won’t work (Tab Mix, etc.), including those that don’t conform to having a GUID as their internal ID; the latter is easily fixable by changing it in the install.rdf yourself before installing. But for the most part you can get a good jumpstart with the nightlies if you want.

In general, the speed-up is nice, but the speed of it and that of the UI is still much slower than Opera. Going back…

Firefox speeds up

Hmmm, Firefox has finally started addressing one of my big gripes, how slow it is when hitting the Back (or Forward) buttons. Opera’s long held the lead regarding that, and is a big reason I won’t consider switching full-time.

Beware, though, it’s very early and experimental, in fact it’s disabled in the nightlies by default. Interestingly they OK’d this to be checked into the trunk code whilst it is frozen except for ‘approved modifications’, as they work towards 1.1. Plus the current nightlies won’t load themes or extensions, so don’t know that I’ll be checking it out anytime soon.

Music collection update

Tonight, tomorrow, what’s the difference?

OK, here is an example of the very beginnings of my ‘quest to catalog my music’. I just put in a few albums, no particular order, and voila! The software I’m using is Music Collector from Collectorz.com. It was better than some of the alternatives, none of which (that I looked at) had any capability for barcode/ASIN lookup. I mean, come on, you expect me to search by artist name? No, I want to buy a $10 wedge and hook it up to my PC to scan away! Which is what I plan to do.

Plus as you can see, I can export to different file formats such as XML, Excel and HTML. Meaning I have alot of control over the final look of my export. What you see here is the default style; there are a few templates on their website or you can easily create your own via CSS, etc.

On another music-related note (ha, pun!), last nite I was picking up The Wife’s birthday gift (which is today btw, happy birthday!), and since it was electronics-based (a new iPod Mini) I went to the ol’ standby Best Buy. Here is why I loath..er, love shopping there. The person who helped me was a 16-year kid who had a lower voice than me, which considering I give thanks for mine to 10+ years of smoking, could only imagine how much he does (or maybe he just does the Reds, as I always smoked Lights). Which is not fair of me to say, I mean some kids actually were destined to have deep voices, but this kid was small and wiry and it just didn’t jive.

Anyway, back to my point, my helper, let’s call him James Earl Jones (JEJ for short), starts chatting while entering my life’s data into his checkout terminal. I had picked up a couple CDs for myself while there, and for some reason JEJ asks if I like Beck. ‘No’, I answer, ‘weak and overrated stuff’. Then he asks about Nine Inch Nails, at which point of course yesterday’s post pops into my head, when I proclaim, ‘nah, too monotonous, but I do love Filter’. Somehow I figured this kid, who was 6 years old when Filter’s first album came out, would actually know who they were. But I also figured the NIN connection could be in effect (Robert Patrick of Filter used to be in NIN before splitting out on his own). Yet nothing, the word Filter meant nothing to him (hmm, maybe he’s a Camel guy)…

Oh well, someday there’ll be radio stations with stuff like my music on for all to truly appreciate more than the drones of today, and they’ll call it ‘the classics’ and I’ll keep rocking into my old age….

What am I listening to?

The Wife said I should post more about music. Heh, I know it thrills her when I talk like that, ‘The Wife’…mmmwahahahahahahaha….just didn’t want to reveal her identity is all 😀

Anyway, so I guess I should add one of those ‘what I’m listening to’ sections to the site. That would be kind of cool I guess; I’ve also been working on getting my CD/MP3 collection logged and put up on the site. Just been somewhat slow going on that. I’ve got an example I’ll post tonite of what I’m working with, and I’ll share what the software is that I’m using (hint: I posted about a long time ago in this blog).

So until I have the new music section up, everyone’s assignment is to go listen to some Filter. If they aren’t one of the most under-the-radar bands…well, everyone knows who they are, their hook-laden songs made some noise (‘Take a Picture’, etc.), but only the true affficianados pay attention; overall, they are one of the best bands ever. And LOUD! That’s all I’ll say for now…

Been toying with Fuel again as well. ‘Sunburn’ was an awesome album, since then they got a little sappy with songs like ‘Hemorraghe…’, etc. But even listening to their latest album, I’m starting to dig them again (all their albums).

BTW, pay attention to the PC tools section as well; it’s been updated (and is ongoing)…

Microsoft gets serious about certs

Yikes, looks like an upcoming architect certification from Microsoft will be a little more in-depth than the current slew of tests. The MCAP is still in development, but it looks serious! Some steps sound simliar to the thesis process in graduate programs. Yikes again! Here I was thinking the MCSD was my target…

Up until now I’ve never been a fan of the certification tests, as they really just test your book knowledge (although I’ve heard Sun’s tests are daunting). Some people study for them by just taking and learning sample exams, etc. Which is fine for seasoned professionals, but for n00bs, it makes it hard for me to put any emphasis on it without actual experience. Which is why I don’t have many right now, seemed like fluff until now, but I’m starting down that path, as clients like it.

At least it’s good to see one certification will mean something beyond a written test…