Open source software is unique in that if there’s a feature you want added to an application you have everything you need (except maybe the skill) to add it yourself. That probably isn’t news to anybody reading this entry. Of course, “unique” may not be the right word… there are applications that aren’t really open source, per se, but still come with the source code that can be modified. MovableType is one of those applications. You may have noticed that the past couple days I’ve had my SETI@home stats on the left side of this page. That was done using MovableType’s plug-in architecture and really doesn’t rely on the fact that MovableType comes with the source code. I’ll probably submit the very-simple code for that to MT’s plug-in database in the near future. Slightly more difficult and less noticeable was the change from “Recent Entries” to “Recently Archived” over on the left (of the main index). It never made sense to me that there were links on the left side for entries that were right there on the front page. I wanted instead to have links to the entries that just recently moved off the front page. As I started digging into it I realized that it would require some code changes. Once I figured out exactly what to change, it wasn’t all that difficult and I now have links to items that are 15-23 days old (and therefore recently moved off the index for which the threshold is 14 days).
New parts purchased/assembled
Being the impatient person that I am, I went ahead and purchased some pieces to upgrade my old 400MHz computer into something that I can use to play Star Wars Galaxies. I bought an AMD 2500+ processor and an Abit NF7 motherboard from a local computer shop (Mouse House). I then went to Best Buy and bought 512MB of DDR RAM (for $40 after rebate!!) and a PNY GeFORCE FX 5200. One thing I didn’t get that I really should is a hard drive… the only one I had laying around is a really old 3.2 GB drive!! I guess that hurts my chances of actually seeing how this game looks tonight :(.
Star Wars Galaxies
After reading the review on slashdot, I decided to go out and buy Star Wars Galaxies. Unfortunately for me, the video card in my laptop (an HP Pavilion ze1250) doesn’t seem to be up to the task of launching this game. It was, of course, able to get through the part where I signed up for an account an gave my credit card number. I guess my choices now are either to cancel that account or buy/build a new machine. I must admit that the idea of putting together a new machine does appeal to me on some level, though I’m not really sure if I should do that, financially speaking. I think all I would need is a motherboard/processor and a video card. I’m pretty sure I have other hardware laying around that would by acceptable… I think I’ve almost convinced myself to do this 🙂
Neat* blog tools
I’ve come across some blog tools that I thought were kinda neat recently and figured I’d tell about them here in case anybody else agrees with me. Interestingly enough, they all seem to index my blog. I think I submitted it to BlogDigger once and MovableType pings weblogs.com, but I don’t recall submitting it to any of the others.
- Weblogs.com – Just a list of recently updated blogs; MovableType can be configured to automatically ping it.
- BlogDigger – A search engine for blog entries. There’s a link on the front page to add your blog to the index.
- Feedster – Another search engine for blog entries. This one is highly recommended by Asa.
- Technorati – This service appears to have a few features but the one that came to my attention was the ability to enter a URL and see who’s linked to it. I actually found this one by looking at my referrer logs.
- Mozilla Related Blogs – Even though I have a link to this one already I may as well mention it. It’s a really cool listing of people’s blogs who are related to the Mozilla project (because of my Bugzilla work, mine is there) and even includes information on when said blog was last updated (it’s really handy :).
What’s mentioned here probably doesn’t even scratch the surface of what’s available out there, but I thought they were kinda neat.
* I don’t know why I used the word “neat” (and so many times).
Developers Profiles Page online
Just got the OK from Dave to check-in the developers profiles page (one of my stated goals for this week off work). Once all the CVS stuff cycles, which might happen before I get this entry done, the page should be available on bugzilla.org‘s web page. Looking at my other stated goals for this week, I don’t think I made it. I did get some doc updates checked in (though I haven’t compiled yet), but I didn’t get any other bugs even worked on nor did I get all the cleaning I wanted to get done even close to completed. Tomorrow isn’t really going to get anything accomplished either, as I plan to go see the Air Fair.
Coordinated hacker attack?
According to ISS there’s a massive hacker (or should that be cracker?) attack brewing for Sunday, July 6. This event was apparently dubbed the Defacers Challenge [NOTE: That web site was taken down yesterday]. The story has made it’s way to ComputerWorld, slashdot, many other news sites, and a few blogs. Even though I’m sure my everything on my system is properly patched (my Red Hat Network Alert tool has a blue check), I shut down any service I can live without for the next few days. Whether or not this started as a prank, I’m sure some script kiddies will take it seriously.
Bugzilla Documentation updates
I think I got the sections of the docs that were outdated updated (mainly the LDAP Auth and charset sections). I haven’t recompiled the docs yet so what you see on the website is still the old information. I’ll probably do that (recompile) toward the end of the week in case I find time to do some more updates (and there are plenty to go around).
Higher priority right now is to get some cleaning and laundry done. Both my bedroom and computer room are disaster areas right now… my bedroom because of my two recent “vacations” has all kinds of cloths laying around. My computer room is mainly messy because of the slight rearranging I did yesterday. I moved my computer so it’s power supply exhaust fan is more or less pointing out the window. Hopefully that will help with the heat problem back here (there’s too much of it).
Shifting gears a little, have you noticed any improvements in spelling for this blog? I installed MTSpeling on Monday so now when I click the “Preview” button I get red letters for words that ispell doesn’t think are words. I actually had quite of few of them in this post; mostly typos, though.
I got my laptop back
I got my laptop back from Circuit City yesterday. According to the form I got with it they repaired (or replaced), of all things, the touchpad. Not really the device that would have lept to my mind, but it seems to be working better. It does still do that message about restoring the registry from backup every now and then, but it’s done that almost since the day I bought it… and I’m still not sure why (probably something retarted w/WinXP).
Now that my laptop is back online I was also able to get my Quicken information updated. I’m actually not as far in debt as I thought I would still be. In fact, had I not just had my vehical in the shop for a bunch of little repairs, I’d be in the black. A big helper in getting me closer to out of debt was the fact that MCC finally sent me my check from tuition assistance.
MALUG June 2003 Meeting
Our monthly MALUG meeting was today. Tim Gray once again had some really neat information to distribute about animation on linux. Even though I’ll probably never figure it out, I did find it fascinating. He talked about a couple of applications. One that can be used to render images: POV-Ray, and one that can be used to aid in creating animations: Blender. I’d like to find the time to fiddle with these applications as they look extremely powerful, but I’m not sure when that’s going to happen. At least when it does I’ll have the links here to remind me about them :).
I’m baaack (again)
Once again I have returned to my home, this time after a trip to South Carolina. I got a lot of bugmail while I was gone; it appears that Generic Charting went in. I ‘spose that’s another thing I’ve gotta get added to the docs sometime before 2.18 comes out :).