16 May

Fun with Google Translate

Go to Google Translate;

Copy this text:

pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk bschk pv bschk bschk pv kkkkkkkkkk bschk bschk bschk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk bschk pv bschk bschk pv kkkkkkkkkk bschk bschk bschk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk bschk pv bschk bschk pv kkkkkkkkkk bschk bschk bschk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk bschk pv bschk bschk pv kkkkkkkkkk bschk bschk bschk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk bschk pv bschk bschk pv kkkkkkkkkk bschk bschk bschk

Pick German as the “from” language; Press the “Listen” button.… Read the rest

16 Jan

WordPress Returns ‘Unknown Host’

I wanted to park one of my domains on top of another and use the canonical feature of WordPress to redirect the inbound link equity from the one domain to the other domain however when setup the second domain always returned ‘Unknown host: xxxx.com’.

I know if this is default behavior however I had so many plugins on this server it is often hard to tell what comes from WordPress core and what comes from plugins. As this is a live site I didn’t want to turn off all plugins until I found the one creating the issue.

My solution was to use a .htaccess… Read the rest

12 Jan

Google likes to push its own products

Can’t stand this personalization kick they’ve been going on – the results I got back from one recent search where totally skewed in a way I didn’t want and didn’t ask for:

They know I shared the URLs so if Google wants to implement personalization they obviously don’t need me to join Google+ – this appears to be leveraging one product to hawk another which is what Microsoft kept doing (and kept getting fined for doing) with their Internet Explorer product. Hopefully Google will get investigated and fined – as they should be for this blatantly anti-competitive behavior by a monopoly in the search market.… Read the rest

12 Jan

WordPress Theme Scanning

Noticed on one of our clients someone was trying to scan the theme directory looking for style.css files that might exist. I would imagine this is to find themes installed, and their version numbers which would then allow the person scanning to use a known exploit to break into a WordPress installation.

I caught this because I have the ‘Redirection’ plugin installed and set to log all accesses that result in a 404 error – usually I use this to put in redirects to stop the visitor getting a ‘page not found’ message. In this instance it has helped highlight someone trying to hack the site.… Read the rest

12 Sep

Jquery Save to Excel II

Slightly more advanced version of my previous script. This script handles if the table doesn’t have an ID which was a problem previously. It also paves the way for multiple export options including Excel, HTML and PDF – whatever your server can handle.

This code is slightly different to previous code as it will add the export buttons to all tables on the page that do not have a class of ‘noExcel’. Run this script from your jQuery ready() function. A simpler version of this code is available at http://www.topsemtips.com/2008/11/save-html-table-to-excel-using-jquery/:

var RandomIDToUse = 1000;
function AddActionsToTable(  )
{
$(" table:not(.noExcel)").each(
Read the rest
10 Jul

Qriocity is too expensive

So I got a new Sony Blu Ray over the weekend and was setting it up when prompted to set up Qriocity.  Qriocity is a streaming movies service. I thought this will be nice, rather than having to wait for the movies to arrive from Netflix or go down to the local RedBox or Blockbuster Express I will be able to stream the latest releases. So I setup my account, put in my credit card, link my account to my Blu Ray player and go to look at the movies. $3.99 for a movie in SD – WTF! and $5.99 if I want HD.… Read the rest

10 May

How to Clean a Washing Machine

Turn washer to highest level and hottest temperature. With nothing in the drum but water, put two cups of bleach in and let the washer lid sit open allowing the hot water and bleach clean the drum. After letting that mixture sit for awhile close the lid and let the cycle go all the way through to the end.

Once the cycle is complete, start it over again at the highest level and hottest temperature and add the two cups of white vinegar into the water. Again let that sit for awhile with the lid open. After letting it sit, close the lid and allow for the cycle to finish.… Read the rest

16 Sep

IE9 Beta First Impressions

After following the IE Blog for months about how great their new browser is they finally announced an open Beta. As I develop for the Internet I can’t install on my work machine as it might interfere with my testing of code on IE8 so last night I installed on two machines at home.

My main problem currently is the lack of speed in IE8. I run IE8 on a 2 year old laptop with 2GB RAM and it can take 30 seconds to start. The Javascript performance is appalling. The built in debugger is confusing. I generally work in Firefox 3 with Firebug which in comparison starts in less than 5 seconds, Firebug is really intuitive too and with the Web Developer plugin I get control of CSS on the fly – and ideal development environment.… Read the rest