December 2004 Archives
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December 23, 2004
PHP, mysql, and PayPal
Build an Online Store Today with PayPal, PHP, and MySQL
This article on DevX is probably an overly simplified view of using PayPal features to create a store front on your own website. One flaw is pricing security... someone could come along, save the HTML to the page, change the price, load the page, and click the buy button with a different price. Granted, you'd be able to tell them to pay more because they didn't pay enough but it's a support issue as much as security. PayPal does allow the creation of a unique key that knows the product and price. This would be much better.
In any case, this just barely left my Link Cache category...
December 20, 2004
Two Buck Chuck and the Wood Chucks!
Actually, it's not a band name... it's a new tongue twister!
How many two buck chucks could two wood chucks chuck if two wood chucks could chuck two buck chucks?
Two wood chucks would chuck as much two buck chucks as two wood chucks could chuck if two wood chucks could chuck two buck chucks.
Enjoy!
(Hey, gimme a link and attribution if you copy this. Thanks! )
December 19, 2004
Xmas Tree: A Quick Camera Comparison
I promised a picture of the xmas tree. Of course, it's indoors and somewhat in a dark location, in front of a window, and with lights on it. That's the perfect target to confuse automatic settings on cameras.
The following are with a Motorola V710 1.2 megapixel cameraphone, an LG VX7000 VGA (0.3 megapixel) cameraphone, a Canon Digital Rebel (aka 300D) 6 megapixel SLR camera, and a Canon 20D 8 megapixel SLR. No tripod was used. ISO on the SLRs was set to 800 so as not to give too big of a disadvantage to the Rebel.
The cameras were held rotated 90 degrees, so all flash light was coming from the side.
Motorola V710, no flash, 1/21
LG VX7000, no flash
Canon Digital Rebel, no flash, 1/50 @ f/4.5
Canon 20D, no flash, 1/40 @ f/4.0
Canon Digital Rebel, built-in flash, 1/60 @ f/4
Canon 20D, built-in flash, 1/60 @ f/4
Canon Digital Rebel, 580EX facing foward, 1/60 @ f/4
Canon 20D, 580EX facing forward, 1/60 @ f/4
Canon Digital Rebel, 580EX at about 45 degrees, 1/60 @ f/4
Canon 20D, 580EX at about 45 degrees, 1/60 @ f/4
Canon Digital Rebel, 580EX full back (or "up"), 1/60 @ f/4
Canon 20D, 580EX full back (or "up"), 1/60 @ f/4
That's all. Enjoy.
December 15, 2004
PageRank without the Google Toolbar
Google PageRank Calculator Value Report without Toolbar
Maybe there's a better one around on a simpler (and fewer ads) page...
GIS: Crazy Stress
Another in the line of high stress images. This one is starting to sum me up right now, although I'm trying to avoid the heavy caffeine intake, which doesn't seem to help stress any.
This image came from here.
Easily Create Live Bookmarks for Firefox
Firefox has this great feature that when a site with an RSS feed is being viewed, you'll get a nice little "button" at the bottom right corner of the screen to add a live bookmark. Unfortunately, not all sites support this feature.
So, I've created a little, and very simple, page that allows you to take the site's RSS link, drop it into a form, and get a page that will allow this to easily be added as a live bookmark.
This is provided with no warranty at all. Use at your own risk.
December 14, 2004
TIP: Delete "Compressed Folder" temp files
These are the temporary directories that Windows uses when you browse into a zip file with explorer. However, it turns out that they don't come up as a "Temp" file for the disk cleanup wizard.
Today, my defrag showed my a couple of 1.5GB files located in a couple of these folders. They are named like "Temporary Directory # for {zipname}.zip" and are located in "C:\Documents and Settings\{User Name}\Local Settings\Temp" or the likes.
Disk cleanup then showed me that my temp files could be cleaned to the tune of 500 megabytes. However, a quick survey shows that my temporary zip file directories are currently using 5.56GB (or 5,980,137,278 bytes)!!
Well, isn't that nice! Maybe when I clean that space up the defragmenter can do something about the ten thousand fragments that consists of my Outlook PST file!
In the line of stress...
Relieve stress with the USB Eye Massager - Engadget - www.engadget.com
An eye massager? Right, then...
GIS: Stressed Out
(From here.)
This image is actually funny because it clearly has "sample" splattered across it. I have no idea where the original came from, but it seems that the site I got it from may not have gotten it through appropriate means. If this is someones stuff, just leave a comment and I'll move along to the next GIS. ;)
Of Fools on the Road
I was merging onto the freeway this morning. Traffic was moving at about 5-10 MPH. The guy in on the freeway was moving even slower and letting onramp traffic in -- he was a big truck. Two or three of us got on the road right in front of him. Then, people swerved around us that had been behind us on the onramp and sped on by, stradling the white line. The someone following _those_ people also swerved up and tried to get in between a couple of us. It didn't work for her, but that didn't prevent her from waving frantically and giving me the finger -- even though she was in the wrong from not properly merging (I've gotten tickets for such things) not to mention the rudeness of cutting -- and then the nerve to think she was in the right! Given the flow of traffic, she must have come from at least 5 or 6 cars back on the onramp. (Actually, she didn't give me the finger... she gave me a thumbs down. Heh.)
I took a deep breath and started thinking once again about the following topic:
This is from a comment I put under this post by Russell Beattie:
I was thinking about this while driving in this morning. What's needed is a _simple_ way to get information onto your phone about the other vehicle and then, when you can pay attention to your phone, get it from your phone to the web.I'm thinking something like you take a picture or record your voice of what happened, license numbers, etc. You then MMS it to a pre-saved location (e.g. no cumbersome typing). Or you wait to MMS it. Then, when you get done driving you forward everything to the web, log into the web site, and edit the entries to fill out a form.
In order to register to send things to the web site you'd need to enter both your phone number and license plates (or list of plates). That way, if something comes up under your plate you'll know (e.g. your center break light is out).
In order to avoid abuse, registration with a valid cell phone number would have to be required.
Additionally, the web system could allow for other people to listen to the voice or look at a picture and fill out the data for the form.
This makes the reporting system such a low distraction that you won't be reported for reporting.
The key, though, is to allow positive reporting as well.
The real question, though: Are there privacy issues with a license plate? It's out for the public to see, so I wouldn't think so. What's the harm in it being on the web? (Other than the foolish looking like, well, fools.)
December 13, 2004
Google Scholar: Compression Algorithm
I don't think I put anything up about this before, but this link has been sitting in a tab for what seems like weeks now. I thought I'd just drop it off here. Google's new "Scholar" search grabs papers and publications from academia and presents them. Most of the search results will end up as PDF files, it seems.
As can be seen from this search result, the potential is tremendously huge. Instead of looking in a book for an answer to something, you can look at the very latest and greatest people have come up with and potentially learn something quite new and different.
The Great Dicken's Fair (and Hot Buttered Rum Recipes)
We went up to the Dicken's Fair at the Cow Palace this weekend.
It started out with some antics of people walking up and down the line. Everything was very themed. Many people came in garb of the time and there were plenty of actors all about, most from Dickens' books, so the atmosphere was quite absorbing. Of course, there were people on cell phones all about, so it wasn't totally complete. ;)
It was much bigger than I thought, even after the opening ceremony. It went on for hall after hall with tons of shops, stages, and scenes going on. We had some hot buttered rum and pear mead. Both were actually quite good.
I wasn't quite sure what hot buttered rum consisted of, so the following are a couple of recipes from aroudn the web.
From about.com:
1 Lemon Twist, 1 Stick of Cinnamon, 1 Clove, Boiling Cider, 2 oz. Rum and a Pat of ButterIn a mug or pewter tankard, add spices and rum. Fill with Cider & float Butter in top.
From here:
Ingredients1 cup Sugar
1 cup Brown Sugar
1 cup Butter
2 cups Vanilla Ice Cream
Rum
Water
NutmegMethod
1. Combine sugar, brown sugar and butter in a 2-quart saucepan. Cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, until butter is melted (6-8 min).
2. Combine cooked mixture with ice-cream in a large mixing bowl, and beat at medium speed, scraping bowl often until smooth (1-2 min). Store refrigerated up to 2 weeks or frozen up to one month.
3. For each serving, fill one-quarter of a mug with mixture, add one ounce rum and three-quarters of a cup of boiling water. Sprinkle with nutmeg.
Indeed, there are many other different recipes. But, there is definitely plenty of butter in it. ;)
December 9, 2004
GIS: Stress ;)
Excuse the language, I found this with GIS (Google Image Search).
Strike that. This is my own image. The previous image, according to the copyright holder, was scanned in from a postcard illegally and without attribution of any kind. I apologize to the copyright holder.
Who to Buy From If you're Red or Blue
Well, the site is specific to Blue, but the data is for both sides, so either side can use it. ;)
December 8, 2004
Motorola V710 Hacked ;)
Russell Beattie Notebook - Bluetooth Crippled in Verizon's New Motorola V710
Looks like there's finally a hack to the V710 to help out the BT situation with it. No OBEX or anything, but at least _something_ can be done via Bluetooth.
AHA! PESTs in Florida Scream At Bush!
Well, I have no idea if this is a joke or not. I got this from Chris. Whether or not it's real, it's amazingly funny the way it's written. And if it's real, no offense to the PESTs.
A lovely Holiday Flash Movie
It's quite a gas! har har... I dunno how he does it over at ritilan, but there's always something absolutely silly or whacky over there... heh.
December 7, 2004
Grabbing Video from Blogs (and such) for PVPs
HOW-TO: BroadSnatching to a Portable Media Center - Engadget - www.engadget.com
Well, we did it.
We got a car. It's been about 9 months that we've been on one car.
The piece about only have one car hasn't been so bad. Laurie can do all of her work from home and we are walking distance from a number of grocery stores, the Capitola Mall, and OSH. We often walk to those places anyway because they are so close.
The piece about giving one car, a car that we like a lot, all of the miles is what hurts. We've put something like 40,000 miles on our Miata since last summer. Not an insignificant portion of those miles have been on very rough dirt roads with signs that say "high clearance vehicle recommended."
So we got a 1997 Jeep Wrangler Sport. It came with both a hard top and soft top. It also has the locking "trunk" area, side steps, AC, ABS, a bra (not on it yet -- but given to us), center console, tilt wheel, and cruise control. The front seats recline back far enough to sleep and the rear seat can be removed for more road trip room.
About the only problem with it is a rip in the drivers seat vinyl. Some tape and a couple of seat covers should solve that problem.
Oh... the other problem. Laurie won't let me drive it until tomorrow! Doh!
Pictures will come later. And I still need to get pictures of our holiday tree up, too.
December 6, 2004
HOWTO: Fold a Shirt a Fun Way
This video is no joke. It works.
Thanks to both Chris and Ray for this.
I've cached the Flash file here, in case it's not available at the source link.
Tree!
We got a tree this year. Last year we kinda skipped the holiday season and didn't get a tree or anything. We had been gone for Thanksgiving (France) as had been the case in previous years. But things were so busy and we were so tired that we didn't do a tree. We actually ended up missing it.
So, we got one of those cut-your-own-trees this year. It was at this place right across from Aņo Nuevo State Park. They had about 1/2 dozen different types of trees. We ended up getting a redwood that's about seven feet tall. I've never had a redwood to decorate, but it turns out to be a rather nice tree for that. I'll have to get a picture up or something.
December 2, 2004
Archos AV400 vs Archos AV500
I see an amazing amount of people coming here looking for information on the AV500 (this post). That was back in May. This was rooted in this article.
I believe what happened was they changed the name to the AV400 when it actually shipped. The AV400 is basically a portable TiVo. It can be setup in it's cradle to act basically like a TiVo. Now, the thing is... you want your TiVo for recording stuff when you're away. And you want your portable video player with you when you're away. What to do if you just have an AV400? I guess you could just use it for pausing live TV (can it do that part?).
Also interesting is that Archos released the Gmini 400 a while back. This little device doesn't record, but it does play back video. It's actually got very, very similar specs to a new cell phone... right down to the screen resolution (176x220). You can even play mophun games on it, which are designed for cell phones.
So, if you're looking for the Archos AV500 you should really look for the Archos AV400 -- at least until they come out with the AV400 upgrade that is an AV500 but not what people expected of the AV500 which was covered in the AV400. Or something like that... I could be totally wrong. ;)
