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Paul's Time Sink

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mod_pubsub

Paul Westbrook | 14 December, 2004 16:48

After I posted a recent post, I noticed that there was one client accessing an image about every 3 seconds. This was the referrer:

http://mod-pubsub.org:9000/tests/rss_scroller.html?debug=false

It looks like mod_pubsub is causing this traffic. mod_pubsub is an interesting project. it looks like the goal of the project is to create a "realtime" browser. It will automatically update the contents of a browser as content changes, without requiring a reload.
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HitMaps back up

Paul Westbrook | 14 December, 2004 14:29

HitMaps is back, and is creating maps for traffic on websites. It looks like they have a new solution for sites that have a lot of traffic. Admins of sites with a lot of load will have to upload a comma separated file to their web server, in order to generate the maps.

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Navigation data and XM Radio

Paul Westbrook | 14 December, 2004 13:43

XM RadioI just saw this post today about how Sirius will be including traffic maps and data with their service. The more interesting thing is that XM is already sending this data in their XM NavTraffic system. They are sending traffic data in their signals that can be sent to a car navigation system and overlayed on the map. Also the navigation system can reroute the directions to avoid traffic congestion. The 2005 Acura RL has this system as standard equipment.
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Virtual Desktops for Mac OS X

Paul Westbrook | 13 December, 2004 13:35

The Apple Blog has a review of the different Virtual Desktop applications that are available for Mac OS X. At different times I have tried these Virtual Desktop applications, and wasn't impressed. I think that I expected an experience similar to that in KDE on linux. I am trying again with Desktop Manager, and I will give it a chance.

Desktop Manager has one of the features that I want in a Virtual Desktop; The ability to mark windows to appear on all desktops. Now I can keep the windows with my server output on the background of all of my desktops
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WinSwitch

Paul Westbrook | 13 December, 2004 08:33

I have been using Fast User Switching in Mac OS X. I have found that it is a great way to test new software, without worrying about the software corrupting my user files. I have created a test account, and I run the software with that user. I can easily switch back and forth between my account and the test account.

The only problem with Apple's implementation is that the user switch menu item is pretty large, as it uses the users full name as the menu title. WinSwitch is a better implementation of this menu with a lot more features. Not only does it let you change how the menu appears, but you can specify scripts or applications that get run when switching to or from a user.

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Streaming mp3 servers

Paul Westbrook | 11 December, 2004 12:22

I have been trying to find a solution to fulfill all of my needs to listen to my music. I have about 40Gb of Music on my linux computer at home. I have netjuke installed there in order to allow me to listen to my music on my computers when I am at work, as well as listening to my music on my TiVo at home, using NetjukeTiVo.

Normally, I would just create a m3u for a collection of music that I have an urge to listen to now, and I would add that playlist of music to iTunes. This doesn't allow me to use the main feature of iTunes, where it can do a very good job at organizing music, and creating smart playlists.

What I want to be able to do is to play all of my music randomly, skipping over the Children's and Holiday music and the comedy tracks.

One way to solve this is to copy all of the music on the linux computer to my PowerBook, but I don't have enough space on my laptop. Also, I really don't want to have two copies of my music.

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Strange web client access pattern

Paul Westbrook | 08 December, 2004 13:34

I have been noticing some strange web access in my logs. I mentioned them in this earlier post. The request looks like this:

213.172.36.XX - - [07/Dec/2004:16:05:53 -0800] "GET /index.php?op=viewarticle&articleid=105&blogid=2 HTTP/1.0" 200 49712 "http://www.XXXXXX.info/" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.2; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)"

All of these request have the same interesting traits:

  1. All of the urls have been converted to lower case. (With my blog system, this will cause the main page to be returned everytime)
  2. All of the requests have referral urls in the .info root domain
  3. The hosts specified in the referral do not resolve. But domains appear to have been registered though a French domain registrar, with made up names for the contacts

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Etheric.net support

Paul Westbrook | 07 December, 2004 09:57

I have to say that I have been very happy with the support over at Etheric.net. They have been very responsive to fix problems when they occur.

For example, when we were hearing noise on our Vonage line, caused by latency problems, they fixed the problems quickly. Also last night our connection went down around midnight. I called and talked to someone in Technical support and they had the problem fixed within 5 minutes.

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BlogExplosion javascript

Paul Westbrook | 05 December, 2004 21:40

The Zero Boss blog has posted a pretty cool javascript that will detect when a web visitor is seeing our site thought BlogExplosion, and then present a message.


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Replacement mirrors

Paul Westbrook | 05 December, 2004 21:20

This weekend, I replaced the left and right mirrors on our 1993 Sentra. m3 mirror evoThese mirrors have LED turn signals on them. I bought them on ebay for $10, so I figured that even if they didn't work, I wouldn't be out much.

Installation took longer than I expected, but I have finished the majority of the work.

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Multi-channel MP3 files

Paul Westbrook | 02 December, 2004 20:47

Fraunhoffer ISS, Thomson, and Agere Systems, has announced a new mp3 format that supports 5.1 channels of audio. Supposedly the files are not significantly larger than regular mp3.

http://www.mp3surround-format.com/

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Clarion iPod interface

Paul Westbrook | 02 December, 2004 20:08

Clarion iPodGizmodo has a post (with a picture) of Clarion's new VRX755VD. It looks like it has one of the nicest interfaces for controlling an iPod. Unfortunately, it will only work on one of their headunits that have a video screen. I hope that they will come out with one that doesn't require the video screen.

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Duke Nukem 3D for Mac OS X

Paul Westbrook | 01 December, 2004 21:52

It looks like Ryan Gordon, who brought the last couple of Unreal Tournament games to the Mac, has ported Nuke Nukem 3D to Mac OS X. This installer will install the shareware version, or the commercial version if you have the PC "Atomic Edition" or the MacSoft version.

Now I can waste more time, playing this game that I used to play a long time ago.

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FedEx to RSS

Paul Westbrook | 01 December, 2004 21:36

A while ago, Boing Boing had a post, about someone who created a cgi to get FedEx tracking information into a RSS feed. I am receiving a package, that happens to be via FedEx, and I tried this out, and it works pretty well.
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