xtex.org

I used to be good at this... but I have let this site stagnate, despite the tons and tons of stuff I want to write about.  Hmm.  I'll get back to it, I promise. 

 Sort of still updating this thing... I need to get back to it, actually... 

 I'm still around, I just haven't had much to say lately... I've got a nice collection of tech stuff I need to post, though, and I'll make an effort to get that done soon.

I just moved my site over to its new home at mediatemple.   I'm now using shared hosting instead of a dedicated server, so things will be slower than before, but it shouldn't be too bad.

I also ended up redoing the URL back to blog.xtex.org so the old stuff I used to have online could be accessible again. Using the magic of Apache URL rewriting, this should be transparent -- if you try to go to something on 'xtex.org' that doesn't exist, it will just bounce you over to the blog.  Spiffy.

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RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$  http://blog.xtex.org/$1 [L,QSA,R=301]

I reduced my monthly cost by about 98%. So. Yah. I'll deal with the speed. :)

 Well, it's getting better...

Translation:  "Hey Justin, it's Lindsey from Bass Lofts. I think your umbrella has arrived, so you just need to come pick it up from the office.  Thank you.  Bye bye."

In other news, my new patio umbrella has arrived.  ;)

 Anal lyrics?

 Well this is unfortunate...

Shark Week on the Discovery Channel starts tonight. I actually look forward to this every year. :)

If you haven't seen this yet, here are pictures of Discovery Communications headquarters building, from 2006.

 Yeah. I can live with this.

 Google Voice is a neat concept, but their speech-to-text system needs some serious work. I also have Vonage, which also has a speech-to-text system, and it works very well. I rarely have an email from them that makes no sense.  But GV consistently transcribes things completely wrong.

So. Yeah.

I've decided to stop developing for the iPhone, at least for now.  Apple's recent actions regarding app approvals are insane, and I don't want to waste months developing an application and then have Apple randomly deny it without a good reason.  It's just not worth it.  My iPhone ADC account expires in a few weeks -- I won't be renewing it.

Apple's really screwed the pooch the past few weeks. Forcing any app that has any web content to mark itself as "Extreme Adult Concepts, Extreme Terror Concepts, Extreme Violence" ... the Google Voice debacle... the Preview token issue... Coupled with AT&T's bullshit -- "MMS will be available this summer" -- I'm just about done with the iPhone platform.   more...

 RIP Yahoo.

I love this:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/tny/finger-painting/

I've been working on some Drupal filters to snag some HTML tags and do certain things with them. Here's the PREG function from hell that actually does most of the work. It basically takes any properly formed HTML tag and splits it into attributes.  I'll come back and document this later, but I had to show off this code from hell... :)

It actually could be cleaned up a bit, but I'll deal with that later when I'm actually awake.   more...

Oh internet. Every time I think of abandoning you, I come across something like this...

I'm having a pretty rough day. The data center in Suwanee. GA (North Atlanta) took a direct lightning strike last night, and the power scrubbers weren't able to handle the surge.  I suppose it'd be hard to design something that can handle 100,000,000 volts at around 30,000 amps from the average lightning bolt.

It took out at least ten of the power distribution units at this facility; they've been repairing them all night.  Luckily, half of the power outlets in my racks still have power, so I guess that A/B/C power thing really works.   more...

It's a valiant attempt...

I don't know about the chai bedpans, though.