i’m setting up a linux box right now and this will be the first time that i’ve set up a box and updated it with some kind of automatic updating program. i’m using yum and it’s pretty slick. not very exciting to look at, but it seems to do the job well enough. i’m on update 77 out of 223 to go. the one thing i like about it is that it runs without much user intervention.

i guess we’ll see how well it works when it finishes and i try to boot the machine.

update: it’s now updating/installing 441 packages! looks like it is working well so far. maybe all this convenience installer stuff is good afterall.

the coolest desktop app i’ve ever seen is topdesk. if you do not use it and you run windows, get it. this is probably one of the biggest things that i’ve seen on other OSes and really wished that i had.

i’ve been an avid firefox fan for quite a while now. i really enjoy the extensions support and i’m always finding new extensions that improve the quality of my life. the latest pair of extensions that has really revolutionized the way the web appears to be are AdBlock and Greasemonkey.

AdBlock is an extension that provides regular expression filtering of html content to filter out ads. it is simply marvelous. what’s even better is that there’s another extension that updates the adblock filtersets. the web has never been so ad-free before.

whatever adblock doesn’t catch, i use greasemonkey and an ad block script to catch pretty much everything else. it is amazing what the web looks like without ads. it’s also really suprising to see how ad space can play a crucial part of the design of a web site.

still, surfing the net without seeing ads is kind of neat. i don’t know why i never tried this before.

i’ve only sort of casually wondered what pageant was, but never really did much investigation to find out what it was good for until last night. last night was the first time that i ever wanted to set up some kind of public key authentication and it was the first time that i have ever used pageant or puttygen.

let me just say that i think they are both a wonderful thing. i’m pretty strict when it comes to security, but i think that i can live with this compromise of convenience and security. if you use ssh and aren’t using some kind of public key authentication, i suggest you check it out. it’s pretty neat.

WARNING: geeky entry ahead. i need to write a few here and there to keep my geek-in-a-closet card, ya know?

i recently had to reinstall firefox on my laptop and with that came all of the extensions that i had grown accustomed to using.

in no particular order, but still what i would consider my essential list of extensions:

Web Developer – i don’t know if this comes with firefox or not, but i cannot imagine using firefox without it. i probably use the resize option the most.

User Agent Switcher – as a developer, having to fake different browsers (especially mobile devices) is just amazing. i love it.

Auto Copy – this automatically copies into your clipboard anything that you highlight. very useful. once i was using firefox without it and i couldn’t figure out what i couldn’t cut and paste what i wanted. i repeated highlighting, alt-tabbing to a notepad and pasting, but getting something totally different. i must have done that three times before i realized i didn’t have this extension installed.

SessionSaver – this is the coolest extension i’ve seen in a long while. it basically remembers what windows you had opened when you last closed firefox and reloads those pages. very handy for when you accidentally close a browser.

Linkification – i don’t even notice anymore if people have webified URLs because this does it for you. it’s pretty handy and neat.

CustomizeGoogle – this cleans up google. removes ads and just makes for a better google experience. also uses google suggest, which i love.

Tabbrowser Preferences – i always install this, i don’t remember why, but i know i need it. some kind of tab preference change that i need to make.

PDF Download – ever hate how slow it is to fire up the integrated adobe reader in your browser? ever want to download the PDF without having to right click and save as? this extension gives you the option to download or view the PDF link. really nice.

i’m not really that crazy about the current design of the main ocliw.com pages, but i am digging the technology used. for a long while i’ve been debating how to manage some of the front end issues for ocliw.com, in particular how i handle the CMS stuff for the site.

super duper geeky details of how i finally got to where i did after the jump. seriously, only consider going to see more if you REALLY care about PHP4 vs PHP5’s handling on XML parsing. it’s really that dull, otherwise.

Continue reading finally finishing what i started →