In the late 90’s I started questioning the quality of Symantec/Norton products as they started showing a large amount of support time (while IT Director at a Video Game Company supporting over 200 workstations)…

Norton support was lacking, and we often had to uninstall their products to get our employees workstations up again. This required a lot of manual work beyond simply hitting an uninstall button: The registry had to be searched and edited manually to remove all traces left behind by the uninstaller, and a special executable downloaded from Norton had to be run (yet another uninstaller).  We soon stopped using Norton/Symantec products.

Recently I was working on a day traders workstation and came across a troublesome problem with network printer sharing. Was taken aback when several results from a Google search recommended to “First remove all Symantec products…” After doing the exhaustive removal process, all was well.

Deja Vu.

Apparently their support has not improved, with the recent discovery of what appears to be a rogue executable ‘phoning home’ to Symantec. When users posted questions regarding this executable all of their posts were deleted by the Norton/Symantec admins.

I bet the Bush administration wishes it could have done that ;’)

Slashdot article about pifts.exe

Re: PIFTS.exe - Off-Topic - ZoneAlarm User Forum.

I hadn’t heard much about this company, and was surprised at the outlandish Superbowl ad’s. Big names, big greed.

Didn’t we used to have a Consumer Protection Agency?

Cash4Gold Complaints - Former employee exposing the scams of Cash4Gold.

I’m glad I ran across this story about a student questioning Justice Scalia while on his book tour. Her question was simple; Why aren’t cameras allowed in the Supreme Court even though the court hearings are open, transcripts are available and the court’s justices are open enough to go “out on book tours.”?

“Read the next question,” Scalia replied. “That’s a nasty, impolite question.”

I’m left wondering what inner-fear Sarah tread so close to that would elicit such a response from a man that is bigger, older and supposedly more mature…

U.S. Supreme Court justice shows confidence, combativeness at West Palm Beach forum — South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com.

Florida Student Asks Scalia a Question — and Gets Scolded

On honesty:

For whatever reason you refuse to feel this space we’re in, to know its insanity, really know it; whatever your particular anesthetic is, that you hold onto so desperately (the thing, I mean, that makes you think you know who you are); whatever that thing is you allow to keeps you sane, your ace in the hole, the psyche that keeps you trying to guess what your pimp has in store for you; whatever keeps you from screaming out at this very moment in absolute and sheer horror; whatever you fuck your brain with; whatever that is— whatever that is— it’s a lie, it’s a lie.
-Alabama 3

Whenever I’m making a decision that I feel I am ‘emotionally’ involved in, such as answering a question from my (almost 19 y.o.) daughter: “Do you like my new tattoo?” I’ve learned to try and ask myself a question before answering… This question has helped me enormously in my relations with others, and uncovered some startling facts about myself (startling to me, perhaps you would find them obvious).

Now, if I need to decide which screw-driver to use for a job, I consider that a relatively ‘emotion-less’ decision, a decision not based on self, but based on more practical things such as a #2 Phillips for a #2 screw-head, a short one for tight spaces, etc., etc.

I try to ask myself: “Am I making this decision coming from a place of fear? Or love?”

If I ask myself whether I am making a decision based on fear, or love, I find myself regretting decisions much less. I experience less second-thoughts where I am arm-chair quarter-backing my past/recent decisions.

When answering my daughter’s question from above, my first thought is: “WTF? You got ANOTHER one? Why the hell do you keep doing this?” And yes, that would generally be exactly what rolled off my tongue, and I would often find myself apologizing for it later (I mean: C’mon, what benefit, for either of us, was gained by my saying that?).

When I ask myself that question before answering, in the example above concerning my daughter, I realize that first response is probably not coming from a place of love, And if it’s not coming from a place of love, there’s a good chance it’s fear-based. This might not make much difference to some, but I really don’t like the idea of fear having that much ‘control’ in my life. I like to think of myself as being able to go through life without acting as if each moment was a fight-or-flight survival issue. I am exaggerating, but it’s for a point.

The message that I think is more important, for my daughter and myself, is that I love her, and that there is a fundamental bond that does not deserve to be corrupted by my fear that somehow she is displaying the ‘wrong’ image (wrong being the image that my solitary experience dictates is not good, bad, cheap, etc., etc.), and that will reflect badly on me, her, and life as I live it in general.

So, regardless of what I am thinking, I reply: “Wow” And then ask about another design or placement. I’ll try to find something a shade less judgmental then “WTF?”

And I will sleep better. I will have more peace in my heart. In my younger years I had little value for either of those things; I lived a cheap life.

ColorZilla has the ability to work with Ubuntu, but not the way it is packaged. If you install the regular ColorZilla_1.x.xpi the library that does not work with Ubuntu gets installed and you get the ‘mode not supported on your platform’ error message.

The ColorZilla_1.x.xpi (both the one on Mozilla.com and the beta at iostart.com) comes with the needed library, it’s just a matter of forcing the correct one for Ubuntu. Here’s how I did it with the beta (kudos to SaltwaterC for pointing out that an .xpi file is just a renamed .zip file):

1. Do a right-click and save so I could access the file locally.
2. Open up ColorZilla_1.9.xpi with File Roller (Ubuntu Gutsy/7.10 default handler) and delete the /platform/Linux/components/ColorZilla.so file inside the archive and then just hit the ‘x’ (close button) on File Roller.
3. Open up Firefox, open the Addons window, drag and drop the ColorZilla_1.9.xpi file onto the window, click install.
4. Restart Firefox.

Yet one less reason to develop on M$.

After upgrading to WordPress 2.3 and trying to re-evaluate tag usage, I decided to re-visit an old pet-peeve of mine: The relatively massive (read: gi-normous) size of my wp_postmeta table. It was always the biggest table in my database (thanks to UTW), so whenever I was poking around in the database it caught my eye (it was over 5MB).

With WordPress 2.3 ‘tags’ are starting to be handled internally, and the need for UTW in it’s old form (rumor is it will be broken up into elements complementing WordPress’ new built-in tagging system) is no longer, so I got out the scissors and…

Taking a closer look, I had over 30,000 records in wp_postmeta that had a meta_key named _utw_tags_0. Amidst thoughts of how these records were somehow data-intercourse/sexing it up and reproducing like bunnies, I started warming up phpMyAdmin (does that behemoth take a while to start or what?).

Once phpMyAdmin was up, I selected my site’s database, then the wp_postmeta (the ‘wp_’ prefix is the default, if yours is different, adjust the SQL query appropriately) table from the list on the left side of the phpMyAdmin interface.

Once you have the wp_postmeta table in front of you, click on the SQL tab at the top of the page and you should end up on a page with a large text box and a query already started for you. Highlight that text and replace it with:

DELETE FROM `wp_postmeta` WHERE meta_key = '_utw_tags_0'

You will get some sort of “Are you sure you want to destroy Planet Earth” notice, click yes.

I still had about 10 records with a meta_key title of _utw_tags_ so I used the same steps as above and blasted them with:

DELETE FROM `wp_postmeta` WHERE meta_key = '_utw_tags_'

This brought my wp_postmeta table down from over 5MB to less then 22kB. Can you say: Wheeee?

Between the theme change, settling into 2.3 final and trying to bring some style continuity from the new theme into my forums, there have been some short periods of down-time. Last night and this AM were more significant however, so I wanted to post some info:

Last night I made a ‘quick’ change to the site, adding a little code to my functions.php file and like an idiot I guess I didn’t check afterwards but just ran out the door (real life, what a concept). End result was that samdevol.com was down all night until I did a huge “DOH!” this morning.

I use PunBB for my forum, and decided to give it it’s own database. But until I went through the SQL code (my backup) and repaired it by hand, I couldn’t re-import it. The error I noted was:
#1064 - You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ')' at line 1

Apparently the same MySQL database that I exported from refused to accept the format it created. Specifically, where a field was empty (signified in my backup as , , [comma space comma]) MySQL choked on the import. I eventually did a search/replace and replaced all occurences of , , with , '', [comma space tick tick comma] and it finally imported without error.

I have discovered the import for punbb appeared successful, but it was not. Until I find some way to import it, the forum is back up with no old messages.

All user error, short-between-the-headphones stuff. Sowwy.

Now if I could figure out my database sync issue (every time I activate a plugin I get the Your database is out-of-date. Please upgrade. message).

A friend of mine approached me and asked about cleaning up a WWII era photo of his Father (Holtmeier) and other B-24 crew members taken in England in 1944. Unfortunately the photo was missing emulsion (the part of the print paper that actually contains the ‘image’) but I think the historical significance and character of the men (and the note on the back) more then make up for this.

As you can see from the finished photo (low-res here, for web display) I took the notes from the back of the photo and placed them to the right ((Willie Bardwell (Ala.), Joe Kinney (NY), Holtmeier (PA), Dick Kennedy (My radio oper., NY), Dave Fulton (VHF Relay oper., PA))).

Though I am happy with the results, that’s not the reason for this post. I did a quick search for the 489th (just curious) and found, amongst other things, the following information:

• Constituted as 489th Bombardment Group (Heavy) on 14 September 1943.
• Activated on 1 October 1943. Trained with B-24’s.
• Moved to England, April~May 1944, and assigned to Eighth AF.
• Entered combat on 30 May 1944, and during the next few days concentrated on targets in France in preparation for the Normandy invasion.
• In an attack against coastal defenses near Wimereaux on 5 June 1944, the group’s lead plane was seriously crippled by enemy fire, its pilot was killed, and the deputy group commander, Lt Col Leon R Vance Jr, who was commanding the formation, was severely wounded; although his right foot was practically severed, Vance took control of the plane, led the group to a successful bombing of the target, and managed to fly the damaged aircraft to the coast of England, where he ordered the crew to bail out; believing a wounded man had been unable to jump, he ditched the plane in the Channel and was rescued. For his action during this mission, Vance was awarded the Medal of Honor.
• The group supported the landings in Normandy on 6 June 1944, and afterward bombed coastal defenses, airfields, bridges, railroads, and V-weapon sites in the campaign for France. The 489th began flying missions into Germany in July, and engaged primarily in bombing strategic targets such as factories, oil refineries and storage plants, marshaling yards, and airfields in Ludwigshafen, Magdeburg, Brunswick, Saarbrucken, and other cities until November 1944.
• Other operations included participating in the saturation bombing of German lines just before the breakthrough at St. Lo in July, dropping food to the liberated French and to Allied forces in France during August and September, and carrying food and ammunition to Holland later in September.
• Returned to the US, November~December 1944, to prepare for redeployment to the Pacific theater. Re-designated 489th Bombardment Group (Very Heavy) in March 1945. Equipped with B-29’s. Alerted for movement overseas in the summer of 1945, but war with Japan ended before the group left the US. Inactivated on 17 October 1945.

It occurred to me that this was more then just an old photo needing re-touching, that there was a historical significance, if for no one else then the families and friends of these men.

If you are related to any of these men, or have any interest in access to the original hi-res digital photo, feel free to contact me.

More info (wikipedia) can be found here.

I have been meaning to post a note about some of the recent changes here, but have been busier then a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs (been dying to use that phrase for some time ;’)…

I’ve adopted a new theme called nobus, designed by Dezzain Studio. The UI is not too simple, not too complex, not too dark. The header is a bit tall, but I want to live with it a bit before attempting changes (the height did allow me to pretty much cut-and-paste some of my code/hacks into the header to retain functionality I desired (translation service, RSS icon w/out scrolling down, my logo and some quotes). There is a big difference in typography, not just style, but size and spacing. Feedback is desired/welcome about these (and any other) changes.

Some minor changes in functionality, testing new plugins (not just new to me, but new to WP 2.3 and/or the ‘world’), carefully applying some AJAX (less then 2% of my visitors have JavaScript turned off, but I do keep an eye on this and try to use JS that will degrade/fall-back to HTML behavior/appearance.

Posted here about using Zazz Post ticker. I have been keeping an eye out for something with this functionality over the last year or so, and everything I researched/tried was either too clunky/ugly or required more time to integrate then I was willing to devote. This one dropped right in without a struggle and styled up quite easily with a few CSS additions.

Some other new plugin additions:

• DoFollow Using no-follow as a rule just doesn’t make sense any more, it should be the exception.
• Enforce www. Preference I dropped the www NOTE: This plugin is now redundant with 2.3.
• HeadSpace2 Experimenting with this meta-generator-on-steroids
• Link Indication If we are going to put the control/decision about how links/new-windows are handled into the users hands, let them make an informed decision?
• Nofollow reciprocity If I’m going to turn off no-follow, I expect you to, as well
• Shutter Reloaded With all the different javascript libraries and resultant conflicts my lightbox/slimbox scripts started acting whacky. Just dropped this in and I’m ok for now ;’)
• WP-Footnotes Because some of my posts just need footnotes.
• Secure and Accessible PHP Contact Form Fianlly broke down and decided to try/test a plugin form solution

Some folks email me now and then about the quotes in my header, so just as an FYI: I use Quality Quotes, and the thing I love the most about this ‘yet-another-random-quote’ plugin is that it goes out and gets 10 quotes each day and then cycles randomly through them on each page refresh. So instead of hitting/depending-on some outside resource every time a page is refreshed on my site it’s cached locally. Fast, lightweight and independent.

Closing with one of my favorite recent quotes:

We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming.
- Wernher von Braun