*ahem* part two

and while I'm wiping egg off my face..

actually I am wiping egg off my face, thanks to a magnificent Chalmers raised sundried tomato loaf and some simply stunning local free-range size-huge eggs. This is way more pleasurable than the phrase would suggest.

a few of the smaller zips in my download section were somehow truncated. If someone had emailed me about this, it would have been fixed sooner! The funny thing is, all the while I thought it was the distro machine that was at fault! and this led me to make numerous improvements to the distro machine's internal file handling (insert lots of technical stuff here)

so, in the end, it was quite a good thing, really, I suppose, unless you were one of the downloaders, of course. *ahem* twice.

for now..

:o) The Writing Entity @ corz.org

*ahem*

that was, of course, the point at which I realised that I must have, at some stage, introduced a weird bug into cbparser. All the "s" and "m" characters were being removed. weird huh? A thing I'd started, but that was as far as I got. Apologies if you downloaded the bbcode parser last night.

I take liberties with my own site, I know. Even the distro machine is the cutting-edge beta. But then, how better to test stuff?

See, I often get called away in the middle of things. My standard procedure is to save everything, and just do a few apple-z manouevers on return so I'll figure what I was doing, where I was at, continue. This time however, when I returned, my guest had thoughtfully closed all the BBEdit windows, because they were, I quote, "cluttering up the desktop". She's right, clutter is bad.

And the moral is; when you leave a mac alone with someone, LOG OUT! Macs are just too irresistable, even this old Rev D's very curves say "play with me", and now with exposé, it means even infants can't resist uncluttering things for you. Hot corners, very convenient, yes.

In truth, I just forgot about that wee edit when I ran my website-sync, and BANG! you got my latest s&m-less version. What was I saying about it being an adult parser?…

Anyway, for those not wearing their babelfishes, the blog underneath means..

• I got Apache/php running on my old Lappy
• It rocks

If you're a windows user desiring the power of the mighty Apache webserver for yourself, but don't know where to start, easyphp is simply the best thing since sliced-bread. When the french dudes responsible for this incredible package get around to making it Apache2, you will be in win32 http heaven.

A few seconds, a couple of click, and BANG! you've got an Apache/php/mysql web server ready to do your bidding; run you blogs, search your archives, run your image galleries, stream your MP3's, share your files, whatever. If you develop web pages yourself on windows, this is a must. Like all good open-source packages, it is free¹.

Unless you're french (and my blog translation does get a few French hits, so you might be!) you'll need to set the language prefs to your own language. I used it in french for a couple of days before I realised there was a pref for this. I don't use the easyphp system tray menu, though it is rather good.

Importantly I note, apache/php runs on a 133MHz Intel one MMX processor running Windows98se with 16MB ram, along with my textpad and FastBrowser (6 tabs). nae bad, though it is a highly tweaked system. Whole lotta paging going on, though. If anyone has ram chips to fit a Toshiba satellite 440, do contact me! yes today!

The subject of the ABSOLUTELY FREE easyphp will crop up again.

okay, that's it. I keep having to pop in and out tonight, so if you spot any weird things onsite; apart from my text, that is; feel free to clutter my inbox! Always that.

for now..

:o) The Writing Entity @ corz.org

ps.. no, this isn't my way of saying I dig "s&m". Though the boots are pretty cool

lappy

w00h00!

I' on the lappy! Yup, it till work , 133MHz of kick-a To hiba power-hou e window 98 MMX fun! kind of laptop you can take ra bling and not worry too uch if it get tood on; it would probably till work, anyway.

okay, blogging fro y laptop i not uch a big thing, in it elf; I've blogged fro here before; but reali e thi ; I a blogging while di connected fro the LAN orany network, or in other word .. the web erver i running on y laptop!

That' right. All 16MB of o-effin-hard-to-find RAM are tuffed to capacity providing all the php-type goodne a obile developer could want, courte y of the (oh an I gotta get religiou about thi ) ea yphp.

I've been e ing with thi on y peecee ince di covering it a couple of week ago; arvellou tuff. in hort, it' a one-click apache+php+ y ql in taller for window . if you want the power of an Apache web erver on your window box, there i no quicker (under a inute) or ea ier (there' a ulti-lingual etup page in ho e) way to achieve it. nothing even co e clo e.

The only fly in the oint ent i that it' apache1, though I i agine they are looking to update that oon enough, urely.

where' all e e e ?

:o) The Writing Entity @ corz.org

Hey! You! Rich Person!

If you're poor, or scraping by, or Just Over Broke, or thereabouts, you'll probably want to skip this shameless scrounge and scroll down to the fisherman story, mind-blowing stuff. This blog is for someone special in the future who just happens across this blog, and just happens to be bloody loaded! and perhaps looking to make a difference in the world..

This is for you, rich person, yeah you! I mean, you've got money to burn. that's pretty cool, good on ya, I don't even know your name. Right, here's the deal; just before you throw your next pile of notes on the fire, you gotta do something for me; consider this..

I live in the slums. I mean, it's my own fault, I moved here, came on a mission, sort of, and learned that some things take time, and of course, money.

Not to mention a lot of work. As well as all you see here at corz.org, I work locally, fixing things, puters, repairing, help and training, all sorts of things. just whatever's needed at the time.

But most folks around here can't even afford fruit&veg, let alone tech support, so I tend to work for peanuts, or nothing, which is just as well because sometimes that's exactly what I have to live on, heh.

When it gets dire, I do commercial work, which generally sucks, and steals time away from my real work, both here and in my community. Those gaps in my blog? yup, mostly.

Fact one: When you are addicted to heroin, even your child's most basic needs take a back seat. Their need to access technology and the internet is possibly somewhere in the boot, the trailer maybe.

Fact two: if you ask an addict what it was that got them back on Heroin (because they've all tried to get off it at some point), they will tell you..

  I was bored

After spending some time here I think I see more clearly what needs to be done, and how these things might be done, my part in it all. Computers can help with this. You can help with this.

I've come to realise, too, that this place has a sort of force-field around it, money doesn't get in or out much, except probably for drugs. I believe the internet can change that, and not just about this place; it's a massive job.

No amount of time, effort, or money would ever be enough; it's a combination of all three things, and a whole lot more besides; challenging, fun, rewarding, thankless work that I'll just get on with regardless, but a nice pile of cash sure would accelerate things, you know. I think you get the picture.

STOP! don't burn them! Send them to me! I'll put every penny to good use, and still wear second-hand shoes, get a pang about even buying a beer for myself, though if you're really well-heeled, none at all about accepting a new AppleMac.

  G5, ta.

It'll do a lot more good than you would sending bags of sugar to the third world, that's for sure.

okay, you know the score.
don't burn it, send it to me.

for now..

:o) The Writing Entity @ corz.org

a secure machine

beta stuff..

corz distro machine v0.7b

new: secure area. I wanted this for my "friends" folder. it's neater, and a wee bit more secure than the old http authorisation methods, which apparently, some browsers aren't doing any more; seems like a smart idea.

We are using POST variables to send our password, which is held as a 32 byte md5, in a temporary session cookie. even the worst case browser scenario should only have the md5 flying around the wires. In other words, it's fairly secure. Essentially it's the same system that we use for the stats page, though they do remain separate.

users are presented with a simple (and quite cute) password dialog. once logged in they can access all your menu systems, files, source, whatever.

don't use a password-protected machine to deliver back-end menu services; it won't. (it's too easy to just chuck another one somewhere for this)

new: the name of the sections is now displayed in the menu itself. you can also now (optionally) have your custom text displayed inside the menu, too, which nicely fills that space on the right!

new: expanded list of downloadables. we now check for, and send mime-types, so mp3's, ogg's, spreadsheets, pdf's and such things can be delivered easily with the distromachine. I'll expand this list as I go along, no doubt. so far..

doc, xls, htm, html, jpg, png, pdf, txt, ogg, mp3,m3u, zip, rar, sit, sitx, tgz, gzip, bz2, arc, bzip, pict, mpg, mov, and others.

so if you use the machine to distribute, say, mp3's, this should cause whatever the user's operating system is set to do with these filetypes, i.e. open the mp3 player.

new: made a few more things customisable. stuff like the main titles. you can have a "foo viewer" menu now, or whatever.

I also improved the overall download handling, there should be less browser stalling, and associated weirdness. we DO send size headers now, too.

I dropped in the code for all this pretty quick, so it's into the beta zone for a while, until it's had some field testing, feedback on the new "secure area" features are especially welcomed.

have fun!

I'm serious about the feedback. After testing the beta on a couple of servers I rashly replaced all the machines on corz.org with it, only to discover that the download function was spectacularly broken. there followed a short burst of swearing and text editing, taking us back to the release version, which is stable, and works.

the beta works great everywhere else I've tried, but I have a hunch that some gzip tweaks I did here at corz.org are screwing with it, I'll hopefully have a mess around with the .htaccess files soon and investigate.

Check out the new stuff at the beta download area. that's right! I'll be using the beta version for my beta download area, too, so if you can't download the latest beta, you know why!

can't stop.
for now..

:o) The Writing Entity @ corz.org

erm..

well, you know, it was the week-end! you didn't really think I was gonna spend it coding did ya! heh, actually, I did get some stuff done this morning, this..

corz distro machine v0.6.4.5

new: added "special link" capability to the source viewer page.

What this means is, instead of the "try out this script" link taking the user to the script itself, it can send them to a different link. I wanted this for my bbcode parser, instead of playing with the one in the scripts folder, I wanted to send folks to the cbparser demo page, which has user comments and stuff on it.

other scripts just won't work unless they are in a specific location, I'm thinking right now that I'll send users to the real rdf newsfeeds for my blog, for instance, instead of the blank page they'd get clicking the "try out this script" link from the source page. neat!

to use:

Simply add a [links] ini section at the end of your readme.txt (or whatever you call it) file, like this (from my "corz function library" folder)..

a growing collection of handy functions for php types

[links]
corzblog bbcode parser.php = /blog/inc/cbparser.php
email-hider.php = http://nospamdudes.org/hider.php

; you can leave comments, too, underneath, with semicolons.

I invented the second entry to show that full, valid URL's are okay too, even linking to another site. I might link to a nuke installation that uses my nuke-rss script, for instance.

you can enter special links for all, or any, or none of your source files. if There's no entry, the "try out" link leads to the source file itself, as usual.

hmm: I used to use readme.html files for apache raw directories, which override the readme.txt files (used by the distro machine), but now I just leave the readme.txt file itself in the folder, and the raw directory viewer..

https://corz.org/source/

shows the preformatted distro machine message, along with the [links] section underneath. cool. most users will figure out that these are links that relate in some way to the scripts they "=" equal!

This also goes down in history as being the first time I conceived, coded and tested a feature in one of my distros and *it just worked*. I even remembered all my semicolons! heh

  to need no debugging
  is coding heaven

fix: following the "back to the source menu" link at the foot of the source-viewer pages now takes you back to the section you were in, as opposed to the main menu. that was poor gui.

fix: the slashes thing in the source viewer, maybe last time I broke, rather than fixed this. I put it back, anyhow. If I find the file source that originally led me to believe there was a bug in the first place, I may delve more deeply into it.

in short, sometimes the php source highlighting function adds slashes where there should be none, or else removes them where they should remain. it's all my fault, of course, and another good reason why users should click the download link rather than copy-and-paste the source from the pages, which I'm fairly sure everyone does, so no harm done.

the reason this version info entry is so long is because I have decided to start putting all my version.info entries into my blog, keep folks up-to-date. or will do, when I'm finished this.

oh, I am!

so there you go.

It would seem logical to have a separate blog for this sort of thing, but I reckon that might spoil the fun a bit, I mean, it's all tech isn't it, and all interconnected in a cor sort of way, If you know what I mean.

I spent a good half-hour last night arguing with someone about fat. This was more than amusing, not least of which because we were both arguing about completely different substances, and both entirely correct. I suspect this sort of thing goes on within the confines of my own thinking processes, too, and often the illumination; and that word needs a blog in itself, no shit; comes from the least expected places..

The real challenge comes in maintaining your position once you realise what has happened, because, well, it's a fun argument. I suspect dudes like Plato; who made their livings standing around all day arguing; came up with their best stuff whilst doing simple things like their shopping list (slaves), or perhaps during seemingly unconnected ramblings to lovers (slaves) and relatives (slaves again).

I don't get to stand around all day arguing, just short bursts here and there, and generally for free, too. Like here, of course, where I can argue with myself all I like. And Version Histories, where the strands of development come together into a better and better product, better software, a better world. Writing stories is important. Making Notes.

There can never be enough distilled, well-written notes. They help us to understand things, especially our own things, help us to see problems back at their source, to see our errors, doing stuff the wrong way just long enough to realise how to do it the right way, or rather; a better way. They allow others to trace the evolution of a thing, which can be in itself entertaining, illuminating, like watching good careers can be. We can learn from others mistakes like this.

And so it is with points of view; opinions. I find it's fun sometimes, though perhaps a little shitty, to argue the polar opposite of your own point of view, particularly with someone who feels the exact same way as you do about something, and passionately. good practice. worst that can happen, they consider you an utter moron, unless of course you end up changing both your points of view, then good on ya!

ahhh… I'd keep a back-up¹ if you jump on today's distro machine upgrade, I'm a wee bit scattered today, you could tell, right? my memory seems to have bits missing. och well.

I suspect in the not-too-distant future we'll be looking to record every little single thing we do, our computers skimming the data for good bits, like that daft song you were singing in the shower the other day, or that world-shattering thought you drifted off to sleep with …

until then, I'll keep notes, and drop 'em willy-nilly right here. en-joy!

for now..

:o) The Writing Entity @ corz.org

mailing list error!

damn!

apologies to folks who thought they'd added their email address to my "odd mailing list". thanks to my super-clever-clogs update script, the onsite mailing list has been replaced with my local version! this contains email addresses like moo@cow.com, and suchlike; my test list.

The script won't do it again, promise. *cough*

This is a brand new feature, and there were only a few addresses on the list, but if you were one of them, you'll need to add it again if you want to receive my (yet to be conceived, let alone created) "odd mailings".

other news: where was corz.org last night? perhaps my web host is trying to save me some bandwidth or something. Me and all the other sites on this server, including their own effin forum!

It is frustrating, looking at a dead server, knowing that with root access, you could have the whole thing up again in seconds. *grrr*. One day I'll host corz.org here at my workshop, but not today, or the next. Then downtime will be no one else's fault but my own, and the excuses far more interesting.

for now..

:o) The Writing Entity @ corz.org

seo results

When I first heard about all this SEO malarkey, as y'all know, I was intrigued. Was it really possible to get your own pages to the top of the search engine results, simply by making certain adjustments to the page contents, titles, anchors and what-not?

The answer is a resounding YES! Not only is it possible, it's easy! This sure is unabashed self-marketing, but the facts remain..

• 25.05.04: corzblog bbcode parser gets a page to itself
• 26.05.04: the content of the page gets my "seo treatment"
• 02.06.04: (possibly before) corzblog bbcode parser is at the Google number one spot for my chosen keywords of "bbcode parser".

it's that easy.

Do I now want to go out and market my seo talents for cash? no. That fragile marketplace doesn't need my competition. Do I have the urge to write a short series of articles along the lines of "corz top ten tips for seo placement" or something like that? Yes! Though God only knows when.

It will probably be called "how to get a top google ranking with less than 4% keyword density", or "packing in keywords, take it to the extreme without taking the piss", or "it's more than keywords, the googlebot is cleverer than you think", or, well, something along those lines.

Oh, I did knock corz.com off the top, too, sorry guys, I had a point to make. I'll cut back a bit now, you guys need the traffic more than I do! heheh

for now..

:o) The Writing Entity @ corz.org

sorry google! (heehee)

okay, I'll switch the translation off for a bit; some of my blogs are rather long. weird thing is, it's like they have some sort of limit; for very long pages, only the first half or so gets translated, then it goes all English! Looks like I kicked the style thing, though, sort of.

I'll maybe switch it back on again when no one's looking.

shhh!

:o) The Writing Entity @ corz.org

oh! and the translation!

I almost forgot!

it's not quite 100% yet (more like 30%, hasn't been tested more than briefly, and definitely doesn't work on some parts of the site), and really screws up the css of my blog, too, but if you add -fr, -de, -it, -pt, or -es to the end of one of my URL's, you can get a French, German, Italian, Portuguese, or Spanish version of the page¹, courtesy of google, and some mod_rewrite magic.

I particularly enjoyed the German version of my sign-off, here it is..

for now..

:o) The Writing Entity @ corz.org

updates

so many updates...

The main ones, I guess, are the corz distro machine 0.6, which tonight is the same version as the version.info that's been onsite these last couple of days. erm, what can I say? it's been hectic.

corzblog has had another wee update too, stuff the big error mode showed up, nothing major. added a few @'s, no doubt. I noticed (on someone elses corzblog) that the page generation timer was kaput, then remembered, the starter is in this site header! so I added that to corzblog itself, too.

there have been other things, minor updates to scripts, a few foibles, some typos, you get the picture. my contact page is looking pretty cool, just what I was after, at last.

for now..

:o) The Writing Entity @ corz.org