Paul O'Flaherty

OFlaherty Episode #04 SOB’s

We’re all SOB’s!

I’m an S.O.B

• I’m an offical SOB
• Liz Strauss

MyBloglog troubled

• Setting the wrong precedent
• Andy Beard
• Rex Dixon

BCC Use it people!

• I m the King of CC Spam
• Tech Recipies

Killer App: SyncToy

• SyncToy for Vitsa
• SyncToy for Xp

Upgraded

• Wordpres 1.1.1
• Subscribe to comments

Credit

• Music Derek K. Miller
• Audacity
• Levelator

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Visit the blog at http://pauloflaherty.com or email paul.oflaherty@gmail.com

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Comment Notifications

I might be almost a week late but I’ve upgraded O’Flaherty to the latest super shiny version of WordPress (2.1.1).

Even better that that, I’ve now added in the ability for you guys to get email notification of comments left on post that you have commented on. So now, whenever you tell me that I’m completely wrong and have my head firmly shoved where the sun don’t shine, you’ll be notified via email when other people agree with you! 

Isn’t that lovely? LOL… Sorry. I’m a little giddy right now. I’m not sure why, but I seem to have been hit with a “happy wave”. The most miniscule and mundane things are making me grin like the “Cheshire cat” on a great acid trip.

Thanks must go out to Andy, who pointed me in the direction of the Mark Jaquith’s “Subscribe to Comments” plugin!

Who spiked my coffee?

WordPress MU 1.1.1

This is a short but sweet post to let you know that WordPress Mu 1.1.1 is out and available for download.

Donncha and Ryan have posted about it, but Ryan’s post contains the most feature information.

Ballad of Black Mesa

Awesome HL2 (HalfLife 2) video done in the style of the iPod commercials. I love it!

Via Dvorak Uncensored

Roll Up

A quick couple of links that I didn’t have time to roll individual posts for:

XP Pro on 8MHz PC with 20mb Ram

After installing XP on Pentium-based systems, the guys continued removing RAM and underclocking their CPUs to find the slowest working configuration. The winner was a system running at 8MHz with 20MB of RAM (it might actually be 18MB, it’s a bit hard to tell from the description).
It takes 30 minutes to boot the system. Even though you’ll start to see icons pop up on the screen it’ll take another 17 minutes before you can click on them. And the CPU is at 100% all the time, but just think how low your energy bills would be if you were running this machine?

Via Download Squad.

How to be a Terrible Network Admin: 25 Fail-safe Tips.

You walk in to work everyday wishing you didn’t have to; you drag your feet all day long as you’re bombarded with complaints: “I can’t log into the system,” “I can’t access the printer (or drive or server),” “This software just refuses to work the way I want it to.” To top if off, you’re showered with the worst nicknames because you don’t seem to know what you’re doing. You are the terrible network administrator.

Rather than working with your users and engaging in practical IT security measures, the terrible network administrator enjoys doing next to nothing.

Here are the best 25 ways to make your tenure in networking “The Terrible Times,” not just for you, but for your organization and your end-users as well.

Via Digg

Explode – Open Source MyBlogLog like social networking!

Is this any good? Has anyone tried it? Is it a valid MyBlogLog competitor? Should I sign up? Let me know…

Killer App: SyncToy

I’ve fallen in love with SyncToy for Vista. It’s a sweet freebie from Microsoft that lets me manage and synchronize multiple folders between my machines here at home with just one little click.

It’s so simple it’s childs play. You just select which folder you want on the left (local machine) and which on the right (remote machine) select the type of sync you want and hit click Run and it’s all over.

SyncToy, a free PowerToy for Microsoft Windows Vista, is an easy to use, highly customizable program that helps users to do the heavy lifting involved with the copying, moving, and synchronization of different directories. Most common operations can be performed with just a few clicks of the mouse, and additional customization is available without additional complexity. SyncToy can manage multiple sets of folders at the same time; it can combine files from two folders in one case, and mimic renames and deletes in another case. Unlike other applications, SyncToy actually keeps track of renames to files and will make sure those changes get carried over to the synchronized folder.

SyncToy is available for both Vista and XP.

Put up or shut up!

I’m getting damn sick of bullshit marketing hype. The past few days have been spent chatting with a number of marketing types (I’m almost ashamed I used to be one) that would have me believe the sun shines out of their companies a-hole!

They’ve been trying (in vain) to convince me that their product will not only increase my productivity (for the minor cost of an arm and a leg) but will also make me breakfast and deliver it to me in bed along with a new super model girlfriend everyday.

So here’s the deal. Put up or shut up.

Stop sending me emails and releases full of marketing bullshit. Stop phoning me with bullshit promises of “increasing my customer base” by paying for inclusion in your tiny directory.  (Put me in for free! If it does what you say, I’ll take a subscription and tell everybody I know to take one as well!).

If you really want to get my attention, send me the marketing literature accompanied by a real product.

Let me try it out! Let me dig my teeth into it!

Let me explore, play,kick, bite and fondle it.

Let me fall in love with it for the product it is, not what your marketing department wants me to believe (most of which was probably derived from Prozac and caffeine induced daydreams while sitting on the toilet).

In return, I promise you a 100% unbiased, 100% honest review. I’ll call a spade a spade, and heart a heart.

If it’s crap I’ll berate it and slag it off until it runs away and weeps in the corner. If it’s the best thing since sliced bread, I’ll make lovely sandwiches out of it and share them with everybody.

I’ll point out it’s flaws and strong points and tell it as it is.

So, if you’ve got the guts to allow your product face an honest critical review which may fly in the face of your marketing department wants the world to believe, you know where I live.

BitFox: BitTorrent for Firefox

Not yet available for download, unless you’re into installing from SVN. BitFox promises to bring bitTorrent integration to Firefox in much the same way as Opera has it now.

BitFox is a Firefox extension that aims to make downloading torrents “as simple as downloading a file over a HTTP or FTP connection.” Still under development, BitFox is expected to offer the kind of BitTorrent integration Opera currently has.

The aim of BitFox is to make downloading a torrent as easy as downloading a file over HTTP or FTP, right inside your browser. With a large, and ever increasing marketshare, Firefox is the perfect place to introduce new users to the wonders of BitTorrent. Many novice users find the process of downloading and configuring a separate piece of software just to download a certain file complicated.

Hopefully we see a release of this soon, as Azereus performace has frankly sucked for me on Vista, and while uTorrent still rocks, I’d like a browser integrated solution.

Setting the wrong precedent

One of the more prominent stories to come to my attention while I’ve been playing catch up is the whole Shoemoney, MyBlogLog, banning, hack baiting, reinstating fiasco.

As I’ve read through maybe 20 articles on this (Google Blog search), I’ve been swayed back and forth by numerous opinions, but one thing that has stuck like a piece of broken glass in the back of my throat was that Shoemoney has essentially come off as the “injured party” in all of this.

Andy wrote a damn good post covering the entire debacle, and pretty much hits the nail on the head.

Rex, while maybe not as eloquent, says it in a way that any red blooded beer guzzler can understand:

Technically Speaking, Shoe screwed Shoe. If he was really concerned about security, he could have reported it to the MBL crew asap via proper channels. What is that? He could have messaged Rafer, Eric or anyone else at the MBL staff. He chose to make more money for Shoe, and for that Shoe, you got booted. Please don’t come off as the innocent and hurt entrepreneur to the world. When I worked in the IT realm, YOUR type was the most scary to deal with.

You see, Shoe screwed Show alright, but then Eric from MBL went and royally shot MBL in the foot by re-instating him. That’s what that shard of glass stuck in my throat is..

Everybody hurts… sometimes

Here’s the thing.  A lot of people I respect immensely have written in to tell me that I screwed up, and after a point, it becomes impossible to avoid the truth.  We banned Shoemoney originally to keep him from updating his list of User IDs on Wednesday night, which I think was the right thing to do.  But after fixing the exploit, I should have unbanned him and thanked him for finding it.  But I didn’t.  I screwed up.

Shoemoney’s picture is now featured on our Members page, we unbanned his IP address, and we at MyBlogLog hope to return to the constructive dialog that we once had.  Like others who have apologized for their contribution to this controversy, we believe in redemption and hope ShoeMoney does as well.

By reinstating Shoe, the guys at MBL have flushed a huge amount of credibility down the jaksie!

Shoe, went all black hat and published the hack details, showing people how to use it, after being specifically asked by MBL to contact them before divulging further exploits.

Terms of service or not, it’s your bloody site! You don’t need a TOS to ban somebody. You can ban them because you’ve got an annoying itch on your bum cheek and want to blame somebody.  It might not look good to ban without explanation, but in this case you had good cause and did the right thing.

But, oh god, what a but! Then you go and do the most stupid thing ever, you re-instate the guy AND put him on your featured members page.

So, now, in one fell swoop, you’ve effectively said that what Shoe did (and by extension hack baiting in general) is not only okay, but you’re rewarding him for it!

Talk about bending over and taking it…

300 posts an hour?

I’m still playing catch up with my RSS reading and this damn cold is not helping.

According to Google Reader I’ve gone through 1540+ post since I started this session which means that I’m averaging a rather measly 300 posts an hour. That’s about 5 posts a minute.

That’s bloody pathetic. That’s so slow. I’m normally way faster thank that, in the 500 ppm range. Sure fire proof that a minor sniffle can affect your performance?

Needless to say my link blog is filling up rather nicely with stuff that happened, but I’m still only caught up to 3 days ago (Fed 23rd).

Oh well, better keep going I guess. I can’t, for the life of me, bring myself to click the “Mark all as read” link.

I think I’ll have work the “J” off of my keyboard by the time I’m finished.

Understanding Women