Reason Failed

Transferring Blogger/Blogspot to Custom Domain

2010-06-20T12:44:00.000-04:00

So I decided to resurrect this blog and transfer it to my own domain since it shows up nicely in Google searches and it's just easier to post updates through Blogger. Anyway, it seemed like an easy task of just putting in my custom domain "blog.reasonfailed.com" into the settings page. Yea right!

First, the comments disappeared, which seems like a popular occurrence when moving from a Blogger/BlogSpot subdomain to your own domain name. The old comments aren't really gone, they just don't show up when the blog is pointing to a custom domain. When you switch back to the Blogger address, everything is as it was originally. Luckily I found a solution here. Unfortunately, when I deleted the blog and tried to recreate it, Blogger refused to let me create another blog with the same address saying it was already taken, even though when you delete the blog it says you can reuse the same blog address within the same account. So after trying all sorts of things I finally got it working...

Export your blog: Settings - Basic - "Export blog" - save the XML file somewhere, this contains all your posts and comments
Delete the blog: Settings - Basic - "Delete blog"
Undelete the blog: On your main account home page, select "Show All" and click "Undelete"
Change to a custom domain: Settings - Publishing - put your custom domain in
Delete all your posts: Posting - Edit Posts - and just nuke everything
Import your blog: Setting - Basic - "Import blog" - select the XML file you saved earlier - check "Automatically publish all imported posts" to make life easier

Voila! Your blog should now be working using your custom domain and all comments should be there.

Firefox's "Recently Closed Tabs" Not Working

2008-06-21T01:32:00.006-04:00

I recently noticed that Firefox stopped allowing me to use the Ctrl+Shift+T key combo to bring up the last tab that was closed. I thought it may have been a conflict caused by one of the add-ons but uninstalling all of them did not solve the problem. After a little bit of digging around I found a solution!

Type about:config in the address bar (In Firefox 3, hit the "I'll be careful, I promise!").

Now find browser.sessionstore.max_tabs_undo

Right-click and "reset", or modify this value to your liking.
This preference determines how many closed tabs Firefox will remember.

The Recently Closed Tabs feature should now work once again.

Tranzlate

2008-05-28T02:07:00.004-04:00

Total waste of time but a fun source of entertainment. This bookmarklet puts whatever page you're looking at through Gizoogle.com, translating the text into something that sounds Snoop Dogg style. Works great on news sites.

To use it, just save the link below as a bookmark. Go to any page and click the bookmark, wait a little bit, and enjoy the shizzle.

Download (right-click and bookmark)

Access IBM Changer

2008-05-28T01:45:00.008-04:00

This little tool lets you change what program is launched when you press the Thinkpad/Access IBM/ThinkVantage button on IBM/Lenovo laptops. I think it can be put to better use than the default "help" program it launches. Personally, I set it to launch my web browser.

Based on info from: http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/ThinkPad_Button

Note: This tool has only been tested on Windows 2000 / XP

Download (184 KB)

UPDATE: Fixed download link :-)

AntiAd PAC

2006-09-02T14:14:00.003-04:00

Don’t you just hate it when you’re browsing pages and they look like Times Square at night with all those banner ads? Me too. So I wrote AntiAd PAC to deal with this annoyance. Many web browsers (Firefox, IE, Opera, Mozilla, Safari, etc) offer the option of using proxy auto configuration (PAC) scripts in their "proxy server settings". The PAC file script is a javascript which instructs the browser to send the URLs from the browser’s location bar as well as individual href link and content source tags (images/flash animations) through a special function before continuing with fetching of the content which the URL refers to.

In AntiAd PAC, the function checks the URL's domain against a list of sites to block (blacklist) or not to block (whitelist). The whitelisted URL requests are permitted to pass and function normally. The blacklisted URL requests are redirected either to a null address (0.0.0.0 or 127.0.0.1) or they can be redirected to a local “blackhole” proxy server which serves a blank transparent GIF image for all content requests (this prevents the “x” placeholder or other error when blocking content). In addition to explicitly blacklisted sites, regular expressions are used to check against popular ad-server subdomains and folders, so as not to unnecessarily block entire domains and to provide some “future proofing” for the PAC file. The entire checking operation is done without any noticeable delay since the function and subroutines are very small and optimized for speed.

In effect, places on a page where there would be an ad (image, inline-frame, etc.) are blank. For slower internet connections (dial-up or cellphone based) this would speed up individual page loading since all the browser requests for fancy flash based ads which take up a lot of bandwidth would not be processed. In some cases, AntiAd PAC also provides some security against certain malware/adware attacks, such as the recent adware which propagated itself through ads on myspace.com.

> > > Download Here < < <
Be sure to check back often because I will update the PAC file to deal with any new ads and banners that I come across.

Thunderbird: Enigmail PGP Problem

2006-07-09T12:01:00.003-04:00

Recently I started using the Enigmail extension for Thunderbird which uses GnuPG to encrpyt or sign e-mails. However, there is a strange error that sometimes occurs when recieving PGP encrypted e-mail or trying to import public PGP keys from an e-mail. The e-mail refuses to be decrypted manually or automatically and comes up with the error "Error - No valid armored OpenPGP data block found". Strangely the e-mail is magically decrypted when one hits the reply button. The problem seems to happen to a lot of people and there isn't much clue online as to a solution. However, I discovered that the problem lies in the fact that PGP does not like to deal with any HTML in e-mails. Simply select: "View" - "Message Body As" - "Plain Text" and the problem is fixed.

$5 Laptop Resurrection

2006-04-16T11:04:00.004-04:00

This is something I did a while back and thought I would include here (basically a forum repost if you've seen it before). I was down at the fleamarket one day and ran into a guy who was selling old computers and parts. Just for the hell of it I bought a cheapo old laptop from him for $5. For such a low price it wouldn't really even bother me if it didn't work.

It was a cool little Packard Bell Statesman laptop. No specs, no power cord, no idea what was in it. So I spent a day tearing it apart to see what guts this thing had, and to figure out how to power it (batteries were dead and I had no power cord). Adding to the predicament was the fact that I couldn't find ANY information online.

So after a week of toying around with attempts to charge the battery, and even riggin a power supply to act as the battery, I finally found some clues that helped me guess the pinout of the normal power connector (it looks something like an s-video plug, so no simple power/ground scheme). So my final solution was a power "adapter" built from my IBM laptop adapter with some paper clips and wire (total fire hazard I know).

And here is the result...

Specifications (I'm guessing):
Intel 386 (running at 25 Mhz)
4MB RAM
200MB HD
Color VGA Screen (640x480)
Floppy
PCMCIA Type 1 slot
Ports: Parallel, COM, VGA out, PS/2

An interesting part of this laptop is a feature called the J-Mouse which basically makes the J key (which has a small depression in it) work like the red dot TrackPoint on IBM laptops. You move the key around with your finger to make the mouse pointer move. While holding your finger on the J key, several other keys function as left/right click and double click.

The Packard Bell Statesman is extremely similar to the Dell NL-25 in design and hardware. The info related to the power connector for the NL-25 helped a lot; however, the power connector does NOT appear to have the same pinout as the Statesman.
Dell NL-25 Pictures
Dell NL-25 Specifications
Dell NL-25 Tech Notes

UPDATE (12/7/08):
This is the power connector pinout that I used to power the laptop on. This is drawn as if you were looking at the power connector on the laptop. I used 16V for the supply voltage and it seemed to work fine, but I have no clue if it will charge the batteries.

MySpace Hax

2006-04-16T00:22:00.004-04:00

Sometimes when you visit a MySpace profile you run into someone who got clever with the CSS and hid a section such as the blog or friend's list, or the person's choice of font/color/layout makes it impossible to find the links. To solve this I coded a simple (and not so elegant) Greasemonkey script that puts a tiny menu with the necessary links in the upper-right corner of the profile and related pages.

Currently available links: Profile, Blog, Pictures, Videos, Friends, and Comments

MySpaceHax script (right-click and select "Install User Script...")

Note: You'll need Firefox with the Greasemonkey extension for this to work