my parents were in a situation where they were using several user accounts on the computer, but wanted to share the iTunes library across all the accounts. this posed some problems, and I hacked in a workaround, where iTunes stored all the music in the same folder, but it wasn’t elegant, and it didn’t work quite right.

they recently had some computer issues which forced them to reformat their hard drive (ok, fine, forced ME to reformat their hard drive), and they again wanted to share the same iTunes library. so while thinking over how I could more easily get their iTunes library to work across multiple accounts, and be more elegant than the solution I tried last time, I realized that the same solution could possibly work for me.

the solution that I realized for my parents computer and their multiple accounts is as follows:  on a *nix system, there is a thing you can do called a link (more precisely, a symbolic link), where one location actually points to another location. for instance if I had a directory at /bin which has a symlink pointing to it at /home/usr/bin, when I go to /home/usr/bin, I’m actually getting the contents of /bin, but the computer thinks I’m getting /home/usr/bin. a bit confusing i know, but trust me, it’s cool and extremely useful.

if you are using windows, windows doesn’t have symlinks per se, but if you’re using the NTFS file system (and if you’re on anything above win 2000, you should be), there is an almost identical thing you can do called a junction. and it’s made easier by downloading a small utility called NTFS Link.  with this, you can point any empty folder to any other folder on the computer, and when you navigate to that folder, the contents inside are actually in another location on the computer. this gave me an idea…

iTunes has a horrible habit of wanting to store it’s data files in the documents folder of the user. this poses a problem for trying to use the same library for multiple accounts, as each account has it’s own documents folder. what I did, was created a new folder in the root of the C: drive called “iTunes”, and created another folder inside that folder called “__iTunes Data” (the underscores are to keep it near the top of the folder when sorted).  I then opened iTunes with one of the accounts on the computer, which created the folder \My Documents\My Music\iTunes. I then closed iTunes, and moved the contents of that folder into the __iTunes Data folder I just created. after that, I right clicked on the now empty \My Music\iTunes folder and symlinked it to the __iTunes Data folder. now, iTunes goes looking for it’s data in the \My Documents\My Music\iTunes folder, but it’s actually looking in the C:\iTunes\__iTunes Data folder, but it has no idea. I then get into iTunes, and set the advanced preferences and change my iTunes Music Folder location to C:\iTunes.

mission accomplished. iTunes now thinks that it’s accessing it’s data in the documents folder, when really it’s in a different location (__iTunes Data), which can easily be linked to from all the other iTunes “accounts”.  just do the same thing for the other accounts, make a junction from \My Documents\My Music\iTunes to C:\iTunes\__iTunes Data, and set your library location in iTunes to point to C:\iTunes, and everybody is now using the same library. one thing to make sure you set, is while you’re setting the Music Library location, also check “Keep iTunes Music folder organized” and “Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library” this keeps everything nice and tidy, and when one account adds music, it gets copied into the iTunes music folder, and all the other accounts can access it as well.

now on to how this helped me…  I realized that, while this works perfectly for multiple accounts on the same computer, my problem is a bit different. I have only one account, and all of my data is on an external hard drive, including my library data files. so what did I do?  I set up iTunes exactly as I had set up the iTunes for my parents, except that I then emptied out and linked the C:\iTunes folder to the location of my external hard drive library (which is at G:\Music\Benjam’s Music).  so now I have a perfectly functioning iTunes library, with no import required, and to top it off, when I need to wipe my hard drive again, I just set this up as it is now on the “new” computer, and it will behave as if it had never changed. all I might have to change is where C:\iTunes is pointing to.

here are those instructions again, in a nice easy-to-follow list (this only works with NTFS on XP, although if you have another method of creating symlinks in your system (which Vista does, google “mklink”), that would work as well):

1. download and install NTFS Link
2. download and install, or update iTunes
3. create a folder in the root of your C drive called iTunes (or whatever)
4. [Optional step] right click on your new folder and link to the location of your iTunes music
5. create a folder inside C:\iTunes called __iTunes (or whatever)
6. [Skip this step if you have an existing library] open iTunes once (this creates the \My Music\iTunes directory and creates some initial files in there)
7. go to the iTunes preferences, and the Advanced tab, and set the location for the iTunes Music Library to C:\iTunes
8. check both of the boxes below that, save, and close iTunes
9. move all the files in \My Music\iTunes into C:\iTunes\__iTunes
10. alt click on \My Music\iTunes and NTFS link that to C:\iTunes\__iTunes
11. open iTunes, add your music, enjoy

(this also works with pre-existing libraries, just move your music into the C:\iTunes folder, and move your \My Music\iTunes data into the __iTunes folder, and iTunes will see it like nothing changed)

the international earth rotation and reference systems service (IERS) has announced that a leap second will be added at the end of 2008, making 2008 one second longer than it should be.

so either start your countdown at 11, or end your countdown at -1, either way…

enjoy the extra long year!  (it has both a leap day, and a leap second)

nope. try again.

I begin to look up information on the file format that the camera uses to record the movies (.MOD), and apparently, nobody supports it. so now, in order to use the file (and subsequently, the camera), I have to either A. use the crappy software that came with the camera (which is slow and difficult), or B. buy some other software (also from the camcorder company, how convenient) that will allow me to convert the movie to some other easier-to-use format.

well, that does it, I’m thoroughly pissed at all software and hardware designers that decide that it’s okay to nickel and dime us by using proprietary file formats that are impossible to use otherwise. even if they don’t want to nickel and dime us, it still sucks when a company tries to “better” the current standards by creating a new format that only their software or hardware uses, and then fail to release the format details so others can use it as well (think MS Word 2007 and the .docx format).  well, at least with that one, OpenOffice.org finally supports it in v3.0, but .odt already existed and is more openly adopted by other word processing software anyway.

anywho…

point is, I doubt seriously that .MOD (which, I found out, is just .MPG with a different extension and some other .MOI files to go with it) was really necessary. why not just use one of the other formats that are already out there and more widely used, why must you create your own?  and if it’s absolutely necessary to create your own, at least release the details so that others may take advantage of your apparent excellence (think .7z files).

and if not, just use a format already available. my current camera records movies in .mov format, and everything I use can read an .mov file, and the pictures are .jpg… easy.

new camcorder… .MOD files… not so much.

NOTE: I finally found a small simple utility to convert my .MOD files to .MPG and set my widescreen marker at the same time: SDCopy

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7784908.stm

Done reading?

Now, do yourself a favor and grab one of these:

• Windows
  • Firefox (Highly Recommended)
  • Google Chrome (Also Recommended)
  • Apple Safari
  • Opera
• Mac
  • Firefox (Highly Recommended)
  • Apple Safari
  • Opera
• Linux
  • You’re good, no worries
  • But grab Firefox, just for the heck of it
  • You can also grab Opera, if you want

It talks about linking to a specific time in a YouTube video. I’ll repeat here in case you don’t want to link offsite.

Have you ever recieved links to videos that say something like “It gets really good around 1:47″, or something similar?

Now you can link to a specific moment in that video by putting the time as follows in your link: #t=1m47s

What this does, is when somebody goes to that link, it not only starts at the given time, but it doesn’t buffer all the stuff that comes before it, so you don’t have to wait for the part you’re interested in.

For instance, try the following link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP1-5uxZffE#t=5m45s (SFW)

That’s just awesome.

i downloaded my copy, started it up, and was immediately impressed, and being somewhat of a Firefox fanatic, that’s saying a lot.

it takes no time at all to load, and after reviewing the comic that was released (by accident) a few days ago, it’s easy to see why: every page is it’s own process.  for those of you who don’t know what a ‘process’ is, it’s basically it’s own running copy of the program.  each page is it’s own entity on the computer, so if one page crashes, you don’t have to take down the whole browser to fix it, just close that one tab.  but Google being Google, took it one step further, and made every portion of the webpage rendering it’s own process.  so basically, if you have javascript running on the page you are viewing–it’s in it’s own process; flash running? it’s it’s own process;  quicktime?  own process;  any other plugin? own process.  so if at any time, any of these pieces crashes or slows way down while working on something, it doesn’t freeze the whole system.

this way of doing things also makes it really easy to block malware from infecting your computer.

Google Chrome was basically built for the internet as it stands today, in all it’s multi-media, web 2.0, watch-your-back-for-malware goodness.

the only thing missing from Google Chrome is a Firefox-esque plugin architecture…

because in order for me to switch from Firefox, I’m gonna need to take my Web Developer toolbar and mouse gestures with me.

but if you spend any decent amount of time on the internet, and do most of your browsing in the more modern web 2.0 sites: give Google Chrome a try.

the only thing that sucks about it is that it’s yet another browser that web developers have to code workarounds for.

So I started looking in my backups folder for a database dump that would have the blog posts in it, and I searched and searched, but could not find the most recent version of it.  I have a coupe older ones, and some really old ones, but not any that were from right before I deleted the blogs.

I don’t know why I didn’t make a backup of them, or if I did, I don’t know why I didn’t keep it in a safe place, but I didn’t.

So I jumped on the wayback machine, and found one more post that I didn’t have in my backup.  I imported the backup into my database at home, installed the version of WordPress I had when the posts were made (also via the wayback machine), and posted that last one that was missing.  Then I installed the latest version of WordPress, made an export file, and imported them into this incarnation.

So now I have posts that go back about 5 years (albeit very sporadically), with the possibility of a few missing that are probably gone for good, unless I happen to find an old dump somewhere that I didn’t know about, but I doubt it…   oh well.

I’m off to make a backup of my site right now, and I’ll label it ‘Keep’, because obviously, the method I have now doesn’t work.

Maybe I should start putting my site backups in Subversion…

Anywho… enjoy the old posts.

i finally found a regular number that i called and got in touch with an actual person and found out that 16 of the servers that this company owned got hacked and had all the data erased. no backups, no data, no nothing.

they finally got in touch with us (4 days later) and let us know what had happened.

i finally got a password for the support ticket system and submitted a support ticket for my website to be reinstated.
i must admit it was a very prompt reply, but the information they had given me was completely wrong, it was for another user and another site. I let them know they had messed up and they never replied. i told them again…   nothing. i finally wrote them a nasty little note and they promptly responded in kind.

i finally got my corrected information and got my site uploaded, but whenever i tried ta access it it would redirect to another website totally unrelated to my own.

it is still having issues, but my site is back up (thanks to backups i had made a week before the attack), my mail is finally working, but there are still some small issues with the site.

so…  long story short…   don’t host your site through webhostplus. their service sucks.

when i first got the idea for this game, i thought “i’ll get the game part of the script working and the rest will be easy”.  nope. first off, i have to get the game part working…  it’s not. not quite. secondly, i get distracted by other things WAY too easily. and thirdly, i really have no idea where i’m trying to take this.

i started off with an overly simplistic plan. not on purpose, but because i have no experience coding anything from scratch, after writing a preliminary few hundred lines of code, and trying to test that code, i began to realize that my storage methods (both within the database, and during code execution) were grossly underestimated. it took an almost complete rewrite of the existing methods and all the code that goes with it to get to a point where the game will actually progress the way that i want it to.

but now that i’ve got the game almost working, there are other issues that are creeping in that i wasn’t ready for. for instance, the game that i am creating is actually a port from a real life board game (Power).  the trouble with this is that issues that are trivially easy for a person to deal with are intricately difficult for a computer to deal with. i’ll spare you the details, sufice to say that my code is becoming much longer than i had planned. porting form a real board game also has the added benefit of having the rules already written, or at least most of them, but the ones that aren’t written are the ones giving me the troubles. what should i do if this situation happens?  what about this other situation?

another issue i have to deal with is myself. when i get in one of those moods, as i’m sure most of you have, where the juices just aren’t flowing, we’ll call it “coders block”, i turn to other items that may not be necessary to the project. i’ve also started another (albeit much smaller, simpler) game (battleship) from scratch which is progressing much faster and therefore holds my interest better. this is bad. even though the new project is nearing completion, i know that i am the type of person who will never think of anything as “completed”.

and on top of all this i am still working on webchess 2.0 (which finally had a beta release not too long ago).

so i now have three projects i’m actively working on, my job, and a freaking network+ test to take on monday.

and i have to spend more time with my wife, who is probably feeling pretty left out at the moment.

so here’s my time division:

• my job (30%)
• my projects (30%)
• eating and sleeping (30%)
• studying (10%)
• my wife (110%)

if it weren’t for my a.d.d., i’d think i have a real problem.

(note: i’m not officially diagnosed with a.d.d., but most everybody i know would love some ritalin)

There are four ways that you can let the server know that you are about to use PHP.

• PHP Long tags ( <?php ...code... ?> )
• PHP Short tags ( <? ...code... ?> )
• ASP style tags ( <% ...code... %> )
• Script tags ( <script language="text/php"> ...code... </script> )

Lucky for me, I’ve never seen the ASP tags, and have only rarely seen the Script tag, but the short tags are almost as popular as the long tags. Especially when using the shorthand notation for the echo command ( <?= ).

My server at home is set up to be very strict in it’s handling of tags, it only allows the PHP long tags, and for good reason. When using a PHP script with XML, the XML tag ( <?xml ) confuses the PHP parser into thinking it’s a PHP short tag with the unknown entity ‘xml’ following it.

Another thing I see people use often, is Registered Globals. These are extremely handy at saving yourself some keystrokes, but that’s about the only thing they are good for. Registered Globals take variables from a SuperGlobal and place it in the normal variable scope. An example would be an HTML form with a field called ‘name’.  When you send this form, a variable in PHP called either _POST or _GET is created based on which method is used to send the data. To get at the data the user sent, one must call $_POST['name'].  If Registered Globals is turned on, all one needs to do is call the variable $name and there ya go. This practice is not very safe and causes more headaches then they save in keystrokes.

All of these issues, plus some more obscure ones, are why people should not code to their own particular setup, but should code with certain standards that are applicable everywhere.

• PHP Long tags are ALWAYS accepted by the server.
• The _POST and _GET variables are ALWAYS available to the script.
• The HTTP_XXXXX_VARS are NOT always available, as of PHP5 they can be disabled.
• Even the _ENV and _SERVER vars are not always enabled.

So when you go out to write your first bit of code, or even continue work on a project you’ve been working on for years, think of the other people who may be using your script who may not have the same setup as you, and they may not have access to their php.ini file to change those settings. And don’t try to skirt your way around it by running the ini_set function either. That’s almost like putting a virus on someone else’s computer. Just don’t do it.