SmashTech

Having comments in your config files is a good thing. However, many of the ‘stock’ config files come with loads of comment lines in them, and eventually you’ll want to get rid of them all without having to completely rewrite the file or manually remove them.  This command will do that:

grep -v “^#” configfile.conf | grep -v “^$” > new-configfile.conf

This will remove all lines starting with a #, along with any blank lines. For my setup, it took the default Squid config file from 4300+ lines down to a very manageable 56.

You’ve got until the end of today to go to the Dr. Pepper website and sign up for your free coupon for a Dr. Pepper.  The site is running slower than Woot running a BoC right now.

This is all because GnR finally released Chinese Democracy.  No surprise that China promptly banned the album.  So in addition to China not getting the album officially, they also can’t get their free Dr. Pepper.

Need to convert your Maildir structure into a single mbox format file, perhaps so you can easily dump it into Thunderbird?  Use the handy command formail that comes with procmail:

for i in new/* cur/*;do formail <”$i” >> ../mbox;done

Run this command from from the top of your Maildir (usually ~/Maildir), and you’ll find a file called mbox in the parent directory once it is finished.

Want to import that new mbox file into your Thunderbird profile?  Open up Thunderbird, right-click the Local Folders item, choose Properties, and look for the location of the Local Folders directory in your filesystem.  Now, copy that mbox file to that directory, then close and reopen Thunderbird.

When opening the Archive Attender console or trying to pull up the Users section, you may get an error that says:

Error getting the list of containers: Unable to load container configuration data: System.InvalidOperationException

Followed by a large amount of .Net XML errors.  This error means that one of your container configuration files has become corrupt.  These files can be found in the Service\Users folder of your Archive Attender install folder.  Look for any files which are extremely small (less than a couple hundred bytes), and delete them or move them out of that folder.

The XML files contain the definitions for any user groups you have defined. When you delete the XML file for a group, users will be moved to the [Default] group on the next user scan. If the file you deleted contains the [Default] group definition, it will be recreated the next time you open the console.

I was lucky enough to get in on the pre-release of the New Xbox Experience last night, even if it is only less than a week early.  Overlooking the fact that the new avatar system is a blantant rip-off of Miis, it is still the best update to come out for the 360 yet.  Read on for my review or just jump right to the pictures.

Continue reading ‘Xbox 360 NXE Update’ »

It’s funny how some files seem to follow you around without ever realizing it. You wouldn’t think twice about finding a photo over 10 years old, but somehow, finding a program I wrote over 10 years ago (11 I believe) is surprising.  Yes, I speak of course, of ScriptUO.

Back in the early days of UO, before samurai-land, Trammel, or even T2A. When UOAssist wasn’t around.  I put together a crude macroing program in VB6, and it worked great for the longest time.  I admit, it was also used for convincing the AllAdvantage toolbar that someone was at the PC (with a file called Microsoft Internet Explorer.txt open in Notepad).

Now you too can experience all the action of…macroing.  This file has survived easily a half dozen complete system formats and rebuilds, and refuses to die.  It does, however, refuse to run under 64-bit Vista (big surprise).

Continue reading ‘Digital Fossil – ScriptUO’ »

As if putting up with the religious nutjobs that decry Halloween as a ‘devils night’ and ‘evil’ every year wasn’t fun enough, now politics has gotten involved.

A Grosse Pointe Farms woman refused to hand out candy to children of Obama supporters.  A sign in her yard stated “No handouts for Obama supporters, liars, tricksters or kids of supporters.”  How is a kid supposed to react to that? Crying and calling the lady mean, thats how. Way to get support for your cause lady, by making kids who can’t vote cry and bringing negative publicity to your candidate’s campaign. I did get a kick out of the guy who drew the peace sign on his ‘Obama 4 Peace’ sign wrong though.

I actually got a handout during trick-or-treating hours Friday night. A girl handed me a post card with a piece of candy on it. The card was about only buying ‘Fair Trade Certified’ chocolate, which apparently doesn’t use child labor (except for handing out the pamphlets).  If you go to the campaign’s site (which I won’t repeat here), you’ll find their other causes are war protests, world trade organization protests, and tours of Cuba and various third-world countries.

Thanks for the free chocolate, guys. But it still doesn’t hold a candle to a good old capitalism-powered Hershey’s bar.