Several of these link to fake Wii Media Download like sites which advertise Games for your Wii

You do know you can block those sites in AdSense, right? Please, do so. Also, if you wanted to make money all the amazon links in this article would have referrer tags in it. Think about it, your authors actually EARNING YOU MONEY. I know, you don’t understand things like “profit”, but you should try it sometime.

Whew! What a long title! Yep, I’m doing it to help Google out, sorry.

Long ago, I was trying to do some crazy shit with Automator and it involved Variables. I might have been doing some renaming stuff, don’t recall exactly, but I found this helpful macworld article titled THE SCRIPT IS IN THE FOLLOWING LINKED ARTICLE, COMMENTER “Gi” Automator Power: Variables and looping. It isn’t as easy to find as it should be, because its title isn’t as informative. The thing is, it does exactly what Textcast does, for free.

What does Textcast do? It apparently can turn Text, E-mail, and RSS feeds into personal podcasts (I don’t know if it has a built in webserver for RSS, which would be neat). The thing is, the automator script in the article above can get an RSS feed, and turn the text of the articles into mp3s, which are then inserted into an iTunes Playlist… exactly what Textcast does, but for $25 less. (By the way, you can have the say command piped into an mp3 file, like say -v alex -o audiofile.mp3 -f textfile.txt and it will have alex output the contents of textfile.txt to audiofile.mp3.)

Save yourself $25 then spend it by using our Amazon searchbox on the right to get something you REALLY want. For example, iLife 09.

There’s a neat thing called “Time Capsule” which Apple started pushing recently… Problem is, if you’ve already got a backup disk, you probably would like to keep your backups in order without starting anew. After all, what if you DID delete something you’d like to get back someday already? As far as I know (and I did a lot of research, but several months ago) there’s no way to port a Time Machine Backup Disk to an Airdisk backup (they use sparseimages or something).

An interesting note is, if you connect an external drive (like this My Book, similar to the one I use) to an AirPort Extreme (I have the 100mbit one, sadly), start the backup, then cancel it and connect the disk to your Mac (like my MacBook), it will start to back up to that sparseimage.

The annoying thing is, I would really like to just convert my time machine backup into one of those sparseimages, so I could turn it into an AirPort Disk and back up wirelessly. I think someone could make a few bucks selling (or asking for donations for) an app that did just that.

I called it on who would be the fifth Cylon last year. I CALLED IT!

[Edit date=2009-01-25] Please note, I mention some silly unnecessary steps in the post ahead, when I could easily set tighturl’s autoincrement to a number higher than the highest lilurl, and add some lines to tighturl to look at a different table for older (lilurl) entries. It is totally not necessary to copy over non-leading-zero ids to the tighturl table, but if this is not done, those URLs don’t get the additional data tighturl provides like hit count (unless, of course, you patch tighturl further than an ‘if less than [tighturl_floor], jump to lilurl code, else use tighturl code’, which I personally don’t think is wise, but I’m very inexperienced). Thus, while it is indeed extra work to convert valid base 36 numbers into ints in a tighturl-style table, I believe the added benefits such as hit counts and last-hit are worth it. Worth is, however, as always, determined by the user. [/Edit]

Yesterday I was bored and wanted to help Evan move ur1.ca, a url shortening service aimed primarily at identi.ca users, to TightURL. This is apparently planned, and will happen “eventually”. I loaded up the database (after messing with it quite a bit, PHPMySQL doesn’t import TSV files and saving it as a CSV was stupid as several lines include commas. In the end, I had to do a series of steps:

1. Extract the database
2. Rename it to be a .tsv and open it in Excel
3. Ctrl+F for commas and replace them with the text COMMATIME
4. Ctrl+F for semicolons and replace them with escaped semicolons (\;)
5. Save to a csv on the desktop
6. Open the csv in TextEdit
7. Ctrl+F for commas and replace them with semicolons
8. Ctrl+F for COMMATIME and replace them with commas
9. Import the CSV file (don’t use the LOAD DATA thing)

I noticed pretty quickly some oddities, like entries for 0, 00, 000, 0000, etc. It didn’t click right away that these were not base36 numbers (they’re all 0!) and were in fact just alphanumeric ids. For example, this post is http://ur1.ca/0y5s. That explained the VARCHAR(255) column (what the fuck). I ended up adding the other columns tighturl used, modifying existing ones to be proper, etc, thinking I could end up converting it pretty easily. I was quite wrong. An overhaul (and perhaps a “plugin” for tighturl, despite it’s lack of a plugin architecture) would be required.

What must be done to convert a lilurl site to a tighturl site:

1. Add a second table for entries that have a leading 0. I believe all other entries are valid numbers. This could be a big table.
2. Write some code for TightURL (and maybe get it patched in, the author seems relatively active, and he has an e-mail address) to take shorturl ids that start with a 0 and look in the second ‘compatibility’ table for these URLs created before moving to a sane system.
3. Get something that casts a fix on the column. My initial thought was to create a second column, nid (numerical id), and slowly convert each id to the nid table as an INT. I’m told this is unnecessary by people whom I believe do not know the full extent of the problem.

Of course, this could also be overcome by setting up a subdomain for LilURL and disabling the ability to create new URLs, and redirecting links that have leading 0′s there.

Evan excuses LilURL as someone’s first project, but I’m really surprised someone could think just using as-of-yet-unused alphanumeric ids was a good idea even during their first project.

I hope to add more to this post (for those who are in fact interested in doing the conversion) soon.

I’ve been reading this incredibly interesting interview with an adware author, and here’s this line that I just think is so great:

If you think about it, when I use a credit card, the security model is the same as that of handing you my wallet and saying, “Take out whatever money you think you want, and then give it back.”

Bingo. How about another model, where a credit card number functions more like an OpenID, and maybe OAuth (don’t know which would be better here), and you’re sent to your bank’s site via the credit card vendor’s redirector (preferably in a way where, like OpenID, you’re supposed to type in the bank’s site in your address bar so that you don’t get phished). Then, you are told when you log in that such and such a vendor is wanting to debit your card for this amount (once/on a recurring basis), and you approve that and are sent back to the site, kinda like with Google Checkout.

Maybe the next step isn’t OID/OA, but banks running their own PayPal like services (which will not happen for quite some time, if ever, don’t delude yourselves), and also hell freezing over.

You may or may not have noticed a new link in the sidebar recently. We have our very own MBILF aStore. I know you’re wondering what’s up with that, but believe me, I only post the really good deals there. A 4×6″ Intuos3 for $138.32? A Linksys Media Center Extender for $99.99 (with DVD player, $129.99)? That’s in there. In our computers section, we’ve got some netbooks on sale (rarely anything better, sorry). A minuscule portion of the profits go to funding MBILF.

If you use Twitter, you should really check out our amazonsteals gift card giveaway post.

January 5, 2009
Letter from Apple CEO Steve Jobs

Dear Apple Community,

For the first time in a decade, I’m getting to spend the holiday season with my family, rather than intensely preparing for a Macworld keynote.

Unfortunately, my decision to have Phil deliver the Macworld keynote set off another flurry of rumors about my health, with some even publishing stories of me on my deathbed.

I’ve decided to share something very personal with the Apple community so that we can all relax and enjoy the show tomorrow.

As many of you know, I have been losing weight throughout 2008. The reason has been a mystery to me and my doctors. A few weeks ago, I decided that getting to the root cause of this and reversing it needed to become my #1 priority.

Fortunately, after further testing, my doctors think they have found the cause—a hormone imbalance that has been “robbing” me of the proteins my body needs to be healthy. Sophisticated blood tests have confirmed this diagnosis.

The remedy for this nutritional problem is relatively simple and straightforward, and I’ve already begun treatment. But, just like I didn’t lose this much weight and body mass in a week or a month, my doctors expect it will take me until late this Spring to regain it. I will continue as Apple’s CEO during my recovery.

I have given more than my all to Apple for the past 11 years now. I will be the first one to step up and tell our Board of Directors if I can no longer continue to fulfill my duties as Apple’s CEO. I hope the Apple community will support me in my recovery and know that I will always put what is best for Apple first.

So now I’ve said more than I wanted to say, and all that I am going to say, about this.

Steve

Apple

Here’s the thing: I’m ok with Dreamhost.  I have not yet had a beef with them.  I hear I probably will, but until then, they’re ok.  I’ve gotten a few friends on with them.  I also posted recently about their 2008 end of year coupons. We only found three, after using several different browsers and doing a full cookie cleaning and the like.  The rundown of the previous deals: 1 year of hosting for $9.24 (777), 2 years of hosting for $64.44 (222), and six months of hosting with domain purchase for $9.95 (2008).

Now they’re doing new deals, and of course they expire today (they expired today then too, whatever today was).  They’re 202, 220, 224, 226, and 228, in no particular order.  202 gets you two years of hosting for $10.74, 220 for $21.48, 224 for $107.40, 226 for $150.36, 228 for $193.32.  I saw 228 first, and knew something was up.  I’d suggest 202, but you can pick whichever code you like.  I suppose if I find any more, I’ll post them.

Edit (Jan 6): Grey tells me he’s seen 202 after I’d posted those, but I haven’t been able to see it again. I’ve since seen other codes: 221 ($42.96), 223 ($85.92), 225 ($128.88), 227 ($171.84), and 229 ($64.44).

I was going to hook my girlfriend up with an account of her own for $10.24 (a price she can afford!), so I tried 202. It told me I had to pay $42.96.

I started resetting Safari for more codes, and Grey ran into the 202 code that day (it’s VERY rare to see) so obviously this is a problem on Dreamhost’s end. I tried an older code, 222, to see if it still worked. It gave me an error that the coupon was no longer valid. If 202 was no longer valid, it’d give that message, instead of a higher rate. I tried 220 today (it’s $21.48, also reasonable but not as reasonable) and it too gave $42.96!

Also, I made a horrible, unedited screencast of how to use the coupon. Some youtuber said “THANK YOU SOOOOOOOOO MUCH!“, so I guess it worked for someone (or they just liked the $42.96, or perhaps they had another code they didn’t know how to use).

I sent dreamhost an e-mail (which is still “open” and has a message age of 2 days 6 hours) about this:

Hello,

I know you’re rotating coupons on your front page, just use a different browser or delete your cookies and refresh and there’s another code. That’s fine, it makes sense. One of those codes, 202, is advertised as 95% off for two years, or $10.24. I want to use that one. I tried to use that one. I got $42.96 as the price, after taking $171.84 off of $214.80. That’s not 95%!

I know the older codes from last year, like 2008 and 222, give me expired notices, so technically 202 shouldn’t change, it should be replaced, so something must be wrong with it.

This is in addition to previous tickets YOURMOM and MYDAD, where I’m trying to get my girlfriend a separate account.

Thanks.

Also, if you choose to use a subdomain instead of registering or transferring a domain right away, and something is “wrong” on the page, it resets to mycoolsubdomain instead of saving what you’d typed in there, so that if you don’t notice, the next time you submit it whines that you typed in a subdomain that’s already taken.

I’d like to wish everyone a sad new year. Every single year you’re wished a happy one, and I’m sure you can easily find instances where that didn’t materialize. Lower your standards, and when something good happens, you will be more surprised and more happier than if you were expecting it.

Sad new year, everybody!