STRAY neuron

Apache Tip: Blocking by User-Agent in Tomcat/mod_jk configurations

dkaz — Thu, 29 May 2008 20:47:23 +0000

The key here is using Location (instead of Directory) for your Deny directive (otherwise your JkUnmount’d calls will not be blocked)

  SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "Firefox" bad_bot

  
    Deny from env=bad_bot

WTF/M - best code review stat ever

dkaz — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 06:06:48 +0000

So damn funny, yet so damn true.

Kids, Keyboards and Oscar Peterson

dkaz — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 03:20:55 +0000

My oldest kid, a 2nd grader, has started taking some (group) piano classes on a trial basis.

She seems to enjoy it a lot, so I bought her a 5-octave keyboard, a stand and a seat - a $300+ investment.

As it happens, I played piano for 11 years as a kid, so this has also provided the motivation for me pick it up again.

I’ve been YouTube’ing a lot for some good riffs to play and I ran into this video - while I can’t even imagine attempting to play the piece, watching one of the greatest pianists in history, Oscar Peterson, is still a phenomenal and inspiring experience.

phpmyadmin Tip #1: rename your phpmyadmin dir to something unique

dkaz — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 17:27:56 +0000

Found in Apache logs…on a domain that doesn’t even have MySQL installed…

85.17.155.21 “GET /phpmyadmin/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /myadmin/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /phpMyAdmin/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /PMA/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/phpmyadmin/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/phpMyAdmin/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/sysadmin/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/sqladmin/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/db/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/web/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/pMA/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/mysql/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/myadmin/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/webadmin/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/mysqladmin/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/phpmyadmin2/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/phpMyAdmin-2.2.3/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/phpMyAdmin-2.2.6/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/phpMyAdmin-2.5.1/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/phpMyAdmin-2.5.4/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/phpMyAdmin-2.5.6/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/phpMyAdmin-2.6.0/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/phpMyAdmin-2.6.0-pl1/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/phpMyAdmin-2.6.2-rc1/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/phpMyAdmin-2.6.3/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/phpMyAdmin-2.6.3-pl1/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/phpMyAdmin-2.6.3-rc1/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /db/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /web/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /PMA/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /admin/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /mysql/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /myadmin/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /mysqladmin/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /mysql-admin/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /phpmyadmin2/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /phpMyAdmin-2.2.3/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /phpMyAdmin-2.2.6/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /phpMyAdmin-2.5.1/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /phpMyAdmin-2.5.4/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /phpMyAdmin-2.5.6/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /phpMyAdmin-2.6.0/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /phpMyAdmin-2.6.0-pl1/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /phpMyAdmin-2.6.2-rc1/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /phpMyAdmin-2.6.3/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /phpMyAdmin-2.6.3-pl1/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”
85.17.155.21 “GET /phpMyAdmin-2.6.3-rc1/main.php HTTP/1.0″ 404 - “-” “-”

Top 10 Actors of Our Generation

dkaz — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 04:38:05 +0000

Argued about it at work today…here’s my list…in no particular order…

These are the men at the top of their game (therefore Pacino, Nicholson and DeNiro are not present)

Leonardo DiCaprio
Christian Bale
Sean Penn
Russell Crowe
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Brad Pitt
Forest Whitaker
Paul Giamatti
Johnny Depp
Jude Law

Skyler’s B-day….Animoto’d

dkaz — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 03:55:25 +0000

I tried out a new video mixing service, Animoto, tonight.

I have it to give it very high marks for ease of use, because even my first video (created during “So You Think You Can Dance” commercials) came out way better than I expected.

Surface Computing - Future of Microsoft?

dkaz — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 03:20:40 +0000

Most brilliant work from Microsoft in years…

UPDATE (6/2/07): The Register questions whether all this hype about Surface Computing is more “smoke and mirrors” than actual breakthrough. Good reading.

Linux Tip #7: For loop on a range of numbers

dkaz — Fri, 25 May 2007 03:50:05 +0000

Little know seq (sequence) utility is a great way to loop on a range of numbers in Linux. It came in very handy today and will hopefully stick in my brain in the future.

for i in `seq 1 10` do .. done

“Different” use of the ternary

dkaz — Thu, 17 May 2007 01:35:05 +0000

Amusing use of the ternary from our codebase..

log.debug( ( randomize ? "R" : "Not r" ) + "andomizing content" );

Bugatti Veyron - Hold on to your seat watching this clip!

dkaz — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 06:16:42 +0000

Great car TV show on the planet - TopGear - presents an incredibly enthralling clip of the fastest car on the planet - Bugatti Veyron.

Watching clips of “Top Gear” makes you wonder why the show is nowhere to be seen in US. Come on Discovery, buy rights to this damn thing instead of spending money on bikers in tight shorts!

UPDATE: I thought about embedding this, but decided it to link it instead - DailyMotion’s viewer is much bigger than the embedded one and you want size to experience this.

Here it is: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x157l2_bugatti-veyron-at-top-speed

UPDATE #2: If you love the first clip, check out this (even more unbelievable) one by TopGear (linked by Roy in the comments). Awesome stuff. I’m adding Atom to my shopping list for my 45th b-day.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=WaWoo82zNUA

Quite Thrifty

dkaz — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 05:47:14 +0000

Facebook development team has open-sourced their light-weight, cross-language development platform, Thrift.

I played around it with it for a while and it looks interesting enough, but I don’t have an immediate need for it.

Check it out if you have a cross-language environment Thrift currently supports C++, Java, Ruby, Python and PHP - a list that should satisfy most everyone.

A POSIX-compliant *NIX system is a requirement, but I’d be curious if it’s possible to get it up n’ running inside of Cygwin (as a development-only exercise, of course).

10 Most Polluted Places in the World

dkaz — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 20:39:59 +0000

Great article from The Guardian about Linfen, China puts a spotlight on some of the world’s scariest places to live.

Blacksmith Institute has a full list of world’s most polluted places here.

Traditional crunches are a waste of time

dkaz — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 19:40:15 +0000

I’ve always believed crunches to be the single most effective abdominal exercise. However, research from San Diego State University suggest just the opposite. Check out these results…

For strengthening the rectus abdominus (the muscle down the front of the abdomen), ranked most to least effective:

1. Bicycle maneuver
2. Captain’s chair
3. Crunches on exercise ball
4. Vertical leg crunch
5. Torso Track
6. Long arm crunch
7. Reverse crunch
8. Crunch with heel push
9. Ab Roller
10. Hover
11. Traditional crunch
12. Exercise tubing pull
13. Ab Rocker

For strengthening the obliques (on the sides):

1. Captain’s chair
2. Bicycle maneuver
3. Reverse crunch
4. Hover
5. Vertical leg crunch
6. Crunch on exercise ball
7. Torso Track
8. Crunch with heel push
9. Long arm crunch
10. Ab Roller
11. Traditional crunch
12. Exercise tubing pull
13. Ab Rocker

Mommy, mommy, mom, mom, mom, …

dkaz — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 04:39:39 +0000

I was watching this YouTube video on my buddy’s projector screen tonight and my kids could not get enough of it….genius…

How you coming on that novel…you working on?

dkaz — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 06:25:41 +0000

Here’s a brilliant clip Jonesy turned me onto. No one I’ve shared it since seemed to get it, but I agree with him it’s brilliant.