/usr/bin/pwn

I was having weird problems with Firefox lagging every once in a while, so I decided to just build my own for Mac OS X Leopard on my Intel Core 2 Duo Mac Pro. Didn't turn out to be too difficult; Neil Lee at BeatnikPad already has Intel and G5 specialized builds of Firefox 3 available, but I like having the default branding (Firefox instead of Minefield, the fox icon instead of the weird bomb-planet thing) and a little more customized optimization.

Like I mentioned previously, this site is now being served up by lighttpd; it took a while to get clean URLs working right, but what right now is making my server tick is a very carefully laid-out filesystem and set of bash scripts and lighty config files, wrapped around a Drupal multisite installation to make installing modules and upgrading the entire system as intuitive and painless as possible. Upgrading Drupal (from 6.2 to the brand-new 6.3 for example) takes no more than running a single command. Here's an overview of how my own site is set up, generalized to make it applicable to almost any other system.

Still not on any better of a schedule. Not really worth discussing.

The site is now running on lighttpd, to cut back on the memory consumption compared to Apache. It took a while to get all the rewrite rules working right, but it seems to all be working now; use the contact form to let me know if something isn't right.

My web site is now (mostly, anyway) migrated to my new server package, which as previously mentioned is a NetworkRedux Silver Virtual Private Server, paid for yearly (yeesh).

Upgrading my server package with NetworkRedux to their Silver Virtual Private Server package. Meaning, I'll be pretty much completely in control of my own server, which is something I've wanted (and been able) to do for some time now. It also means I need to be able to wrangle BIND on my own, but it doesn't seem too hard. I have some books on it and have a basic practical grasp of it, which coupled with an intermediate understanding of DNS means I should be fine.

ThinkFinger is a utility to enable the fingerprint reader on IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad laptops, allowing you to use the fingerprint reader to authenticate yourself in the command prompt and for sudo. But getting it put together can be tricky, and working with GNOME for login and for unlocking the screen at least used to be impossible. So here's a quick, maybe 10 or 15 minute guide at getting it all working so that you can use your fingerprint almost exclusively for authentication in Ubuntu 8.04 "Hardy Heron" for authentication.

I've invested in Scrivener—what I've come to see as the best project-based writing program for the Mac—dusted off my FanFiction.Net account and some of my really old Pokémon fan fiction manuscripts, and have started writing away again.

Delerium setting in, beginning to understand the cat more clearly. Cat must be losing it though, keeps trying to eat me and refusing to let me sleep for no good reason at all.

To all members of the University High School Class of 2008: Congratulations. You've made it.

Welcome to life.

This one is for all the incoming ASU freshmen (especially the ones from University High School, since they all would be asking me anyway) or anyone who still has yet to get their Gmail for ASU account set up and working right.