Genius Tech Blog

These days the developer’s workstation is not complete without multiple virtual machines. On the OS X platform, VMWare Fusion is the leading virtualization software.

The .htaccess file and Apache’s mod_rewrite module may be some of the most under-utilized web server utilities.

Millions of websites suffer the ignominy and shame of having hardcoded filenames
on their websites such as:

http://example.com/index.html

or unsightly url’s for their (sometimes dynamic) subpages, for example:

http://example.com/blog/post.php?post_number=1045

.htaccess and mod_rewrite can dramatically change these unfortunate websites for the better. They may become

http://example.com

and

http://example.com/blog/post/1045

Not only will the new names be easier to read and more intuitive, they will also be search-engine friendly and one step closer to a proper RESTful methodology.

For a good introduction to .htaccess, see:
http://www.crucialwebhost.com/blog/htaccess-apache-rewrites-oh-my/

There is a good mod_rewrite “cheatsheet” here:
http://www.ilovejackdaniels.com/cheat-sheets/mod_rewrite-cheat-sheet/

For more reading on RESTful principles, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representational_State_Transfer

Submitted by Your Computer Genius on Mon, 2007/12/03 - 9:00pm.

reCAPTCHA is not your normal “CAPTCHA” program.

CAPTCHA is a general name for the anti-spam, anti-abuse code that people place on their websites, especially on comments sections for blogs, or new account registrations, to prevent bots or automated computer programs from exploit or over-using web services.

As they state on their website, 150,000 hours of human time are spent solving CAPTCHA-style problems, or filling out CAPTCHA-style forms.

reCAPTCHA captures and channels that energy, adapting it to a useful and usable form — namely it aids in transcribing text from digital images into text, forming a critical link in the digitizing of physical books and the archiving of human knowledge.

The reCAPTCHA system uses this available source of human work to help with this archival process when automated OCR runs into problems.

You can tap into this system for free, and use it on your website to filter out spam and non-human users, all the while aiding this noble project.

Submitted by Your Computer Genius on Thu, 2007/11/15 - 4:55am.  

Do you spend a lot of time in FTP programs, or perhaps SFTP and WebDAV?

If you are not regularly backing up your files, you should be.

Every time you make more than just a minor change — and even then, if there is risk of corruption — you should have a backup.

Backups to your local machine work great in these days of fast connection speeds and cheap local storage.

The best way to not spend an inordinate amount of time doing this is to use a mirroring algorithm, one that checks the files based on modify date and time and automatically only downloads the ones you need.

Keep a local directory on your hard drive that you use for these “mirror-downs” — when you need to make a backup, which should be often, initiate a mirror-down. When it is finished, simply duplicate the directory and retain the duplicated directory as a dated snapshots of your remote servers. Leave the mirror-down directory active: it will save you tons of time the next time you need to backup the particular remote server you are working on.

Always following the same, efficient path will cut down on the time you spend backing up, and the results of following this methodology will pay off in spades the first time you need to restore one file.

If you are running Mac OS X, Panic makes a great piece of software calledTransmit. You can pick up a copy for a reasonable $29.95, and using it’s “mirror-down” and “automatically detect server time offset” features will garner you an incredibly high ROI.