Migrating from IIS to Apache and dealing with broken links and images
I recently had to migrate a large group of microsites from an IIS setup to a new LAMP stack and it proved to be more challenging than I thought. Linux is case sensitive and Windows is not, in other words a file may have been named EN_logo.gif but it may have been embedded with en_logo.gif. This also means any external links coming in with the wrong case would also be broken. A nightmare was in the making, luckily there is a simple Apache module that will fix this.
Become a power surfer, some web browsing quick tips
These tips will probably seem obvious for some, but I am surprised by how many people I see not using easy to use browser functionality. I’m not talking about FireFox add-ons or plugins, I’m talking about the average functionality that most browsers come with out of the box. These are tips that although simple can vastly speed up your surfing habits and allow you to find stuff quicker and manage multiple websites efficiently. Whether you are comparing reviews or searching for the latest tips on Photoshop, these quick steps will help you do this better and faster.
Keep Reading
Give me full RSS feeds!
I’m an RSS feed junky. I currently have about 15 feeds in my Google reader which results in over a 100 stories a day during the week. Most of these I quickly scan for interesting news or flag them for reading at a later date. A lot of sites I read give me full feeds, which is greatly appreciated and results in more of their content being read. Others only leave a snippet of the full article and try to entice you to click to the full website.
Apple’s Let’s Rock media event
The blog sphere has been buzzing with Apple Rumours lately, a lot of it generated just over two weeks ago when Kevin Rose dropped a bunch of Apple Rumours on his blog. The official announcements are due this Tuesday at Apple’s “Let’s Rock” media event and are rumoured to be big. Everything from an updated iPod line to new iPhone firmware with unreleased features. iTunes 8 is also rumoured to be a major update with a new visualizer to boot. My fingers are crossed that there will be some easy way to finally transfer “Your” music to multiple computers and maybe even keep them synced, but I’m not holding my breath on that one.
Sad tab in Google Chrome
I just got my first sad tab in Google Chrome. Surprisingly it was in Gmail and it cascaded to Google reader. All other tabs were fine. You can reload the sad tab which is pretty cool if you haven’t just lost a long email. Still it’s better than losing all your tabs and you are always just a reload away from getting back what you were looking at.
Aw, Snap! is the message. This is just so Google. No cryptic error message, just the reality of the situation.
Systemwide Gmail outage
About 20 minutes ago I tried to send an email and got an error. So I logged out and logged back in only to find that gmail is down. I asked a co-worker if his was down and it was. I just now received an RSS feed update from TechCrunch that says this is a system wide outage. I personally have never had Gmail fail me until today. Lets hope it’s nothing serious, some of us rely on and trust Gmail so much that it’s basically all our eggs in one basket. I mean it is still in beta after all, but Google seems to be perpetually in beta, and a Google beta is usually many times more reliable than production software from other companies.
Update: All is well in Google land, Gmail is back, it seemed to be down for about 30 minutes for me.
I love Twitter but I have a secret pet peeve
Twitter has become my favourite social app. I have to admit it’s very hard to explain why. Twitter is one of those things that you say is stupid until you get hooked. There is no explaining why, it’s just one of those things that you either get hooked on or you don’t, there seems to be no in between. I even have Twitterrific on my iPhone, it was the first app I installed. I like Twitter because it’s fast, simple and it forces people to get to the point with only 140 characters per tweet, which also leads me to my biggest pet peeve with Twitter.
Openmoko Neo FreeRunner
Wow, a lot of smart phone news lately. Yesterday another really interesting phone was released called the Neo FreeRunner for use with Openmoko. The actual phone is made by First International Computer a Taiwanese computer and components manufacturer. The Openmoko project was started by the founders of FIC. The about section of the site describes the project as:
Openmoko is open.
Open to life, desire, function, and simple beauty. Never closed, perfect, or complete. An empty vessel, ready to be filled with your ideas.
