Mark Thomson

If your wondering what emoticons Facebook chat supports, here is a complete list:

Happy emote: :) or :-)

Really happy emote: :D or :-D

Wink emote: ;) or ;-)

Happy eyes: ^_^

Laughing eyes: >:o

Cat smile: :3

Grumpy: >:-(

Sad: :( or :-(

Crying emote: :’(

Shocked emote: :o or :-o

Glasses emote: 8) or 8-)

Cool shades: 8-|

Rude: :p or :-p

Woot?!: O.o

Dork emote: -_-

Duhhh emote: :/ or :\

Devil emote: 3:)

Angel emote: O:)

Kiss emote: :-* or :*

Love emote: <3

Pacman: :v

Robot: :|]

Weird guy’s face: :putnam:

Type "about:config" into the address bar and hit return. Scroll down and look for the following entries:

network.http.pipelining network.http.proxy.pipelining network.http.pipelining.maxrequests

Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it will make several at once, which really speeds up page loading.

Alter the entries as follows:

Set "network.http.pipelining" to "true"

Set "network.http.proxy.pipelining" to "true"

Set "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" to some number like 30. This means it will make 30 requests at once.

Lastly right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it "nglayout.initialpaint.delay" and set its value to "0". This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives.

Saw an interesting article on Digg recommending time savers for building web sites. Here's a cut down version so I can remember to use some of these awesome tools in future projects.

Drop Down Menus :: All Web Menus (http://www.likno.com/allwebmenusinfo.html )

Image Capture :: Gadwin Printscreen (http://www.gadwin.com/printscreen/)

Batch Image Resizing :: Multiple Image Resizer .NET (http://www.multipleimageresizer.net/ )

Web Forms :: My Contact Form (http://www.mycontactform.com)

CSS Text Boxes :: Rounded Cornr (http://www.roundedcornr.com/)

Vectorizing Images :: Vector Magic (http://vectormagic.com/)

Selecting Color Schemes :: Adobe Kuler (http://kuler.adobe.com/)

Creating a Patterned Background :: Stripe Generator (http://www.stripegenerator.com/)

Building a Quick Photo Gallery :: Flickr Slidr (http://flickrslidr.com/)

Testing Your Website in Multiple Browsers :: Browser Shots (http://browsershots.org/)

If you want to check out the original article it's available here.

Windows Server 2003 ships with security locked down by default. Part of this locking is Internet Explorer Enhanced Security which provides an extra layer of protection when accessing the net using Internet Explorer.

You can uninstall the entire Configuration, or just for users, or just for Administrators. The un-installer is set up like this:

Enhanced Security
->For Administrators
->For Users

If you have just random users connecting via Remote Desktop or Terminal Services, you may want to leave the Users configuration installed.

To remove it:

Click Start, put your mouse over Control Panel, and click Add/Remove Programs

Now click Add/Remove Windows Components

After a few seconds a window will pop-up. Uncheck the check mark next to Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration. If you'd like to only disable it for Administrators or only for Users you can click Details and do so.

Press Next, let it finish, and it's now disabled.

Open command line window.

Change to c:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SDK\v2.0\Bin

Execute sdkvars.bat

Then execute sn -k c:\.snk

The key file will be generated for attachment to your project. Right click on your project in Visual Studio and select Add Existing Item. Select the .snk file that you just created.

Then right-click on your project again and select Properties. Navigate to the signing tab. Check Sign the Assembly checkbox, and then choose your .snk file from the Choose a strong name key file dropdown list. Close the Properties window. Rebuild the project to recreate your dll with the strong name.

My sidebar links were running out of control, so I decided to hook up a collapsible menu solution. A hunt around the internet turned up a nice javascript solution, but as usual I had endless trouble trying to get it to play nice with Blogger. For some reason Blogger's security model blocks some javascript from running in the site. Usually it's something as simple as changing &amp;'s in a GET/POST string to &amp;amp's; instead, but this time it was a lot more difficult. Here's how I got it working, so you don't have to waste as much time on it as I did.

I created an HTML/Javascript part on the sidebar and inserted the following block of code:

<ul id="containerul">
<li>
Art
<ul>
<li>
<a href="http://alantew.blogspot.com">Alan Tew</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://www.maleev.com">Alex Maleev</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://absoluteart.blogspot.com">Tim Kane</a>
</li>
</ul>
</li>

<li>
Wargaming
<ul>
<li cteopen="http://<your site address>/cte_specialminus.png" cteclosed="http://<your site address>/cte_specialplus.png">
<span style="font-weight:bold;">Lord of the Rings</span>
<ul>
<li cteitem="http://<your site address>/cte_specialpage.png">
<a href="http://www.lotr-collector.com/">LOTR Collector</a>
</li>

<li cteitem="http://<your site address>/cte_specialpage.png">
<a href="http://thelastalliance.com/">The Last Alliance</a>
</li>

<li cteitem="http://<your site address>/cte_specialpage.png">
<span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.thepalantir.org/">The Palantir</a></span>
</li>
</ul></li>
<li cteopen="http://<your site address>/cte_specialminus.png" cteclosed="http://<your site address>/cte_specialplus.png">
<span style="font-weight:bold;">Warhammer 40k</span>
<ul>
<li cteitem="http://<your site address>/cte_specialpage.png">
<a href="http://www.advancedtautactica.com/">Advanced Tau Tactica</a>
</li>
<li cteitem="http://<your site address>/cte_specialpage.png">
<a href="http://www.tauonline.org/">Tau Online</a>
</li>
</ul></li></ul></li></ul>

<h2>Blogs</h2>

<ul id="anothercontainerul">
<li>
Personal
<ul>
<li>
<a href="http://olivepug.blogspot.com/">Olive Pug</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://metrobuild.blogspot.com/">Under Construction</a>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>

<h2>Resources</h2>

<ul id="resourcecontainerul">
<li>
Web Design
<ul>
<li>
<a href="http://http://www.sxc.hu//">Stock.Xchng</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://www.templatemonster.com/">Template Monster</a>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>

<script type="text/javascript"><!--
initiate(Array("containerul","anothercontainerul","resourcecontainerul")); // This must be placed after the menus in order to format them properly.
//--></script>

Then in the <HEAD> block of your site's template insert this code:

<script src='http://<your site address>/javascripts/cte_scripts.js' type='text/javascript'/>

<style type='text/css'><!--
@import "http://<your site address>/cte_styles.css";
--></style>

This all seems to work properly. If you want to add another container grouping, copy the grouping, paste it and change the block name. Then put the block name in as an input to the initiate() code block.

This command line tool is included with all versions of Mac OS X, and is also available on many other Unix platforms. To get started, try the following command.

sudo tcpdump -i en0 -s 0 -w DumpFile.dmp

The sudo command causes tcpdump to run with privileges, which is necessary to access promiscuous mode.

The -i en0 option tells tcpdump to capture packets on the first Ethernet interface. You need to select an interface; there is no default. For a list of interfaces, type ifconfig -a. Mac OS X 10.1 and later provide packet capture support on PPP, so you can also specify a PPP interface here (for example, -i ppp0).

The -s 0 option requests the full packet rather than just the first 68 bytes.

The -w DumpFile.dmp parameter tells tcpdump to dump the packets to a file called DumpFile.dmp.

In response to this command, tcpdump will begin to capture packets and put them in the DumpFile.dmp file. When you want to stop capturing, interrupt tcpdump by typing ^C. You can then display the contents of the packets as text using the following command.

tcpdump -s 0 -n -e -x -vvv -r DumpFile.dmp

The -n option means that addresses are not converted to domain names, which speeds things up considerably.

The -e option causes tcpdump to display the link-level header for each packet.

The -x option causes the contents of the packet to also be displayed in hex.

The -vvv option makes tcpdump's output as verbose as possible.

By specifying -r DumpFile.dmp option you tell tcpdump to read packets from the file DumpFile.dmp rather than from a network interface. Note that you don't need privileges to do this, so running tcpdump using sudo is not required.

You can also combine these steps, as shown below, but if you do this you don't get a high-fidelity record of the packets that you captured.

sudo tcpdump -i en0 -s 0 -n -e -x -vvv

Well I'm finally back online. I'm going to have a brief rant, so strap yourselves in. We've just migrated to Australia, and after years of hearing wonderful stories back home about how much better Australia's internet services are, how we've been given a third-world communications network by Telecom for too long, I'm surprised to report that Telstra is absolute rubbish! The plans are overpriced, too small a data cap, charged both ways for data, and that's assuming you can even get connected. A workmate of mine has been trying to get online with different providers but found he couldn't because the Telstra exchanges don't support enough lines for DSL, so now they've forced him on wireless with them, and he's already blown out his meagre cap doing nothing but web surfing for a few days. I signed up with a provider, was prepared to pay a bit extra for a business account so I could get my personal server back online, get my mail and blog back up, all was ticking along nicely until we moved our home phone from Telstra to AAPT. Suddenly our request for ADSL is declined by Telstra because there are only 40 connections at the local exchange that services at least 4 different suburbs. How freakin ridiculous!! 40 connections! What is this the third world! I then get a phone call from Telstra asking if I would like to move my phone back to them, and implying that if I did they'd probably be able to get me on ADSL!?! WTF! So if I sign up with you I can get everything, but if I sign up with someone else who is forced to provide a service over Telstra infrastructure, then I can't. In what way is this not a monopoly?? Then to add further insult to injury, they won't guarantee how long it will take to get connected with them anyway, plus there plans don't offer anything I want, I can't connect my server, and I can't get a static IP address unless I'm prepared to pay hundreds of dollars a month. Oh they did offer me 6 months discounted rate, but it'll mean signing up for a set term! Gee thanks Telstra!! So for now, I'm going without a connection. I'm sticking to my principles, and hoping that the Queensland Government will step in soon and regulate this mess. But it's still really surprising to find that they're actually behind New Zealand now. Best thing the NZ Govt did, stepping in and regulating Telecom. You can't have a level playing field when one of the companies is controlling all the infrastructure. It's outrageous!

So I'm back, and I'm going to try to move my blog over to blogger now, so I don't have to rely on getting my server back online.