learning to be human, since 1984
quick tip
Restoring PC Stickies
Jul 18th
I use a program called “Stickies” to temporarily keep track of notes throughout the day (similar to the OS X program with the same name, but for Windows). It creates resizable, styleable post-it-note-esque boxes on my desktop that can be repositioned, deleted, or serve as reminders (visually, and with audible alarms). I restarted my machine a few days ago and was prompted to choose a file from which to restore my stickies settings. My heart sunk as the backup restoration failed – but I knew somehow I’d get them back, and I did. Here’s how:
- Right-click on the stickies icon in the taskbar hidden icons area
- Select “About Stickies v7.0beta” – yours may say something different
- A window will open. At the bottom, click the ellipsis (…) to go to the data directory folder
- Right-click again on the stickies icon in the hidden icons area and select “Exit” to quit the program
- Go to the data directory folder you just opened and duplicate the last file that contains usable data (you can usually tell if the file size is larger, or open it with a code editor and search for significant text)
- Duplicate the backup file by copying and pasting it (ctrl+c, then ctrl+v)
- Find the file stickies.ini in the data directory and rename it stickies.ini.old
- Rename the file you copied stickies.ini
- Restart your Stickies program, and you should be back in business
A Letter to Myself – or – How to Get Carmex Out of Your Eye, Idiot
Jun 10th
Dear Me,
It’s been about a week since I got sick, as you’re well aware. One of the worst sinus infections I’ve ever had has also imbued me with an unexpected and very much unpleasant “treat”.
That is to say, something happened to me that I never could have anticipated. Prepare yourself for a tale of musicial mucous and chapping skin!
After blowing my nose constantly for 2 days, my flesh started to get dry and irritated. Naturally. For the following 4 days, I had been applying carmex regularly, to keep my nose and upper-moustache region that-oh-so-supple tenderness that it is used to.
Well. Somewhere in there, a hidden smidgen got on my eyelashes. At first I couldn’t figure out why they kept sticking together every time I blinked – afterall, I hadn’t realized it even had it on my finger.
After some detective work in front of the mirror and feeling the wet, almost waxy texture around my eye, I had a Eureka! moment (which was rather fitting, considering I had just watched a documentary on Archimedes). Ahem.
I proceeded to wash my eye with soap and warmish water, and hit the hay. Four hours later I woke up – gasping for air, as my throat and nasal passages had both filled entirely with a thick, disgusting mucous whose color you certainly don’t want me to describe – only to find my eyes were sealed shut with the gluey residue that clearly hadn’t washed off.
In my delirious awakened state, I wiped my lashes off with a towel. Minor success – back to bed. I awoke again, 4 hours later to a similar situation and finally fixed the problem.
- Run the hot water, as hot as you can ******* stand.
- Make gobs and gobs of lather with some bar-soap.
- Rub the suds in really ******* hard.
- Rinse with hot water.
- Repeat at least 3 times.
- Breathe a sigh of relief.
This, mind you, is after scouring the internet for a solution. Maybe my search query was trash. Maybe I couldn’t read with my eyes fused shut. I really don’t care. It’s done. Hopefully this will never happen to you again. If it does, you’re a total muppet, but at least you know what to do. Common sense isn’t so common after all, especially when you’re in a weird mental state.
Write back soon.
Love,
Your Jackass-self
301 Redirects in Drupal Pages
May 15th
I recently ran into a problem with a Drupal site I designed and maintain. Here’s a quick explanation of the problem, and then the solution.
The front page has a Views Slideshow Block that grabs node data from custom CCK types. These types contain an image to be displayed in the slideshow (but not the node itself) and a checkbox for enabling or disabling the node from appearing in the Slideshow Block. The slideshow images by default link to the nodes from which they were created.
The problem is linking to a page rendered by Views. Since I can’t add a field for the image or checkbox in a view page (not that I know of, let me know if I’m wrong on this) I had to figure out a different way. And I did, but not without further glitches.
I added the image and checkbox fields to my Page content type and created a node with the appropriate image. It appeared in the slideshow and linked to the page. I then tried several methods to redirect the alias to the correct page. First, the Path Redirect Module. Fail. Then, cpanel’s .htaccess redirect configuration tool. Fail. Then manual .htaccess configuration. Fail.
I don’t really know why the .htaccess failed – I have suspicions it has to do simply with Apache not updating, the fact that I have the Global Redirect Module installed, the clean url directives that already exist in the .htaccess file, or some similar url rewriting conflict.
In a pinch, I added this snippet of code to the body of the page I created:
<?php
header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently");
header("Location: http://www.mysite.com/aliasname");
exit();
?>
This delicious morsel did the trick, but not without a headache first. You’ll have to have access to posting PHP code, and post it as source, even if you select the PHP option.
Quick Printing Trick for Barrel Folded Tri-Fold Mailers
Apr 11th
I recently designed and printed a two-sided barrel-folded mailer for an upcoming fundraiser. I ran into an issue that I had to resolve quickly, as I was printing the job on a client’s printer, from their computer, using limited software (read: MS Word).
I know, blasphemy – but we needed a quick fix and I got the job done.
Problem
Barrel-folded mailers generally require the two outer end-panels to be printed 180° to the angle of the main body copy. The top panel is where the return & mailing address go (the first flap you open), and other is inside the flap (the second flap you open). Thus, some text needed to be upside-down.
Solution
After fumbling through Word (I cringe as I capitalize it) I decided against flipping the text in the program, opting instead to flip the paper and slide the text to the bottom of the page. This achieved the desired result in much less time than searching through help or online. While this technique isn’t revolutionary, it is a good reminder to think beyond software and into the actual material you are printing on. A simple flip or fold could lead to a creative solution to a more complex problem.
Weird Enter Key Bug – Disable AVG Plugin
Mar 1st
I installed AVG’s latest free anti-virus software, including browser plug-ins. Shortly thereafter my Enter key stopped working when trying to type in a URL. I didn’t know AVG was the issue – I tried using other browsers (they all worked) but Firefox has all my web development toolbars and bookmarks – it’s annoying to use anything else except for testing. After searching online, I figured it out. Just uninstall or disable the plug-in and you should be fine.
A Quick Note on Image Visibility in Drupal’s Views_Gallery Module
Feb 23rd
For anyone whose views_gallery module seems to be installed and configured correctly:
Don’t forget to enable anonymous user permissions. This goes for most uploaded content, including attachments.
5 Reasons I Rarely Buy Salted Butter
Feb 8th
This is just a quick list, brought up by something I learned when I snagged a pound of salted organic butter from the fridge by accident (rather than the unsalted one) while making dough for tartes tonight (#3):
- Better control over salt content. Even with the nutrition label data, it’s hard to know exactly how much salt is in your butter – you could use butter to season your food, but that’s not really its job. Butter is my fat, not my salt.
- Salt is a preservative. I don’t have solid evidence for this, but I would assume salted butter is older when purchased than its unsalted counterpart. Even so, I’d rather buy it in smaller quantities and know it’s good rather than have a mummified beurre-pharaoh in my fridge.
- When making pie crusts or other similar doughs, salted butter melts faster and is MUCH harder to work with. There’s a reason it’s used on winter roads. This one is not so obvious, but very
- It overwhelms the subtleties that great butters can possess. This isn’t always true (see my post on Kiel), but it is the case more often than not. Fresh creamed butter, especially unpasteurized, it absolutely fantastic and unrivaled in complex flavors. I swear I can taste the clover and other pasture feed in some butters.
- I love fresh bread with butter – and this is the one case where salted butter might be better – but I generally go with anchovy paste for the salinity, or some other umami-laden saline vehicle.
Sorry salted butter: you’re…toast.