Mark S. Kolich: January 2009 Archives

Network Solutions WHOIS Firefox and IE Search Plugin/Provider (JavaScript addEngine)

By Mark Kolich on January 31, 2009 7:00 AM | No TrackBacks

I prefer Network Solutions' WHOIS service over others because it appears to be one of the more complete and accurate WHOIS services available. Because I use this WHOIS search service a lot, I decided to put together a quick yet complete search plugin/provider for Firefox and Internet Explorer 7 (as shown in the screen shot to the left).

Add to your Firefox or IE7: Click here to add my Network Solutions WHOIS search provider to your Firefox or IE7.

In fact, building your own search plugin/provider for Firefox and IE is relatively simple. All you need is a small XML file that defines a few details about the provider, and a little JavaScript to trigger the install process. My Network Solutions WHOIS search plugin XML can be found here; note that this XML works for IE7 and Firefox. If you need to Base64 encode an image/x-icon for the provider XML, I suggest using this converter. With regards to the JavaScript that triggers the search plugin installation in the browser (addEngine), take a look at this JavaScript example ...

Continue reading Network Solutions WHOIS Firefox and IE Search Plugin/Provider (JavaScript addEngine).

Barack Hussein Obama: Wall Street Bonuses May Go Way of Dodo Amid Bailouts ... What about Overpaid Athletes?

By Mark Kolich on January 30, 2009 7:00 AM | No TrackBacks

President Barack Hussein Obama recently launched into a mild-tirade against Wall Street bonuses and inflated CEO compensation as reported by Bloomberg. What Obama failed to recognize is that our entrepreneurs, CEO's and business leaders help manage the backbone of the American economy. In some cases, they are responsible for multi-billion dollar companies employing over 100,000 Americans. No offense to the guys in the mail room, but someone with that type of corporate responsibility on their shoulders deserves to earn a little more than the average Joe. In my opinion, executive compensation is a non-issue. Obama is only making an issue out of this with the intention of trying to show how in-touch he is with America's middle-class; which he isn't.

Hey Obama, while you're at it, what about all those overpaid athletes and celebrities? Like this guy, and these guys. Athletes and celebrities have less of an impact on our economy and society than our business leaders, yet Washington seems to turn a blind eye to the fact that some athletes get paid over 100-million dollars to play a game. So much for genuinely caring about the middle class.

Understanding Java's "Perm Gen" (MaxPermSize, heap space, etc.)

By Mark Kolich on January 29, 2009 10:00 PM | No TrackBacks

During my travels at work, I've come across a few interesting memory management issues in Java. My team has deployed several large web-applications in a single instance of Apache Tomcat. The Linux box running these applications only has about 2GB of physical memory available. Once the apps are deployed, about 1.8 GB of the memory is consumed by Java alone. Clearly, we need to improve our memory management a bit.

However, I took a few minutes to do some digging on Java's Permanent Generation (Perm Gen) and how it relates to the Java heap. Here are some distilled notes from my research that you may find useful when debugging memory management issues in Java ...

Continue reading Understanding Java's "Perm Gen" (MaxPermSize, heap space, etc.).

Make Your Own Javascript Window Manager/Engine Using jQuery Draggable and Prototype

By Mark Kolich on January 28, 2009 6:00 PM | No TrackBacks

Recently I've been experimenting with jQuery and the jQuery UI interface for a few side-projects. As of right now, I'm working on creating my own JavaScript windowing engine complete with a window manager, task bar, etc. Not surprisingly, I found that jQuery's UI Draggable interface provides a large majority of the desired drag-and-drop functionality for free. Using UI Draggable, I created a functional drag-and-drop windowing interface in about 20 minutes.

Here's a demo.

Even more impressive is how many lines of JavaScript it took to make this demo: six. Eight if you count jQuery's $(document).ready:

$(document).ready(function($){
 $("[id^=win]").draggable({
   containment: 'document',
   stack: {group: $("[id^=win]"), min: 1},
   handle: $(".title"),
   opacity: 0.8
 });
});

Next step in this project will be to logically break things up into separate classes using Prototype's classes and inheritance. For example, a Window class will represent a window in the browser, a TaskManager class will represent a set of Windows, etc. To be continued ...

Make Your Own Ringtones With makeownringtone.com

By Mark Kolich on January 24, 2009 9:00 AM | No TrackBacks

Lifehacker recently published an interesting piece on how to make your own ring tones using a free online service, makeownringtone.com. Makeownringtone.com offers a simplistic audio editor embedded within a creative Flash app. You upload an MP3, WAV, or OGG, and then edit the audio using a very childish looking editor.

At first, I found it a little more annoying than useful, but after playing with it for a few minutes I was able to make a few pretty neat ring tones. My favorite was a hacked ring tone using Grand Synthe's Descender (chill electronic, similar to the type of stuff you might find on Soma FM's Groove Salad or Sirius XM Chill).

Enjoy.

Understanding How Dominant Google Really is ... Analyzing Your Apache Logs

By Mark Kolich on January 23, 2009 9:45 AM | No TrackBacks

I knew Google is the world's search leader, but I didn't really comprehend how dominant Google is until I took a look at my own Apache logs. I ran a few crude commands to compile some basic numbers on all traffic coming into kolich.com since December of '08. Specifically, I was focused on the HTTP Referrer header; the referrer tells me where the request coming into my blog originated from (e.g., which site). Of course, anyone with enough skill can easily fake the referrer header on an incoming HTTP request, so my numbers won't be dead-on accurate. But, for my own curiosity, they're good enough. As it turns out, Google owned referrers (Google search results, links to kolich.com from other other Google pages, etc.) account for approximately 91.6% of all incoming traffic to my site. That's awfully significant, considering Yahoo! only accounts for about 0.8% of all kolich.com traffic. No wonder Yahoo! is hemorrhaging talent.

Continue reading for the analysis ...

Continue reading Understanding How Dominant Google Really is ... Analyzing Your Apache Logs.

Finally, Solid State Hard Disks (SSD's) are Moving into the Mainstream

By Mark Kolich on January 22, 2009 1:26 PM | No TrackBacks

Dell has introduced several new storage options for its XPS line of notebooks, including the M1330 and M1730. A 500GB 7200RPM Seagate hard drive with a free-fall sensor is available for an additional $150 over the base 320GB 5400RPM on the XPS M1330. In addition, a Samsung 256GB SSD is now available, commanding $400 over the same base drive on the M1330. The 500GB 7200RPM hard drive and 256GB SSD will be available on more Dell laptop models in the coming weeks. Read the full report here from Notebook Review.

Unfortunately, I have yet to see any HP notebooks on hpshopping.com that use SSD's. Samsung has published some interesting SSD performance numbers for their new SSD line. I'm looking forward to finally seeing more SSD's move into the data center; maybe once I get a few SSD's I can finally stop worrying about excessive heat killing my drives.

Microsoft Songsmith: There are few things in life that could be as painful as watching this.

By Mark Kolich on January 22, 2009 9:30 AM | No TrackBacks

Here's where I would rank watching the Microsoft Songsmith commercial among other extremely painful events of life: (1) Childbirth, (2) watching the Microsoft Songsmith commercial, (3) cutting a limb off with a butter knife. I think it's pretty clear that watching this ridiculous infomercial, or whatever you call it, ranks right up there with some of life's most painful experiences. See it for yourself:

BTW, notice that the laptop used in the commercial is actually a concealed MacBook! Even worse, is that Microsoft Songsmith is a real research project at Microsoft. Just another great piece of Microsoft software we can all look forward to!

Jury acquits Calif. ex-sheriff Mike Carona of all but 1 count ... and All I got was this Bottle of Wine

By Mark Kolich on January 17, 2009 9:00 AM | 1 TrackBack

In 2004, I attended a young conservative speaker series in Orange County, CA. The current Sheriff of Orange County at the time, Michael S. Carona, was a guest speaker at this event. Long story short, I won a bottle of wine (2000 Woodbridge by Robert Mondavi) in a raffle that evening. And, even more awesome than that, the bottle of wine I won in this raffle happened to be from Sheriff Michael S. Carona. The bottle itself is engraved with the OC Sheriff's logo and Carona's name.

Fast forward 3 years, and I saw online that Carona (and his wife) were indicted on several counts of witness tampering, bribery, conspiracy, and mail fraud. It's now 2009, and yesterday a jury acquitted Carona of all but one count of witness tampering. As of now, he faces up to 10 years in prison. Thanks to Orange County taxpayers, I now own a bottle of wine from a convicted felon!

FOLLOW UP: Four More Reasons Why I Dislike Facebook (and MySpace)

By Mark Kolich on January 16, 2009 11:22 AM | No TrackBacks

A friend of mine referred me to an awesome article on MSN Slate about the last few Facebook holdouts. I found this article insightful, considering just two days ago I posted my own explanation as to why I won't join Facebook (or MySpace). It's good to know I'm not alone.

Isn't it ironic that (1) this article was posted to MSN, (2) Microsoft bought $200-million worth of Facebook, and (3) the title of this article says "Everyone else is on Facebook. Why aren't you?". Nice marketing ploy.

jpandmeghan.com: A Work of CSS Art

By Mark Kolich on January 16, 2009 7:00 AM | No TrackBacks

A good friend of mine is getting married to his girlfriend of 7-years. I know both of them very well, and offered to put together a wedding web-site for their family, friends, and guests.

This was my opportunity to do something I haven't tried before: to build a beautiful and functional cross-browser compatible web-site using only CSS (no unnecessary tables, pixel blocked styling, etc.). Ultimately, the site has to look perfect in IE6, IE7, Firefox 2+, and Safari. If you've done any type of web-development, you know that making a functional site look good in all browsers can be a nightmare. Let alone, making a site that looks good in all popular browsers using only CSS. With a few CSS browser hacks, I finally got everything styled and positioned perfectly. It took a while, but it was worth it. I'm not a graphic designer, but I think the site (jpandmeghan.com) looks great. And best of all, the entire framework is built using only CSS!

Continue reading if you're interested to find out how I built jpandmeghan.com ...

Continue reading jpandmeghan.com: A Work of CSS Art.

DNS FAIL: MyCougarLand.com (Classic Failure to Properly Update DNS Records)

By Mark Kolich on January 15, 2009 11:25 AM | 1 TrackBack

If you've reading this, and you were trying to visit mycougarland.com (or some other site) you should know that you were re-directed here because of a technical error on the part of the owner of mycougarland.com. As it turns out, the owner of mycougarland.com failed to properly update their DNS records when their IP address changed. As a result, when you try to navigate to www.mycougarland.com in your browser, that domain resolves to IP address 76.21.33.115. This IP address, 76.21.33.115, is currently my IP address as assigned to me by Comcast. If you are the owner of these domains (mycougarland.com, etc.), please update your DNS records to point to the correct IP address.

I do not know what mycougarland.com is, nor am I affiliated with it or the owner in anyway.

I suspect this problem occurred because of dynamically assigned IP addresses from Comcast. Most likely, the owner of mycougarland.com was self-hosting his site (like I do) using his Comcast internet connection. At one time, Comcast assigned him IP address 76.21.33.115. However, Comcast is known to rotate these dynamically assigned addresses every once in a while. So, both of our IP addresses changed and I got 76.21.33.115. However, the previous owner didn't update their DNS records to point to their new IP address; so all of the domains previously pointing to 76.21.33.115 will now redirect to kolich.com.

Just another classic case of failing to properly update DNS records.

(mark@regatta)~> nslookup mycougarland.com
Server:         208.67.222.222
Address:        208.67.222.222#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:   mycougarland.com
Address: 76.21.33.115

CES 2009: Dell's Announcements

By Mark Kolich on January 15, 2009 7:00 AM | No TrackBacks

Dell had a surprisingly small floor presence at CES this year. That being said, the company made a number of announcements: (i) expanded its mini ultra portable line-up with the addition of a new 10-inch model (Inspiron Mini 10 netbook) that boasts Intel's Atom Z530 processor; (ii) confirmed an ultra-thin luxury notebook code-named Adamo; (iii) announced a time sensitive deal for the Inspiron Mini 9 Netbook (drops the price to $99 with a two-year AT&T broadband contract ($350 mail-in rebate to Dell). At present, this offer is only available on Dell's website, not AT&T stores. The base version of the offer does not come with a web cam, and once you configure the PC with more memory, a larger Solid State Drive (SSD) and Bluetooth, the final price comes to about $185; and (iv) Dell introduced the Studio XPS 16 and Studio XPS 13 notebooks. The Studio XPS 16 delivers an improved media center experience with a unique design, home-theater features, and a vibrant RGB LED widescreen.

Not surprisingly, many of Dell's moves are intended to help them better compete with HP's MiniNote. Additionally, I suppose Dell's Adamo project is targeting Apple's MacBook Air; HP has yet to respond to the Air.

Four More Reasons Why I Dislike Facebook (and MySpace)

By Mark Kolich on January 14, 2009 7:00 AM | 1 TrackBack

Disclaimer: I don't use Facebook or MySpace; I never have. A critic might say I have no place publicly criticizing a service I don't use, and to some extent, they're right. However, instead of ranting-and-raving about why I don't like these services, I've provided a few well thought out arguments that clearly explain my position. And for the record, ~~the only "online networking service" I use is LinkedIn~~ (I now use Twitter as 2/27/09).

Every time I drive by one of the many Facebook office's scattered about downtown Palo Alto, I roll my eyes. An entire "empire" built literally, on nothing. Continue reading how Facebook and MySpace are dumbing-down our friendships.

Continue reading Four More Reasons Why I Dislike Facebook (and MySpace).

Weekly Standard: 10 Things President Bush Got RIGHT

By Mark Kolich on January 12, 2009 10:19 AM | No TrackBacks

"The postmortems on the presidency of George W. Bush are all wrong. The liberal line is that Bush dangerously weakened America's position in the world and rushed to the aid of the rich and powerful as income inequality worsened. That is twaddle. Conservatives--okay, not all of them--have only been a little bit kinder. They give Bush credit for the surge that saved Iraq, but not for much else.

He deserves better. His presidency was far more successful than not. And there's an aspect of his decision-making that merits special recognition: his courage. Time and time again, Bush did what other presidents, even Ronald Reagan, would not have done and for which he was vilified and abused. That--defiantly doing the right thing--is what distinguished his presidency."

Read the full article by Fred Barnes at the Weekly Standard here.

Continue reading for a summary of the 10 things Bush got right ...

Continue reading Weekly Standard: 10 Things President Bush Got RIGHT.

HOWTO: Combating/Blocking Movable Type Trackback Spam

By Mark Kolich on January 9, 2009 9:33 AM | 1 TrackBack

I recently decided to stop accepting trackbacks from external sources. In a nutshell, a trackback is similar to a "ping" from another blog or web-site. This "ping" alerts your blogging software that someone has linked to your blog, or one of your blog posts. Essentially, this lets bloggers keep track of who is linking, and referring, to their articles. This is a great concept, except that spammers use trackbacks as a way to post their spam on your blog. Trackbacks to a blog, or blog post, are often published and publicly visible. As a result, spammers wrote bots and other programs to crawl the web looking for vulnerable blogs to which they submit "trackback spam." For example, trackback spam might be a Viagra ad that is submitted and posted to your blog as a real trackback.

Since I started blogging in October '08, I've had to filter though a ton of trackback spam in Moveable Type. So, I decided to take it up a notch by using .htaccess to block external access to my Trackback web-service at http://mark.koli.ch/mt-tb.cgi. Of course, this means that I'm also blocking any legitimate incoming trackbacks from other bloggers, but I don't really care. Note if you visit my trackback web-service at http://mark.koli.ch/mt-tb.cgi you'll see a 403 Forbidden.

Continue reading to see my .htaccess configuration ...

Continue reading HOWTO: Combating/Blocking Movable Type Trackback Spam.

Google tells users to drop IE6

By Mark Kolich on January 8, 2009 8:00 AM | No TrackBacks

Finally! Google is urging its users to drop Internet Explorer 6. So, what's the big deal? Well, IE6 is a web developers nightmare; in a nutshell, it doesn't adhere to many web-standards used by other browsers (Firefox, Safari, Chrome) which makes developing web-applications for IE6 a complete disaster. Further, IE6 often requires all sorts of ridiculous hacks and workarounds for styling and functionality that works out-of-the-box with with other browsers. So far, in this lifetime, I have spent at least 100+ total combined hours fixing IE6 specific bugs. It's been a huge splinter in my side, and I'm so happy to see IE6 die. Rot in hell, Internet Explorer 6.

And BTW, if you're still using Internet Explorer 6, for the love of God please upgrade your browser to something more reasonable.

HOWTO: Convert PostScript Files to JPG Images

By Mark Kolich on January 7, 2009 8:00 AM | No TrackBacks

Ever have a need to convert a PostScript file to a JPG image? Probably not, but just in case here's how (it's easy using GhostScript):

gs -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=jpeg -sOutputFile=output.jpg -r100 input.ps

Use the -r flag to adjust the resolution/quality of the JPG.

Dish Network: LNB Drift Detected (DVR 625)

By Mark Kolich on January 6, 2009 8:00 AM | No TrackBacks

At home, I've got a Dish Network DVR 625 connected to a Dish 500 on my roof. Recently, my satellite setup started experiencing some strange signal quality issues: splotching, broken audio, and in some cases the unit loses the satellite signal all together. There are no large tress or other objects that block my view of 110°W and 119°W, so I started hunting around for answers. I ran the DVR 625's self-test feature, and luckily, it helped me pin-point the problem. Based on the self-test results and my own investigation, I've concluded that I have a potential problem with the Dish 500's LNB (Low-Noise Block Converter) on the roof.

The LNB is a parabolic receiver (an antenna) which converts a high-frequency satellite signal to a lower one that can be eaisly sent over coaxial cable. An LNB Drift indicates that the LNB's internal oscillator frequency is operating out of normal range, and therefore, it could not compensate for any normal fluctuations with the incoming satellite signal. This explains my signal quality issues; the LNB hardware is failing. On my DVR 625, the self-test reported an LNB Drift of about -6 (see screen shot). Many online forums and other sites suggest that an LNB Drift might be caused by a failing LNB, a bad parabolic dish, or a blockage of the incoming satellite signal. In my case, I think it's pretty clear that a failing LNB is the most likely cause.

Continue reading for the rest of the story ...

Continue reading Dish Network: LNB Drift Detected (DVR 625).

Looks Like Someone's Got a Case of the Mondays!

By Mark Kolich on January 5, 2009 10:14 AM | No TrackBacks

It's Monday, and no, I don't have a case of the Monday's. I'm still trying to figure out what exactly I should be doing; two-weeks off has a tendency to make you forget what you were working on before you went on vacation. Maybe I'll head over to Chotchkie's for some Pizza Shooters, Shrimp Poppers and Extreme Fajitas. If you don't understand any of these subtle puns, then you need to go and rent this movie.

Dish Network: Super Programming Discount Package

By Mark Kolich on January 3, 2009 11:48 AM | No TrackBacks

If you're a loyal Dish Network subscriber, you might have received an email from the Dish Network Account Loyalty Team regarding a few new special offers for 2009. The email, which looks like this (PDF PostScript JPG), is pushing the Ultimate Turbo-Charged HD Package or the Super Programming Discount Package (non-HD). I don't have an HD receiver, so I was limited to the Super Programming Discount Package.

After some thought, I decided to call Dish Network (1-888-208-4477) to get more information about this offer. As it turns out, I decided to accept the offer and agreed to a new 24-month commitment with Dish in exchange for the services and benefits of the promotion. Based on my investigation, here are some details you should know about before signing up (there are always fine print gotch-ya's with Dish). Continue reading for the gotch-yas ...

Continue reading Dish Network: Super Programming Discount Package.

Y2K+9 Microsoft's Zune players freeze on New Year's Eve

By Mark Kolich on January 2, 2009 7:36 PM | No TrackBacks

A friend of mine sent me this incredibly hilarious news story on Microsoft's latest failing product: the Zune music player. According to Yahoo! Tech, and Slashdot, 30GB Zune owners experienced an interesting shock on New Year's Eve when their Zune simply stopped responding and wouldn't boot up. I can see it now: a large group of New Year's Eve party goers enjoying some tunes via a Zune. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the Zune software fails and BSOD's. No music, party ruined. I'm glad my New Year's Eve celebration wasn't Zune Powered!

January 2009 Archives