Kiss-A-Geek You may just end up with a prince!

Hollywood, Alaska

Ok, I had to bring this to everyones attention, as it’s a pet peeve of mine.

I just sat down to watch this weeks episode of “Human Target”, a good show in it’s first season on Fox. The opening scene involves a woman being pulled over on a remote roadway on the fictional island of Tanarak, Alaska. Immediately I notice a mistake commonly made in shows and movies set in Alaska – the Sheriff’s Department. We don’t have Sheriffs in Alaska, we have Police and State Troopers, that’s it.

So, if you’re setting a scene of your next production as being in Alaska, and plan a chase scene with the local authorities, please make sure the car doesn’t have big, bold lettering stating “Sheriff”.

Oh, and while we’re on the subject, car tires don’t squeal on snowy roads either.

Ho Ho Ho, Yo!

Company Christmas parties, one part company, one part employees, and a whole lot of WTF.

Speak mod! Good… Now, roll over…

OK, as promised, here is a fun little mod_rewrite trick I’ve used for putting up a page during site maintenance. So in .htaccess we put:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine on

RewriteCond /path_to_httpdocs/maintenance.html -f
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^bypass
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1 [CO=maintenance:bypass_maintenance:.domain.com]

RewriteCond /path_to_httpdocs/maintenance.html -f
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} !^bypass
RewriteCond %{HTTP_COOKIE} !^.*bypass_maintenance.*$
RewriteRule ^(.*) maintenance.html [L]
</IfModule>


What this does is check to see if a file named “maintenance.html” exists, and if so direct all traffic to it. Line 2 looks for a query string, in this case “http://domain.com?bypass”, and if found, sets a cookie in the users browser. The next chunk checks for the cookie or the query string, and if either exists bypasses the rewrite rule, if not, all traffic gets directed to maintenance.html.

This could direct traffic to another site all together, or any number of things. The basic premise is to make it so that you, with your secret query string, can still access the site while working on it, and the general public is spared the mess of construction.

I believe setting cookies requires Apache 2.x, but I’m not sure. I’ll look into it and update this post when I find out.

That’s it for now, my fellow geeks.

Something, anything…

When I created this blog I had grand plans. I wanted to download my thoughts directly to the Internet for all to see. However, work has conspired against me. Since starting this blog, I’ve designed a couple websites, did a 3D animation of the Voyager aircraft for a show with Dick Rutan, updated a logo animation for ACS (HD), and several other sundry jobs.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I like being busy. But, being busy hasn’t left a lot of time for my blogging aspirations. Heck, my website is in limbo, this blog is an empty shell, and my freezer is devoid of salmon. All work and no play…

Maybe it’s time to look into a GTD program, or start setting an alarm for the end of the work day. Perhaps then I’d get my website done, but wouldn’t that likely bring in more business, only perpetuating the lack of blogging time?

I think I’ll finish the site, at least then people would be able to look at my logo and watch commercials without TV shows getting in the way. I’m sure the salmon will appreciate it too.

Back to work… (maybe, if you’re lucky, I’ll pop in again soon and post a handy mod_rewrite trick or two.)

Until then, go kiss a geek!

Geek meets world!

Geekophile or not, hopefully you’ll find something worthwhile here. The content will be pretty broad.  Most likely a lot of technical subjects, but will also include opinion, rants, and stuff I find interesting; with plenty of bad grammar and run-on sentences.  Basically anything I feel like writing about.  Right now, I don’t feel much like writing…