Chroder.com

I just got a DVI to VGA converter and hooked up a flatscreen I had laying around to my computer, and it’s so cool!

I love the extra space! Makes it easy to multitask without overlapping windows and whatnot.

If you read my whiteboard entry from the 1st, then you know I’ve become a freak for planning my coding projects. I’ve been trying to find good resources (other then broken, or incomplete resources like blog posts and the likes) that covers “how” to plan these projects.

I was reading the “Designing a Good API” section of Advanced PHP Programming, and noticed the “Further Reading” section (which I usually skip over). One of the two books listed there is Code Complete (by *gasp* Microsoft Press).

So I bought it, and it’s really good so far.

I’ve got a feeling that something bad is going to happen soon.

I bought myself a whiteboard the other day so I can organize my thoughts more effectively. It is a wonder! I have it facing me while I’m on my computer, and I can look up at it whenever I want. It makes it easy to add ideas, erase them, jot down notes, todo’s etc.

So to all the software devs that don’t have one: get one! If I ever get an office (instead of my bedroom/office), I think I’ll fill an entire wall with a huge one.

So today I woke up and decided to clean my room because it was messy as hell, and I can’t work in those conditions Anyway, I go to look at my fish and then notice he’s not there. The fish has literally disappeared. I’ve got a plant thing in his little bowl/vase, and I thought he might be stuck inside of it or something — but I took it out, and still no fish.

So at this point, I figure my cat ate it. I remember her up there (”up” because he’s on a shelf above my desk), because she knocked all of the fish food off and I had to clean up hundreds of these little balls.

I told my sister and she got all upset (LOL) and got mad at our cat and everything (she’s very odd when it comes to animals, she actually wanted me to bury the fish and have a funeral!), I decide to move my desk out from the wall to get some papers that found their way down. And what do I see? My dried up fish Blue.

Either the cat just pawed the fish out and it flopped down before she could get it (which might explain the knocked over food), or the fish wanted to commit suicide.

So, now collisions have been found in the SHA1 hashing algorithm too. Now that SHA1 and MD5 are crossed off the list, what’s left? Using either SHA1 or MD5 for passwords should still be okay (as collisions don’t matter, passwords will still need to be brute’ed), but using these hashes for digital signatures can cause some problems.

If you’re an avid /. reader like me, then you already know about LokiTorrent getting shut down.

I can’t believe it, that happened way too fast. Last time I saw, they were raising a bunch of cash to fight back, and now they’re dead. They had a lot of money too…

Well, I’ve decided I’m going to drop my last class of the day. It’s sooooo boring, I just cannot stand it at all. So that means my days now end at about noon

I was reading a thread at vBcom about the phpBB site being hacked. Wow… I’ve uploaded a screenshot for historical reasons.

The passage there is Portuguese, and using Google Translate it roughtly translates to:
Someone translated it “by hand”:

It was caused by a security hole in AWStats. Maybe I should check mine…

I’ve uploaded some ShiftBlog screenshots to show off some of it. The thing I’ve been working most on is the option system, which allows anyone to add options easily. This will make it really easy for hacks with options to be installed, or template mods (since templates can use conditions). So they choose what type of field it is (radio, checkbox, select, multiselect, text box, textarea), the values it can contain (for selection types), the default value, PHP code to execute when it gets changed, they can even choose a PHP file to generate the selection values. For example, the “Skin Choice” option there gets it’s dropdown values from a PHP file that reads the available skin directories.

So I’m quite proud of that, I think it’s really neat. Right now I’m working on the users and usergroups part.

Anyway, there it is

Today was the last exam I had for this semester, and I am not at all sorry to see these classes go! Woo Now I get the rest of the week off, then start semester number two, which will likely be far more boring then this past one. But that’s enough complaining

I went to a friends house with 9 others today to play poker. Do I even have to say that I won again? After 6 hours, it was down to me (who had about 85% of the chips) and another guy, so we decided to split the winnings (was getting late…).

I’ve started working on ShiftBlog in full power, lately. It’s getting really good. I can’t wait until I can release an alpha. It’s just so nice

What’s your favorite show? Mine has recently become 24. I love it! It’s on right now, just thought I’d blog about it lol. After this is Medium, another cool show.

Anyway, that is all

I was organising music today, and renaming a lot of files. After renaming files from just one album, I Google’d for an app that would allow me to rename with regex. I found one, Flexible Renamer. It’s a lifesaver

Okay, blogging has gotten huge! I thought blog links in signatures on forums would keep me clicking them once and a while, but that doesn’t happen. So today, I had to make a new folder in my Firefox favorites entitled “Blogs”, that is situated right next to my “Forums” folder.

Yay, now I get to spend even more of my time on the internet.

I’ve switched Chroder.com to MyAcen servers now. I for one, notice a huge speed increase (epecially with FTP, mmm, it so nice :D).

School was back today, what a shame. I am soooo tired. Going to bed at 4am and waking up at 2pm, then all of a sudden having to wake up at 7am was a shocker.

I think I got a lot of things done over the break. I worked on some things that needed to be worked on, including my ShiftBlog. I created a vBulletin blog script that I want to use at WT, but will release if Tim doesn’t want to. And of course relaxed, then waited in line for 3 hours to get my license.

I’ve also paid for one month of hosting at MyAcen because Jiffynet isn’t working out for me well. MyAcen was my first host ever, and the best, other then registering the wrong domain. They are quite reputable on WHT too. So if after this month I like it, then I am going to switch over.

I was reprogramming and/or improving my template class and decided I should know more about regular expressions. So I searched up a book called “Mastering Regular Expressions” on Chapters and it said that they have 2 books in stock. I go, and I can’t find it anywhere. I should have called first…

The quest for good books got me searching around Amazon and I created a new wishlist. I’m going to try and get my parents to gimme their CC info so I can order the books I’ve got there, but if anyone is wanting to be nice go ahead! I was looking at “Upgrading and Repairing PCs” in my local book store and it looks very good. I’ve always wanted to know the details of computer hardware. It’s the 16th edition, and each edition has a bunch of very good reviews (apparently this newest addition isn’t worth a buy if you have the older ones because not much is new, but I have none so I guess it doesn’t matter.)

Anyway, that’s todays blog!

<edit />
I got the books I wanted (didn’t get the pocket reference though)! Officially my first Amazon order ever! I can’t wait hehe.

Merry Christmas (or happy holidays) everyone!

We opened up our gifts earlier today (24th) because my sister had to go work the midnight shift. I got some small stuff like colugne and aftershave, The Ultimate Matrix, a little home-made “gift certificate” that will get me my license, and $600 cash!

I didn’t know what to put on my Christmas list, so… That’s what I get :p My parents said they aren’t going to do that again because cash is too impersonal and isn’t right on Christmas. Which is true, I suppose.

Anywho, hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas! My birthday is in 5 days and I’m going to get my license on it, so I need to start looking over the drivers manual.

Well, we played poker today. 7 people, $5 each. Played for about 6 hours, and I was a winner ^^ Me and Tim were the top players (yes, Tubgirl Tim) and we decided to split the winnings because the game was going on forever. He had a bunch more chips then I did, but he always plays safe so I could probably bring him down chip-by-chip in 8 hours

Anyway. Yeah, that’s cool ^^

I just watched the new Saw movie… Wow. If you’ve ever seen the movie Se7en, it’s kinda like that. Except, IMO, it’s a lot worse. I think I can actually say it’s terrible. Not in the sense of a bad movie, but whoever wrote it must have had very sick in the mind.

Basically, it’s about some sicko that takes people that don’t appreciate their lives for whatever reason (for example, a drug addict) and puts them into really bad circumstances. I’ll tell you one part, to make a point (it’s a small clip of the movie, but if you don’t want to know about it then stop reading).

He gets a guy who tried to slit his wrists and puts him in a room surrounded by barbed wire. He said that there was a door outside that would lock shut in a couple hours, and if he really wanted to live, then he’d have to cut himself some more. The guy tried to struggle through the barbed wire, and he was found dead with his flesh so ripped apart that stomach acid was found on the ground.

I think it was a good movie. Horrifying… Even I think it’s terrible, but I think it’s a good idea. Hard to explain it as a good movie but a bad movie at the same time…

Anyway, if you’ve got a weak stomach for that kind of thing, or can’t stand to see people helpless… Then do not see this movie.

I’m feeling extra geeky lately, so I’m going to install Fedora Core 3 (whenever I get some time, that is).

I think I’m going to set up an extra computer and install it so I can use it as a development server (leave it running for others to have access too), with no monitor. We’ll see. Maybe I’ll just use VMWare.