Zac's Pad

Zac’s Pad

  • Blocking Outbrain and other clickbait ads for your entire network using the Barracuda NGFW

    So I recently got tricked in to clicking on a Outbrain article clickbait scam ad. Headline looked innocent enough, but when I clicked thru it quickly became apparent that it was one of those aweful “You won’t believe what happened next!  Click here to find out!” bullshit ads. Ya, I could have just tweaked Adblock, […]

  • Oracle V. Google

    Supreme Court opted not to hear the case despite a huge swath of IT folks sending in amicus briefs encouring the SC to hear the case.  🙁 Well, I guess it’s far past time to stop using Java. Oracle may have “won” but it’ll be a Pyrrhic victory when everyone and their dog stops using […]

  • Dell XPS 15 9530 8-month review

    So I’ve been using a Dell XPS 15 9530 as my daily (and nightly!) driver for the past 8 months.  I have the top-end version (3200×1800 touch, Core i7, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) It’s not the perfect laptop, but it’s damn close.  I primarily use it for work, which is to say I use Windows, […]

  • Why does Internet Explorer suck?

    So last night I was installing a brand new Exch 2013 server on Server 2012. One of the prereqs for Exchange had to be manually downloaded (unified communication library, or something) from Microsoft. No problem, thinks I, I’ll just open up IE, paste in the link and download. Except no.  Can’t download.  No download button. […]

  • Mosh, Putty, and Cygwin (with a side of Cygputty)

    After reading about Mosh (Mobile Shell) I had to give it a try.  This is truly SSH for the modern age.  Connections STAY connected even when your IP changes, or you roam from network to network.  You can put your laptop to sleep while connected, carry it to work, open it up, and the connection […]

  • Everything is a remix

    Everything is a remix

    Here’s an amazing video about why the patent system is so badly broken, how it’s strangling the public domain, and radically stifling progress.  Well worth watching – trust me, you need to see this. Everything is a Remix Part 4 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.

  • Doublefine Kickstart, and Game Dev Royalties

    First – So exciting!  Doublefine (Tim Schafer – the name behind a slew of great games including Monkey Island, Full Throttle, Psychonauts, Brutal Legend) has started a Kickstart fundraiser for a new game.  This is a great idea – bypassing publishers all together and putting the funding for the game in the hands of the […]

  • Hello (again) World

    Lots of changes to the site: I moved it from Godaddy to Amazon EC2.  For about the same price (and free for the first year!) I get a VM all to myself. I’m flipping back to WordPress from Drupal.  Drupal 7.x’s bloggy XMLRPC interface just sucks too much ass.  That means that all of the  […]

  • Moved!

    My wife and I got tired of living in an overpriced piece of crap apt, so we’ve moved to a better one. In the process we’ve cut our rent by 1/3 and gained a dishwasher and ensuite laundry! W00t!

  • CMS Upgraded

    Ok, I think that’s it – the site should be back to normal now.If anyone notices anything that isn’t back to normal then please let me know.Also, I hope you enjoy the new theme! 🙂

  • CMS Upgrade

    I’m upgrading my CMS from Drupal 6 to Drupal 7 today. Please excuse any downtime and site-weirdness while I get things sorted in the new CMS.Users should keep all the same rights and settings (e.g. donating users will continue to be ad-free) and all the posts+comments should remain in place.

  • Paul Allen is a Douchebag

    http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/12/microsoft-cofounder-paul-allen-tries-again-with-patent-megasuit.ars

  • AmonRa Recovery for the GW620

    Soooo…. I’ve been beta testing a new phone, and to ease the testing I ported Amon RA’s recovery ROM to it.  It works beautifully. As a result, I’m much more comfortable messing with RA’s recovery, so I took a few hours and got it working on the GW620 too. Use Volume+ and – to navigate.  […]

  • Borderlands Backup Script

    So I’ve been playing Borderlands a LOT recently.  I can’t adequately describe how much ass it kicks.  However, there is only ONE save-slot per character, and if it gets corrupt you are royally boned.  My friend MrFish had his PC crash mid-save, and he lost his lvl 24 hunter.  Ouch!  So, I whipped up this […]

  • Google Reader, OpenEtna, and My Phone

    First:  So I spent some time setting up Google reader yesterday, and I have to say it’s a powerful product!  Combined with FeedR on my phone I can now read up on all my frequented sites from wherever I am.  It’s a thing of beauty!  I’d highly suggest anyone reading this give Reader a try.

  • What Shall I Draw?

    My wife has started a new blog revolving around drawing requests from her readers.  Check it out at WhatShallIDraw.tumblr.com.  Her drawings are great, so head over and submit a request for something you’d like to see her draw.

  • BEST Explanation of DRM Ever!

     

  • Froyo for the GW620!

    The gang at OpenEtna have managed to get Froyo (Android 2.2) running on the GW620!

  • Drupal Update Carnage

    As some of you may have noticed Drupal took a dump when I updated it.  The site was offline for almost a day while I tried to get the errors resolved.  It only took a few hours to fix, but I’ve been insanely busy with work and life for the past few moths so it […]

  • 2.1 Firmware V4.2

    The fine folks over at OpenEtna have released version 4.2 of their excellent 2.1 based firmware for the GW620. Mostly a bugfix release, but they have introduced the JIT from 2.2 in to this firmware, which makes things MUCH faster. Sound is fixed, GPS works again, but Call Display is still messed up. I’m hosting […]