Zac's Pad

Category: Blog

  • 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 […]

  • 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. […]

  • 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

  • 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!

     

  • 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 […]

  • Android 2.2 Froyo Source Released

    Yay! Google released the Android 2.2 source today! I’ll poke around at it over the next few days – maybe I’ll have better luck getting it to compile! 😀

  • Site Notes

    Quick note: I made a few more changes to the site.

  • Drupal CMS

    Update 3: Made a few more changes:

  • Changed Web Hosting Provider

    Quick note – I just changed my webhost from Sunwave over to GoDaddy.  For the same price I get 30x the storage and 60x the transfer/bandwidth, plus 24/7 support!  Crazy!

  • In Toronto for the week

    I’m in Toronto for work + visits till the 23rd, and the internet at my hotel is REALLY slow. Excuse my slow updates. 🙂

  • Donations

    A few of you have donated to my site in the past week – Thank you!

  • I aintn’t dead

    It’s just been a VERY busy few weeks.  Lots of travel to new clients, and so much work that I’ve not had the energy to do anything ‘cept relax in my free time.