New blog, yay…

I have a new blog.
Unlike I was hoping, its still not a homebrew thing. (A wee tad more info on that here.)

Thats all for now.

*jory goes see if he can put some auto-forwarder here.

A little rant about hosting

I, myself, have a hosting package at ASO.
Its really nice, it comes with everything I need (At the moment at least.), support is really fast, etc, etc..
Its not my hosting I’m going to rant about here.

Its the hosting used by a friend of mine, Roy, who’s site I do the tech stuff for.
He is in the proces of changing hosts. We wanted to get everything setup with the new one before letting the old one know.
So, we gave the new host all the files (That guy didn’t want to give us an account right away, no, he had to do stuff like that himself.) and then made a database dump, using phpMyAdmin. Yea right.. halfway the fifth table, the connection to the MySQL Server got lost. On every single attempt. Taking into account that the first five are rather small tables, and that we have 70, I wasn’t planning to do it 4 (at max) at a time. I was just about to send an email complaining about this when I noticed something: It said `localhost:3306`. This is pretty normal, except there MySQL server is on 62.250.7.95… And, sure, the requests are forwarded.. most of them anyway.. if the servers aren’t to busy.. and if your lucky. :ermm:
So, once I remembered that, it was a matter of minutes (upload phpMyAdmin myself, with the right settings, 3 clicks, wait a while, done.) I change the email I was writing to include the solution (I have yet to get a response…) and went to the new hoster kid. (He lives in this town.) because normal accounts aren’t allowed to restore a DB thats more then 1,5 MB.
(Apparently, a server can’t handle that, except if its done via an admin account.. right :ermm:)
So, we went to that guys place, poked his phpMyAdmin (Man, does that guy have a slow PC..) and restored the DB. Yea right…
Seems it doens’t like it if, at the end of the table creats statement, it includes a line telling it what engine to use. :ermm:
So, after filtering that out (Find, Replace), we gave it another try. This time, it worked.. untill it got around to the fifth table or so.. it seems that, for some reason, that one had another engine in the create table statement (Most has MyISAM, but a few had INODB.) so that had to be filtered, too.
So, we finally got around to adding all tables.
It seems this was a bit to much for the server; is had to reboot. :ermm:

And I wonder: If you own hosting, you really should be able to awnser something like `Is mod rewrite installed and enables?`

Oh, and just for fun, I gave importing that DB as ASO a try: Worked right away, and didn’t put any (noticable) strain on the server I’m on.

And, on a last note: Is it weird if I find it hard to beleave a 16 year old (that is still in highschool, doing one of the lower levels, I think.) is one of the people that programmed Direct Admin?

Burning up

For school, we have to do, well, lots of stuff.
I missed one test (as in; didn’t make it.) and failed 3 assingments. I have to hand in another tomorrow, which isn’t done and can’t get done, so that makes 4. Sure, I can re-do them all, but it just sucks that I even have to.
But, I gues it can’t be helped. The reason for this is simple: We do group tasks, and this period, three out of the five people in my group are idiots. Really, they are. One already stopped, and the other two are just waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay under the level they should be. Just this moring, we where sitting in a PC lab, trying to get some C++ (Or, well MS VC++ .NET ) done. In C++, you device every class into two files. In the header, you define variables and functions (Or fields and methods, as they like to call them at school) and in the source, you fill the body of those functions. (Little explaination for the non-coders: In the header, you tell the compiler (= program that does something so it’ll work.) how it looks, what it has. In the source, you tell them what is does exactly.)
This is needed if you want to use one of your classes in another one of your classes. (You have to include the header.) Easy, right? (Well, it is if a teacher explains it, and you have a book that has 10 pages that cover the how and why. (The basics anyway.) )
But, for some reason, those two guys just don’t get it. So, me and the guy that does know what he’d doing explain. Then, five minutes later, they ask us `Ok, and now tell me how I do that` (Took them five minutes to release they didn’t know that.. come on.) So, we explain that. Twenty minutes later, something doesn’t work. They say `Jory, can you take a look?`. Sure, I’ll take a look. It is, after all, part of an assignment that you guys are making together with me..
So, I look at the screen. And what do I see? Well, a lot, but not the header/source structure I told you about twenty fucking minutes ago, moron!
So, I tell them to clean it up, and then I’ll take a look (I’m not cleaning it up for them; I do need to get some coding done myself, otherwise, this thing won’t get done in time.) And now, the two off them have the guts to tell me that I need to just do my work (Which, apparently, is clean up there mess..) so they can do there’s?
Well, I’m sorry guys, but I can’t.
I gave that a try, and look where it got me: 3 assignments and 1 test behind!
I don’t have the time nor energy for that. (Well, OK, maybe I do have the time, but then, I’d be working non-stop.)

That god it’ll all be over in 3 weeks and 1 day. Those three weeks in Itally will do me good.

Motivation..

.. I have non.
Really, I do not have any motivation, whatsoever.
I just always think “Why should I even bother?”. And I also know exactly why I think that.
Its because I know I’ll fail. It doesn’t matter what I want to do, how hard I try, how much time and effort I put into it, I always end up failing. Because of that, I hardly undertake anything anymore. This, in turn, caused my social life to become pretty much non-existant. And that is the one thing I want to change more than anything else. But, I just can’t pull myself together and go do something about it. Reason: I know I’ll fail. (That, and my fear off rejection. It may sound stupid, but I’m always afraid like hell that if I try to make a new friend, that person will dislike me. It sucks.)

Yea, thats it for now.
I know nobody reads this, but it feels good to just make this post. Not sure why, but it does.

Originality, where art thy?

Take a look around. Look at whats happening. What do you see?
Thats right, copies of good ideas. Let me give you a little example:
A few weeks ago, Das from IFS had this good idea: a PHP Trivia. Now, where the idea of trivia’s is far from new, and coding trivia’s probally have been done before, to my knowlage, it was new to IFS. It took off nicely, and now, all off a sudden, there are also HTML and CSS trivia’s. (And they don’t even have the decenty to wait untill PHP Trivia is over.)
Another example: As you may know, I’m working on a BBS (ChimeraBoards). One problem we had with it is they: What would be CB’s right to exist? Why would people use it? Because from what I can tell, most BBS’s out there are just the same as every other one, save 1 or 2 features. 90% of them doesn’t even have that much. (Hence why 90% isn’t used anywhere except for its own support board.)
Now, flip open the TV guide. Whats on tonight? BigBrother 73829? CSI: Any random place in the US? Rocky 23?
And, sure, if these programs would really be better then the last one, it would be fine. But lets take the Rocky movies:
Silvester runs into some guy he can’t beat. He trains his ass off. He still can’t beat him, but for some weird reason, he does. End.
BigBrother: Dump some people into a house, make them do lame stuff while they make a fool outoff themselfs just so they won’t be forgotten 20 seconds after they leave the house, vote out one every week or so untill 3 are left, have half the country call 100 times (€1,10 per minute) and stall that for a week so they can keep calling and then tell them who won.

Now, I get why they are now broadcasting the utheenth version of [tv show off your choise here], its because people watch it.
I just don’t get why people watch it. You have seen all off that before, why watch it again?

sweet!

As you may know, I study do become a programmer. I’m mostly interested in hardware controlling stuff right now, though that may change. As a part of this study, we have to learn C / C++. But, because they couldn’t find good books that take all the work our off there hands and free compilers for that feel we aren’t ready to deal with memory management, we are getting Microsoft Visual C++ .NET instead. Oh well, its mostly the same, just managed code (=memory hogging. WinXP is mostly make in this, so is Office, so now I see where my RAM is going..) and some extra’s are build-in.
So make sure we learn it quickly, we have 1 of 2 full days of it teach week, this whole semester. I don’t mind, programming is something I enjoy doing. I do, however, mind being in school untill 5, having nothing to do but some stupid exersize I can finish in an hour or so. So, I don’t. Me and Robbert (the guy I work with; they want us to work together and learn from eachother and stuff.) normally leave at about 4. (Meaning, I’m home around 5, and he is home around 5.30 ~ 6.) But, yesterday, this other teacher (lipa) happened to be in the classroom as well. When we stood up, he said ‘Boys, its not 5 yet..’. So, Robbert walks over to our real teacher (vejr) and asks `Is it OK if we leave?`. The conversation that followed put the biggest grin on Robbers face.
lipa: *points at watch*
vejr: *looks, not understanding*
lipa: Its not time yet.
vejr: Its late already, they can go.
lipa: Its just 4 o’clock, this class doesn’t end untill 5.
vejr: I know, but these boys know what they are doing. They are just about the only ones that haven’t falling behind.
Robbert: *walks out with huge grin*
That was sweet.

Something else thats sweet: New PC. :hyper:
Ok, so its just a P4 @ 2,4 GHz, 256 MB Ram, 38 GB HD, but thats OK. It means people will be on this PC less, meaning I can use it more. (And also, another PC to play with, without the risk of screwing up the PC I use. )

Annoyences

Lately, I’ve been annoyed a lot. Its mostly because of people acting plain stupid / annoying. ( *gasp* yes, annoying people annoy me *gasp* )
A little example: (And I know that if this person reads this, he’ll know I’m talking about him. But honestly, I don’t give a ####.)
On irc.freenode.net#zetaboards
The guy in question (Lets call him John Doe) posts a link in the channel (without anybody asking for it, mind you) and asks what we think of it. I click the link, nothing there really, just 1 line of text, some logo and an ad.
So I say that its empty, I say I don’t like the ads, and I joke that he shouldn’t be using www.
Now, sure, I can see if he didn’t get it was a joke, but he goes offensive right away.
Things like `I’m using the ads to promote the use of .co.nr domains`. (First off, why? :s) and then, he tells me to reload.
He says he made the ads blend in better. So I look, and see no difference. So I tell him that. Turns out, the whole frikken site if full of ads. ( :wub: noscript) So I tell him that I’m only seeing that one ad, and have the rest blocked.
Him `boo`.
I explain I have most ads blocked as I find them annoying.
Him, again `boo`.
At this point, I’m annoyed and decide to ignore the window (it was in query.)
A little while later, still on irc.freenode.net#zetaboards
John Doe sent me another query.
About one second later, I get pinged.
John Doe: jory
John Doe: read ur pm
A few minutes afterwards, again on irc.freenode.net#zetaboards
Pete is saying that he’d like to see an IF Trivia Live soon, and that he’ll talk to Stephen about that lateron.
John Doe asks what it is. Pete explains. He asks when the next is planned.
Read you fool! Pete is saying he’d like to see one soon. Does that not mean that non are planned soon?

Then, the topic about the http://komnir.com/knife/ challenge.
That could be a good topic. It could be helpfull to those that are stuck. To bad that some people are posting passwords or direct links to levels in it. Or giving `clues` that are totally wrong, or are otherwise lying.

Then for some things that happend to me last week at work.
First off, customers. I truly do not get these people.
A few things about them I don’t get:

• Why do you always come when I’m eating my lunch? I am verry willing to help you about 7,5 hours of the day, but not when I’m having a break. Yet, you always come, exectly then? :s
• I work there, so I know what I’m talking about. Now, sure, I don’t know every single fancy latin name you found in some magazine, but I can do you one better: I can get you the plant you want, not the guy that writes for the magazine wants. I have been doing this for about 3,5 years now, so I think I know what I’m talking about.
• (This is somewhat of a followup on the last one, actually.) Why, when I say you should use that furtaliser, don’t you beleave it, even when I explain exactly why, yet when my boss tells you `its better` you’ll be ahead and buy it?
• See that pricetag right there? That is how much it costs. It says `€1, 10 for €8,50`. This means, if you but one, you pay one euro. If you buy 10, you get 1,50 euro discount. So, no, I will not sell them for €0.50 each. Not to you, not to the next guy, not to anybody. (####, I don’t even give my own mother discounts.. thats why she always pays to my boss. :p ) Its why we have pricetags, actually, to show you what the price is.

Also, I installed ADSL for my boss yesterday and today.
Pulling the cables and stuff was OK, I got everthing setup relatively fast (taking into account I never did it before) but then, there was a problem. See, there PC is kinda old, so it doesn’t have an ethernet card. There wasn’t one in the installation pack eighter.
So I went out to buy one. Put it in (#### you @ compaq for making casings that are such a pain to open.), installed it (Win98 really does suck…) and plugged in everything. When that was done, I installed some software there ISP gave them. It was mostly just clicking and waiting for it to check, as its designed to guide your trough the installation of everything, laying out wires, etc. which I had already done. Then, again, a problem: It wanted a password. We had no idea where it was, so I gave the helpdesk a call. `I’m sorry but I can’t give you that. I can tell you the username is [boss's name]@adsl-surf`. So I changed that. Goodies, now, the password isn’t wrong anymore, as the username doesn’t excist. So my boss gave them a call, there was lots of confirming it was really us, and they gave us the (right) username and password. I finished setting stuff up and internet worked.
But, in the mean while, I had to hold back from cursing trought the phone about 20 times. Even my boss said the helpdesk guy was an ###. (Fun thing: him `now start IE. Clear the URL bar. thats the bar where you type the internet adress. Now type in 10.0.0.138` Me `login on the router? sure..` him `er… yes`)

So, yea, I got annoyed a lot lately.
And I’m tired. So good night.

Where do those files go?

I’m just wondering, where exactly do files go when you send them over MSN transfer?
Its not a direct connection, thats for sure. You see, a guy from my class wanted to send me a project, over schools network = super fast. Even if it had to go over the internet, still killer (100MB I beleave) connection. According to trillian, transferspeed was 4.8 KB/s…. Not what I call fast.
So, I assume the files are send to MSN servers first. They have to deal with loads of connections, so they *should* be fast, can’t imagine they are on some slow connection. :/ So, what do they do with them? Scan them on stuff? (Or, like the guy from school suggested, some federal bureau wants to scan them first, just to make sure you don’t plan some terrorist act. [/consperacy-theory])

I also don’t like the idea of people being able to read my email. (Yay for having a domain name, ) I don’t have anything to hide (this does not mean I will let you see my inbox, so don’t ask) but the idea that my emails can just be read, I don’t like it.
See, I care for my privacy, or what is left of it anyway…

In other news: First drivinglesson today.
I think it went pretty good.
Also, next week = vacation!

Oooh

According to the Zend.com PHP Cerfification self test, I’m ready to take there exam.
So, I guess I can not honestly say, I am good at PHP.
I have to egmit, I wasn’t 100% sure on all my awnsers, and the score I got wasn’t all that great, but hey, if they say I can do it, sure..
Maybe I will, this summer.
Because it would be frikken cool to be ZCE.

Somewhat related note: Pete got the same score as me. I’m starting to have a good feeling about ChimeraBoards.

On a more random note: wordpress.com was having some problems yesterday, and it seems at least one comment went poof (Kezzie on `Just don’t do it, ok?`) and perhaps more.

Just don’t do it, ok?

I was just looking trough some photos. 199 of them to be exact.
They where tooken at this party. The people there where, on average, about 2~3 years younger then me, I’d say.
About half of them where girls. (Don’t worry )
Now, something I noticed and found verry disturbing was, that they where all covered in make-up.
Sure, a bit of the stuff can make a girl look nicer. But I would like to see some of her actual skin. :ermm:
Then the eyebrows. I understand if you don’t want them to be all huge and stuff. I get it you want them to look nice. But pulling out 90% of those hairs is not the solution…
And also, whats with the overly gay-ish behavior?
I mean, two (or, on on photo, three) girls practically kissing, really, not something I need to see. And sure, if they where gay, thats fine. But no, they aren’t, they just seem to think its sexy or something.

Now, obviously, this not all girls are like this (thank god not) but its a scaringly large group.
And even worse, there are guys that actually like that type of girl!
How shallow can it get?