2010 Jan 15, 6:03The derivation of the word Zork.
history language english game if interactive-fiction zork mit 2010 Jan 8, 2:55Get a free coffee after trying 8 of their competitors.
coffee card disloyalty-card economics 2010 Jan 5, 7:42
I've made a WPAD server Fiddler extension and in a fit of creativity I've named it: WPAD Server Fiddler
Extension.
Of course you know about Fiddler, Eric's awesome HTTP debugger tool, the HTTP proxy that lets you inspect, visualize and modify the
HTTP traffic that flows through it. And on the subject you've probably definitely heard of WPAD, the Web Proxy Auto Discovery protocol
that allows web browsers like IE to use DHCP or DNS to automatically discover HTTP proxies on their network. While working on a particularly nasty WPAD bug towards the end of IE8 I really wished I
had a way to see the WPAD requests and responses and modify PAC responses in Fiddler. Well the wishes of me of the past are now fulfilled by present day me as this Fiddler extension will respond to
WPAD DHCP requests telling those clients (by default) that Fiddler is their proxy.
When I started working on this project I didn't really understand how DHCP worked especially with respect to WPAD. I won't bore you with my misconceptions: it works by having your one DHCP server
on your network respond to regular DHCP requests as well as WPAD DHCP requests. And Windows I've found runs a DHCP client service (you can start/stop it via Start|Run|'services.msc', scroll to DHCP
Client or via the command line with "net start/stop 'DHCP Client'") that caches DHCP server responses making it just slightly more difficult to test and debug my extension. If a Windows app uses
the DHCP client APIs to ask for the WPAD option, this service will send out a DHCP request and take the first DHCP server response it gets. That means that if you're on a network with a DHCP
server, my extension will be racing to respond to the client. If the DHCP server wins then the client ignores the WPAD response from my extension.
Various documents and tools I found useful while working on this:
proxy fiddler http technical debug wpad pac tool dhcp 2010 Jan 5, 6:38Lovely historical infographics. For instance, check out the topographical map of NY city from 1874.
information infographics graph design history via:kottke 2010 Jan 5, 5:51"When you sign for a debit card at a retailer, the store pays your bank more than twice as much as when you enter a PIN -- a strategy Visa hatched decades ago."
money visa credit economics competition card 2010 Jan 1, 5:19humor new-years 2009 Dec 18, 2:36"I somehow ended up reading about spite houses (homes built specifically to piss off a neighbor) this evening, which I had never heard of before. Flickr has several when you search the tags,
including the sad story behind this house in Connecticut."
humor spite hose flickr image 2009 Dec 16, 9:48Its sometimes captioned frames from hilarious moments you may recall from The Simpsons!
humor history tv simpsons image 2009 Dec 15, 2:01"Jeff Atwood (Coding Horror fame) was in for a horror when he realized that his server crashed and his data was gone and due to some reason, the backup mechanism was not working. ... So what should
Jeff do now? Since Coding horror is a high traffic blog, I think there is a way to get back at least some of the images." Reconstruct the HTML from Google's cache, change the HTTP server to tell the
client it has the correct cached image for all the images, add script to the HTML to grab the images and send them back. Awesome idea. Of course now I want to setup Fiddler to swap in random
images...
via:ericlaw jeff-atwood backup web http cache image javascript technical 2009 Dec 14, 2:20This just in: 'Gullible' removed from dictionary. Story at 11...
humor video via:bengoldacre media australia information communication 2009 Dec 14, 2:12I've been very statically charged recently. May be the new couch?
geek wishlist gift static electricity tool purchase 2009 Dec 13, 1:27
I was reading Makers, Cory Doctorow's latest novel, as it was serialized on Tor's website but with no ability to save my place within a page I set out to find a book reading app
for my G1 Android phone. I stopped looking once I found Aldiko. Its got bookmarks within chapters, configurable fonts, you can look-up words in a
dictionary, and has an easy method to download public domain and creative common books. I was able to take advantage of Aldiko's in-app book download system to get Makers onto my phone so I didn't
have to bother with any conversion programs etc, and I didn't have to worry about spacing or layout, the book had the correct cover art, and chapter delimiters. I'm very happy with this app and
finished reading Makers on it.
Makers is set in the near future and features teams of inventors, networked 3d printers, IP contention, body modifications, and Disney -- just the sort of thing you'd expect from a Cory
Doctorow novel. The tale seems to be an allegory for the Internet including displacing existing businesses and the conflict between the existing big entertainment IP owners and the plethora of fans
and minor content producers. The story is engaging and the characters filled out and believable. I recommend Makers and as always its Creative Commons so go take a look right now.
tor aldiko cory doctorow g1 makers ebook android book 2009 Dec 12, 2:42"The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) [1] provides a framework for passing configuration information to hosts on a TCP/IP network. Configuration parameters and other control information are
carried in tagged data items that are stored in the 'options' field of the DHCP message. The data items themselves are also called "options.""
technical reference rfc dhcp ietf ipv4 ip 2009 Dec 11, 5:13"A real true history lesson: Before there were laptops, everyone had to carry entire desktop computers to class. Before there were desktops, they had to lug typewriters. Before that, everyone just
tried real hard to remember stuff. Ask your grandparents!"
humor typewriter satire laptop college 2009 Dec 10, 6:53Tycho was a jerk.
humor tycho comic history 2009 Dec 10, 2:31If you want to be a jerk about answering a question on the Internet, 'Let Me Google That For You' is perfect!
google humor web internet search 2009 Dec 8, 12:02"This illustration, from the September 10, 1910 New York Tribune, imagines the rooftop burglars of the future. 'BURGLARS LEARN TO HANDLE THE AEROPLANE WITH PRECISION AND SILENCE: Our artist takes a
look into the future and foresees the time when roofs must be secured as carefully as any other part of the home.'"
humor history burglar crime newspaper news 2009 Dec 8, 1:54'As crowds rushed to find deals at the Emeryville, CA IKEA store, one of them had a plan other than shopping. Michelle Pred was actually placing her artwork, complete with working IKEA barcodes, into
the inventory, an act she calls “shopdropping.”'
cultural-disobediance shopdropping art ikea barcode 2009 Dec 7, 3:25Cool, I've been waiting for this: "Twitter creator Jack Dorsey’s Square application, which is like a smartphone PayPal for credit cards, attracted lots of warranted attention for its potential to
enable peer-to-peer and merchant credit card transactions in the real world far beyond what’s capable today in most countries." Oh, never mind... "As a customer, all you need to buy from a Square
merchant is a credit, debit or pre-paid card"
credit-card money via:louis cellphone square
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