the jackol’s den

13July2008

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

Posted by Mikhail Esteves under: General.

I can feel it, too. Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.

I think I know what’s going on. For more than a decade now, I’ve been spending a lot of time online, searching and surfing and sometimes adding to the great databases of the Internet. The Web has been a godsend to me as a writer. Research that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes. A few Google searches, some quick clicks on hyperlinks, and I’ve got the telltale fact or pithy quote I was after. Even when I’m not working, I’m as likely as not to be foraging in the Web’s info-thickets—reading and writing e-mails, scanning headlines and blog posts, watching videos and listening to podcasts, or just tripping from link to link to link. (Unlike footnotes, to which they’re sometimes likened, hyperlinks don’t merely point to related works; they propel you toward them.)

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12July2008

How to Say Nothing in 500 Words (A Lesson on Writing)

Posted by Mikhail Esteves under: General.

The ability to write well is very useful for our personal and professional lives. It helps students, business people, politicians, writers, bloggers, marketers and everyone who has ever needed to arrange words together to convey ideas or opinions. The written word has become an essential means of social communication: mastery of it helps you to enthrall and persuade an audience that would look upon you favorably in return.

It goes without saying that learning how to create compelling content is a part of one’s success as an online publisher. Reading widely and deeply while consistently honing your writing skills helps a great deal in bettering your prose. Sometimes, it doesn’t hurt to read a few stylebooks/essays on writing by professional teachers or authors.

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13June2008

DNS-O-Matic/OpenDNS Updater

Posted by Mikhail Esteves under: Projects.

A simple Windows application to update DNS-O-Matic with your present IP at pre-defined intervals. See screenshots for overview of features. In brief:

• Multiple IP Fetch services.
• Sits in taskbar, updates only when an IP change is detected.
• Proxy server support.
• Notification on updates.
• Ability to Flush local DNS Cache.

Click here to download (286 KB).

If you aren’t on OpenDNS already, here’s a super-quick guide to get started!

• Sign up for an account
• Register your network
• Choose a hostname and filtering settings
• Ensure you choose “Enable Dynamic IP” in your OpenDNS Settings
• Register at DNS-O-Matic with your username and hostname
• Use this application to keep your IP Address up-to-date.

Note: This application needs Microsoft’s .NET Framework 2.0.

3June2008

Database Normalization and Table structures

Posted by Mikhail Esteves under: Links.

Normalisation is the term used to describe how you break a file down into tables to create a database. There are 3 or 4 major steps involved known as 1NF (First Normal Form), 2NF (Second Normal Form), 3NF (Third Normal Form) and BCNF (Boyce-Codd Normal Form). There are others but they are rarely if ever used. A database is said to be Normalised if it is in 3NF (or ideally in BCNF). These steps are descibed as follows:

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25May2008

Autostarting your WinForms application

Posted by Mikhail Esteves under: C#; Tips.

Here’s a helper function to add your Winforms application to the Windows startup list:

public static void AddAutoStartProgram(string name, string appPath)
{
  string runKeyBase = @"Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\";
  RegistryKey rk = Registry.CurrentUser
    .OpenSubKey(runKeyBase + name);

  if (rk == null)
  {
    RegistryKey runKey = Registry.CurrentUser
        .CreateSubKey(runKeyBase);
    runKey.SetValue(name, appPath);
    runKey.Close();
  }
  else
  {
    rk.SetValue(name, appPath);
    rk.Close();
  }
}

Usage is simple: AddAutoStartProgram("myapp", Application.ExecutablePath);

To remove a program from automatically starting up, just delete the key:

public static void RemoveAutoStartProgram(string name)
  {
  string runKeyBase = @"Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run";

  RegistryKey rk = Registry.CurrentUser.OpenSubKey(runKeyBase, true);
  rk.DeleteValue(name, false);
  rk.Close();
  }

Remove your app with a call like RemoveAutoStartProgram("myapp");

20May2008

Fixing NetworkManager DNS issue in Ubuntu (Hardy Heron/Gutsy)

Posted by Mikhail Esteves under: LAMP; Tips.

Using NetworkManager to change your DNS to custom servers, like OpenDNS, does not seem to stay between reboots. To fix this, edit the /etc/dhcp3/dhclient.conf file. In there, you will see a line similar to:

request subnet-mask, broadcast-address, time-offset, routers,
    domain-name, domain-name-servers, host-name,
    netbios-name-servers, netbios-scope;

First of all, Remove domain-name-servers from that list.

Second, add a line to set your custom DNS servers. For OpenDNS, you would do:

prepend domain-name-servers 208.67.222.222,208.67.220.220;

Update: That doesn’t seem to always work. Easier way out would be to edit /etc/resolv.conf and add your DNS records like this:

nameserver 208.67.222.222
nameserver 208.67.220.220

Then run sudo chattr +i /etc/resolv.conf to stop NetworkManager from overwriting the file.

Your settings should now stay between restarts.

27April2008

SQL Server 2005: The password of the account must be changed

Posted by Mikhail Esteves under: Tips; Windows.

Run the following SQL statements for a quick fix to this issue:

ALTER LOGIN UserLogin WITH PASSWORD='password' UNLOCK
ALTER LOGIN UserLogin WITH CHECK_EXPIRATION = OFF
ALTER LOGIN UserLogin WITH CHECK_POLICY = OFF

p.
This should stop that error from showing again.

4April2008

The ASP.NET process identity does not have read permissions to the global assembly cache

Posted by Mikhail Esteves under: Tips; Windows.

The simplest way out of this is to ensure your virtual directory has explicit Read & Execute permissions for the ASPNET account. Failing which, uninstall IIS & Visual Studio, and re-install everything from scratch!

You may also want to ensure the assembly folder in your Windows directory gives the ASPNET account read/execute permissions too.