The LambCutlet Disorganisation

For those that didn’t know, my contract at RS Components had been extended from the 4th of June till the 26th of November continuing in my role as a Media Content Editor as the teams smash through the various deadlines in the current project. However, with no signs of permanency in employment it was only sensible to explore my options as any sensible person would.

Though I had already explored some options already, one other thing I would like to do is some travelling and strangely, my friend Nykky also came to the same conclusion. Her plan was originally to do 6 months backpacking in Siam (née Thailand) and Australia, having had a get together over a lovely meal at a nice French restaurant in town sometime in mid June.

As I have a penchant for exploring options, the fact we’d be in South-East Asia and Oceania made it quite obvious to me other places worth visiting such as Hong Kong, China, Japan, New Zealand and so on would be in reasonable reach. South America would have been an interesting addition too with places such Peru or Chile. However, it all depends on how much money we’d have come the time.

Our estimates are about £5000 per person and for now I’m borderline in being able to save up enough before my contract ends though this does assume it’s all play and no work. Having some form of income will obviously lessen the need of capital before we start travelling so will need to check with the various embassies as to the laws for alien workers.

Met up again with Nykky on the 21st of July after her little holiday away in Ibiza with her friend Stacy to bash out plans a bit more and setting the middle of August as the deadline in whether we are to go travelling or not. Conversation did lead to the fact if other friends of ours would be interested in travelling but problem is the rather simple one that very few people can/want to leave their job a take this rather big step.

The 22nd was Nykky’s birthday and the rest of the week for her was to be filled with birthday celebrations. The 24th was to see a group of us go out for a meal, bar hopping and a spot of nightclubbing with Nykky and Stacy keen to show off their tan acquired on holiday.

Now will have to see how things pan out…

Issue #185 of A List Apart’s articles deals with the issue of smarter image hotlinking prevention.

Now whilst I fall into the benevolent, altruistic webmaster category which doesn’t really care if my images are being hotlinked, there has been more than one occasion where Internet newbies have hotlinked rather big images as webpage backgrounds on there own little sites, which does bring out the more mischievous me. :D

Anyhow, at the end of this issue of ALA, there was a little bit about using such a technique for Gallery:

Taking it further

If you’re using some kind of content management system like Gallery, there might be a way to tie a script like this into a database of pictures, and automatically generate ALT tags and more information about the picture.

Of course, I’ll leave that as an exercise for the reader.

No need to jump through hoops when the application itself pulls images from it’s database… remember kids, KISS!

Assuming you have your Gallery installed at http://mydomain.tld/gallery/ and it’s pictures stored at http://mydomain.tld/albums/, your .htaccess in your /albums/ directory would look like so:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /albums/
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !(.*thumb|.*highlight) [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !mydomain\.tld [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !friendly-domain\.tld [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !google\. [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !search\?q=cache [NC]
RewriteRule ^([^\.\?/]+)/([A-Za-z_0-9\-]+)(.*)(\.jpg|\.jpeg|\.gif|\.png)$ /gallery/$1/$2 [R=301]

How it works it pretty simple, excluding hairloss caused by RegExes.

Here’s what each line does in turn:

RewriteEngine On

Start Apache’s mod_rewrite engine.

RewriteBase /albums/

Set the rewrite base URL.

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !(.*thumb|.*highlight) [NC]

Not match *.thumb.ext and *.highlight.ext, which means myphoto.thumb.ext and myphoto.highlight.ext can be hotlinked, but myphoto.ext and myphoto.sized.ext, the larger images, cannot.

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$

Not match requests where no refer is set, which allows linking where an URI is pasted straight to the web browser’s address bar.

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !mydomain\.tld [NC]

Not match requests where the referer is from your own domain, obviously.

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !friendly-domain\.tld [NC]

Not match requests where the referer is from an allowed friendly domain. Add additional entries on a new line, though !(friendly-domain1\.tld|friendly-domain2\.tld|friendly-domain3\.tld) syntax will work too at the expense of readablity.

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !google\. [NC]

Not match requests where the referer is Google, with all it’s ccTLD variants.

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !search\?q=cache [NC]

Not match requests where the refer contains the above string which allows Google Cache and Google Image Search to work properly.

RewriteRule ^([^\.\?/]+)/([A-Za-z_0-9\-]+)(.*)(\.jpg|\.jpeg|\.gif|\.png)$ /gallery/$1/$2 [R=301]

The actual redirection rule when none of the above conditions are matched. Will redirect /albums/sub-album-name/image-name.ext and /albums/sub-album-name/image-name.sized.ext requests to /gallery/sub-album-name/image-name. The .ext can be expanded to allow more than the listed, .jpg, .jpeg, .gif and .png.

That’s it! Not so bad really was it?

The Mozilla Foundation is now one…

Time flies when you’re having fun.

It’s already been a year since the Mozilla Foundation was created, and it’s been quite a year. The Mozilla Foundation has prospered, our products are receiving rave reviews, consumer and enterprise interest in Mozilla products is at an all time high, the awareness of the importance of choice in browser software is growing and our community remains vigorous and energetic.

The Mozilla project has long been an open source technology leader. With our new Firefox and Thunderbird products, we are now focusing on bringing a better Internet experience to millions of new users.

The full Mozilla browser suite has been my main choice for since the end of 1999 in providing the best web browsing experience with it’s features and standards compliance. As Firefox, Mozilla Foundation’s standalone browser reaches version 1.0, critical mass has already been reached with it’s 0.9.x release in pursuading Internet users to ditch Microsoft’s Internet Explorer to either of the Mozilla Foundation’s product with US-CERT advising users it’s their patriotic duty to use an alternative browser such as Mozilla Firefox:

Use a different web browser

There are a number of significant vulnerabilities in technologies relating to the IE domain/zone security model, the DHTML object model, MIME type determination, and ActiveX. It is possible to reduce exposure to these vulnerabilities by using a different web browser, especially when browsing untrusted sites. Such a decision may, however, reduce the functionality of sites that require IE-specific features such as DHTML, VBScript, and ActiveX. Note that using a different web browser will not remove IE from a Windows system, and other programs may invoke IE, the WebBrowser ActiveX control, or the HTML rendering engine (MSHTML).

Last but not least just yesterday, Microsoft had another unmagnificent seven of security related patches, with one for Internet Explorer and one for Outlook Express, another thorn in Microsoft’s side as far as security related bloopers are concerned.

Again The Mozilla Foundation comes up trumps as they have a fantastic standalone email client by the name of Thunderbird which is not vulnerable to security exploits of the type it’s Microsoft counterpart is.

Internet Explorer is (finally!) going the way of Netscape 4 and for the first time in a very long time, Internet Explorer’s overall market share has actually dropped, falling by about 1% since the US-CERT advisory in early June 2004.

If you’re still unconvinced about alternate browsers, just go download one and try them out… though be careful as once you’ve tried them, you’ll be kicking yourself why you didn’t switch earlier!

Mozilla Firefox

The standalone web browser with minimal learning curve for those migrating from Internet Explorer. Super compact sub 5 MiB download for Windows. Also available for Mac OSX, Solaris, Linux, *BSD, et cetera

Mozilla Thunderbird

The standalone mail client for Windows and UNIX

Mozilla Suite

The original Mozilla suite with web browser, mail client, HTML editor and other developer features

Wooh, another personality test (hat tip: Eric) and it apparently had this to say about me:

Wackiness:

50/100

Rationality:

48/100

Constructiveness:

54/100

Leadership:

66/100

You are an SECL–Sober Emotional Constructive Leader. This makes you a politician. You cut deals, you change minds, you make things happen. You would prefer to be liked than respected, but generally people react to you with both. You are very sensitive to criticism, since your entire business is making people happy.

At times your commitment to the happiness of other people can cut into the happiness of you and your loved ones. This is very demanding on those close to you, who may feel neglected. Slowly, you will learn to set your own agenda–including time to yourself.

You are gregarious, friendly, charming and charismatic. You like animals, sports, and beautiful cars. You wear understated gold jewelry and have secret bad habits, like chewing your fingers and fidgeting.

You are very difficult to dislike.

Unfortunately, the score leaves me stradling 3 cusps with just a stronger bias towards leadership than follower(ship?), which makes for some quite amusing reading since I could also be…

You are a WRCL–Wacky Rational Constructive Leader. This makes you a golden god. People gravitate to you, and you make them feel good. You are smart, charismatic, and interesting. You may be too sensitive to others reactions, especially criticism. Your self-opinion and mood depends greatly on those around you.

You think fast and have a smart mouth, is a hoot to your friends and razorwire to your enemies. You hold a grudge like a brass ring. You crackle.

Although you have a leader’s personality, you often choose not to lead, as leaders stray too far from their audience. You probably weren’t very popular in high school–the joke’s on them!

You may be a rock star.

You are a WRDL–Wacky Rational Destructive Leader. This makes you an enemy of the state. You are charismatic and winning and a very dangerous enemy. You favor justice over compassion, and would almost rather see your opponent fail than you succeed.

You impact the lives of those around you more than any other personality. People remember your name and respect you. You are a tremendous amount of fun to be around and astonishing to watch. You are generally abstinent in your habits, and you like things tidy and ordered.

When picking teams, it is smartest for others to pick yours.

You are a WECL–Wacky Emotional Constructive Leader. This makes you a people’s advocate. You are passionate about your causes, with a good heart and good endeavors. Your personal fire is contagious, and others wish they could be as dedicated to their beliefs as you are.

Your dedication may cause you to miss the boat on life’s more slight and trivial activities. You will feel no loss when skipping some inane mixer, but it can be frustrating to others to whom such things are important. While you find it difficult to see other points of view, it may be useful to act as if you do, and play along once in a while.

In any event, you have buckets of charisma and a natural skill for making people open up. Your greatest asset is an ability to make progress while keeping the peace.

You are a WEDL–Wacky Emotional Destructive Leader. This makes you an anarchist. You don’t give a damn. When push comes to shove, you just forget about it–it’s just not worth the heartache. What this means for others is that dealing with you can be aggravating, because they find they can’t get you motivated about things they care about. What this means for you is that you are happier, calmer, and saner then they are on their best days.

You are near-immune to criticism, and those who know you well acknowledge and respect that. You may come across as lazy, but the truth is that you find little to get worked up about. Regardless, you have slews of friends, because they are fascinated by your world view, jealous of your lifestyle, and drawn to the fact that you are hilarious to be around.

You are a pillar in a sea of hot-bloodedness. You have a sweet tooth.

You are an SRCL–Sober Rational Constructive Leader. This makes you an Ayn Rand ideal. Taggart? Roark? Galt? You are all of these. You were born to lead. You may not be particularly exciting, but you have a strange charisma–born of intellect and personal drive–that people begin to notice when they have been around you a while. You don’t like to compromise, but you recognize when you have to.

You care absolutely nothing what other people think, and this somehow attracts people to you. Treat them well, use them wisely, and ascend to your rightful rank.

You are an SRDL–Sober Rational Destructive Leader. This makes you a mob boss. You are the ultimate alpha person and even your friends give you your space. You can’t stand whiners, weaklings, schlemiels or schlemozzles. You don’t make many jokes, but when you do, others laugh out loud. They must.

People often turn to you for advice, and wisely. You are calm in a crisis, cautious in a tempest, and attuned to even the finest details. Yours is the profile of a smart head for business and a dangerous enemy.

You have a natural knack for fashion and occupy a suit like a matinee idol. Your charisma is striking and without artifice. You are generous, thoughtful, and appreciate life’s finer things.

Please don’t kick my ass.

You are an SEDL–Sober Emotional Destructive Leader. This makes you a dictator. You prefer to control situations, and lack of control makes you physically sick. You feel have responsibility for everyone’s welfare, and that you will be blamed when things go wrong. Things do go wrong, and you take it harder than you should.

You rely on the validation and support of others, but you have a secret distrust for people and distaste for their habits and weaknesses that make you keep your distance from them. This makes you very difficult to be with romantically. Still, a level-headed peacemaker can keep you balanced.

Despite your fierce temper and general hot-bloodedness, you have a soft spot for animals and a surprising passion for the arts. Sometimes you would almost rather live by your wits in the wilderness somewhere, if you could bring your books and your sketchbook.

You also have a strange, undeniable sexiness to you. You may go insane.

So it seems this proves the fact I’m just very difficult to pin down and why my social circle through school to now is the way it is? Though no rock star, does being a DJ count for anything? :D

This is going to be one of those things which I’ve done to make my own life easier, but figured it may also be of use to others whom may stumble across this post. Given I’ve been using a good deal of Latvian writing up my experiences in Latvia, it was a no brainer to install the Input Method in Windows, making life that bit easier typing it’s alphabet which lacks q, w, x, y, but has ā, č, ē, ģ, ī, ķ, ļ, ņ, ō, š, ū and ž.

However, the default “Latvian (QWERTY)” immediately annoyed me as the CapsLock state is ignored when used with AltGr and slightly less annoying was the fact AltGr+o mapped to õ (o with tilde) rather than ō (o with macron), I guess from the fact ō is only used in the Latgale dialect of Latvian. Another annoyance was the fact the QWERTY layout is based in a U.S. one as opposed to a U.K. one.

So I fixed them to do my bidding, first by downloading The Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator and modifying them. The first layout was a fixed “Latvian (QWERTY)” one so that CapsLock is respected and for AltGr+o to be mapped to ō. The second layout was to base it from the “English (United Kingdom)” but change the AltGr state vowels from acute to macron, create mappings for the caron/hacek characters č, š, ž and cedilla characters ģ, ķ, ļ, ņ. Lastly the angled quotation marks « and » as used in Latvian.

Below are the packaged files for Windows NT4, Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 only:

Latvian Input Method (Latvian QWERTY, Customised)

13.5 kiB - md5sum: e5edd119283855649cb10f453847c6cc

Latvian Input Method (United Kingdom QWERTY, Customised)

13.2 kiB - md5sum: 8173123a013f19595bf95027405eac99

For Windows NT4 and Windows 2000 users, if you’ve not got Windows Installer 2.0 installed, you’ll need to do so prior installing the Input Methods which you can grab it from Microsoft themselves. As with all software installations, you’ll need administrative privileges or find a nice administrator whom will do it for you, assuming they let such things to be installed in the first place of course.

If you run into any issues… these will have to be resolved by yourself (or the administrator that installed it for you) since I have only provided these “as is”.