Author: Jason 'vanRijn' Kasper

So, I’ve been a sickie for the last couple of days. Stayed home 2 days because of it. Some might call that being a weenie. I prefer to think of it as being smart and healthy. Wow, what a weird thought process this is. You see, before I got the glamorous job that I currently enjoy, I was a retail store manager for a bad long spell. And when you’re employed thusly, you are simply not allowed to call in sick. See–there’s you and maybe another 2 people in your store (who are also employed similarly), so if you call in sick, there’s nobody to replace you who’s not already working 60+ hours a week. So what do you do, Read more…

Groovy!! So, like tigert put it, “What happened to the site that never updates!?” =:) I’ve been formatting my site like a blog for the last 4 years+. I’ve had content on individual pages, which I would update every, oh, year or so, and when I had the time to update them, instead of replacing the content on the page, I would prepend it with another entry, with the date listed as to when I posted that content. You know… like a blog. =:D The only problem with this nifty little model is that it was ridiculously hard to update the content. I had to open vmware, open dreamweaver, add content, ftp it up, etc., etc. (okay, well, that doesn’t Read more…

I’ve recently been informed by my lovely bride that I need to put more things on my little site here, showing off my little family. I’ve always been hesitant to do so, but I’ve apparently been overruled in this. =:) So then… the beans…. This would be me (well, this is an older picture–maybe 5 years ago?). I hate cameras almost as much as I hate telephones, and am about as un-photogenic as they come. So, other than the rare picture of me with my family, I’m trying hard to keep myself out of that medium. And yes, there is a striking resemblance to Johnny Bravo, though I had the hair first, I tell you!!! I am married to a Read more…

As I said, my first exposure to the linux operating system was in the IRC channels on the undernet network. And it seemed to me that the people who were talking about linux (at this point in time, linux was still early in its 1.2.x kernel phase) were the people who were very knowledgeable about computers in general, and seemed very well-informed about operating systems in particular. I looked up to these people–felt a kinship with them. And more importantly, I felt intrigued enough about this freak of programming, linux, that I just had to look at it some more. Now, having come from the hellish days of DOS 5-6.22/Windows 3.xx, Windows 95 was a very nice improvement. It seemed Read more…

So indeed. Who really cares what you run on that computer you paid all that money for, right? I mean, it’s a free country (well, mine is advertised as being free, at any rate). Why not just like what ya bought? Why not just learn to live with it?!? I mean, who do those nutballs think they are, saying that Windows isn’t the fine piece of quality that you thought it was when you put all your hard-earned money into it!?! Really! I mean those linux guys are just freaks, right? They really don’t have anything better than you do with your Windows desktop, right? I mean, come on, every computer system crashes at least once a week, right? Twice Read more…

PHP stuff!! Check out this php Oracle8 class. It makes connecting to, and using php3/4 with an Oracle8 database just that much easier… including a completely dynamic SQL function call that allows binding of host-variables that are determined at run-time!! Way sweet! To use, just do: include “path/to/dbconn.inc”; The methods are documented at the top of the file. Many thanks to my good buddy Shawn Andrews for his help in developing this little gem. =:)

Finally had a chance to look at things. Well, a little time. But not enough time to actually do anything about it. Which stinks. Thought I’d try to redo the site, using something from oswd, and I pulled down several templates, but again, don’t have enough time to actually do anything about it. Bummy. Maybe next month. =:/

Well, I suppose that this happens all over the place so I shouldn’t be surprised that it happened to me, but server2.spiderhosts.com got hacked over the last couple of days, which means that movingparts.net was off the ‘net for the duration, which stinks. However, I had thought ahead this time (4 months back), and decided to manage my DNS apart from spiderhosts.com. So, at the very least, I was able to set up a backup MX record for myself and I was only unable to receive e-mail for a day. Not horrible. And, as a result, I took the time to learn all the magic of setting up one’s own SMTP server (qmail just plain rocks), virtual domain hosting with Read more…

Woohoo!! Not quite a year. =:) Heh. Okay, then, things are decently good, by gummy. I’ve found a wonderful little web-hosting solution, it seems. HUGE, HUGE, HUGE thanks to Nathan Clemons at windsofstorm.net for hosting my site for the last 5+ years(?). It’s been a LONG, LONG time and I really appreciate your kindness, Nathan!! Check out his latest project when you get a second… Looks good!! =:) So, back to this tremendous dealio…. I’ve been using directnic.com for the last several years, and for the last year, paid them $15 for 2 POP3 e-mail accounts. And even paying $15/year for those two e-mail accounts, I had a bunch of problems with them–to the point of having my e-mail delayed Read more…