KyleStubbins.com

I have added the CAPTCHA module today due to the large amounts of spammers that have been signing up for accounts. Most of them seem to have Gmail accounts -- so, it was either CAPTCHA or block Gmail accounts from signing up. I'll start with CAPTCHA and see how that goes as I don't want to block legitimate users from signing up.

So far I have only enabled CAPTCHA on the registration page as spam has not been a problem in the comments section. If it becomes a problem, I will enable CAPTCHA side-wide.

If Linux really wants to see itself installed on the average Joe's home computer, it HAS to be better than it's counter-part, Windows. As an OS (Operating System), it IS -- it's light-years ahead of the Windows architecture, IMHO. However, there is a side to Linux that is SERIOUSLY lacking -- error and system messages -- they SUCK large.

Now, I don't claim to be a super-user, but I do my fair share of computing -- from websites, to blogging, to programming, to just plain old web-surfing -- I've used my fair share of computers, right on up from the TRS-80. Accordingly, I am not in the "{whatever} For Dummies" category either. I'm "above average", as far as the general public would be concerned, simply because of the time I spend on computers. I've seen my share of error messages, let me tell you. So, if I'm complaining about them not being descriptive/helpful, what do you think the general public is seeing?

On to the problem...

Well, today I simply got tired of wading through the crap posted by Russian guests -- so I've blocked the entire country. While I was at it, I've also blocked Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania, Latvia & Estonia.

Turkish universities, web hosts and Turk Telekom customers - scammers, spammers, phishing websites and server script exploiters have been blocked.

If this crap keeps up, the next to go will be China, Korea and all neighboring countries (Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam).

If you are from one of these countries (OK, not Russia as you can't read this anyway) and are tired of seeing your list of websites that you can visit get smaller and smaller, then do something about it!

For those of you interested, here is what I have added to my blocklist;

The Ancaster Fair was on this weekend past -- and I am happy to announce that my grandmother won many prizes, yet again, this year! I'm always happy to see this time of year come around -- it's the time when grandma drops off many delicious, homemade pickles, salsa, fruit and preserves. My mouth watered just walking around the fair and snapping pics of all her entries! :)

  
First for cherry pie filling and third for dill pickles!

  
Second for applesauce and first for chili sauce!

  
Other entries that are winners to me! (Variations of her chili sauce)

Way to go, grandma!

Just another example of the abuse of power.

Here we have a Ministry of Transportation Ontario Motor Vehicle Enforcement Officer who has used his status to park illegally. And for what? To do his grocery shopping. This was taken in a mall on Hurontario North in Brampton, Ontario (around the 10906 range), -- Sept. 20, 2007 around 2:00pm EST.

  

  

If you wish to voice your displeasure in seeing this type of abuse, you can contact the MOT here --> http://www.mto.gov.on.ca/english/feedback/minister.htm.

Just this past Thursday I was waiting on a fax to come through with a BOL (Bill Of Lading) for a package that I needed to get shipped out ASAP. I got a call back from the trucking company dispatcher that she was getting "no" as a reply to their faxes. "No", I asked? "That's what it replies with", she said. Well, I was about 1/2 hour away and was on my way back, so I told her I'd check it out and get back to her.

Upon my arrival to my shop, I looked at the fax machine -- a Brother Intellifax 1820C -- it said "Machine Error - Code 41 -- Unplug machine and call Brother". So, I unplugged the machine and let it sit for about 10 minutes and plugged it back in -- with the same results.

That's when I hit Google up for some answers. A simple search for "Machine Error Code 41" produced all the answers I needed. The error is caused by the printhead -- which is not sensing a quick enough voltage change during it's initialization. A real quick explanation of it is, the machine uses voltage to heat the ink to the proper temperature before/as it is "sprayed" through the ink jets -- if that doesn't happen, the ink doesn't flow properly.

If you do enough reading on the problem, you will quickly find that Brother is completely aware of this problem and has extended their warranty times on the printheads to 24 months without a bill, and 30 months with. The strange part is, Brother didn't improve the printhead (well, not for quite some time after anyway). They produce "crap" printheads (from the mouths of their own techs) that should be fixed, with ALL EXISTING printheads covered under warranty!

How can you have a product that has a known problem, yet you decline warranty on the item because of a date issue? Arrggggg! It is my opinion that if a company is aware of the problem, then they should warranty the product -- period. I'm not asking for a recall of all products, as most of the products may never fail -- but those that do should be covered -- period. But that's just me.

So, I'm reading that the printheads are about $30 (this was from posts in 2005 and in USD, so I'm not sure what they are now) + labour to install, and I'm soon in need of ink, I decided that the money to fix and reink was not worth the effort.

So, knowing I need my fax working tomorrow, I went looking. Here's a couple of tips for you; 1) Best Buy doesn't carry JUST fax machines -- you have to buy an "All-In-One" and 2) Wall-Mart -- no fax machines either. Just trying to save you some time! :)

I ended up picking up an HP 1040 Plain Paper Inkjet Fax for $109 at Staples. Well, at least it has a much better review!

So far, so good -- I've run some copies through it, and a couple of test faxes and it looks good. For what I need the machine to do, it's perfect. It's your basic fax machine, without all the bells and whistles, but still has enough features to give you a very good bang for your dollar. Now, we'll have to see how we do with ink consumption! It comes with a 14ml cartridge, while the replacements are 28ml.

Which brings me to my final point -- extended warranty. I say to the salesman - because I know you have to ask me three times if I want extended warrnty -- no, no and no. The machine costs $109 -- I might buy 1, maybe two cartridges for it and, a year from now, probably find something else on sale for $79 with ink included. If it weren't for the 14ml cartridges to start, they'd almost be disposable machines.

Actually, I guess my final, final point would be -- the reviews say "don't buy Brother", "stay away", "bad product", "evil" and all kinds of nasty other stuff -- although I didn't buy Brother (simply because I don't believe they have fixed the problem from what I have been reading), I really have no complaints -- the machine worked out to something like $5.25 per month that I owned it (ink is another story, but I have to buy ink for the new one too) -- it did it's job.

I went to the races last weekend to watch a friend of mine, Sean, race. I enjoy the races and haven't been in a while, so I thought it would be fun -- especially since I knew someone racing.

To make a long story short, I didn't get to see too much of Sean as he had some "technical difficulties" with his transmission and had to be pushed off the track after a half lap. Bummer. Actually, to be quite honest, this happened August 4th.

  

The good news? Sean works at a Transmission shop! The bad news? The transmission is from a 1971 Ford Pinto and they don't have parts to fix it! Double bummer.

Of course, when stuff like this happens, I seem to be the one my friends bring their stuff to when it needs fixing. Ah, but I enjoy a challenge! :)

The problem was that the transmission got stuck between gears, first and second, and was jammed. Good thing it was in neutral so it could be pushed off the track of he'd have been in some real trouble!

Below is a shot of the completed repair. I've got to get my butt in gear for work this morning. As the repair will take a little explaining, I will get the rest of the pics together and post the repair, in detail, when I get home tonight. (Oh, the part I made is the aluminum housing for the shifter -- but I'll detail that later.)

UPDATE (08.26.07) - Well, I'm just got back from a great weekend -- a buddy of mine had his annual pig roast (but I'll leave that for another post) -- so I thought I'd get the rest of those pics up regarding Sean's tranny.

To my most recent guest, "Chicken Sh*t" (from the Ottawa, ON area -- you know who you are).....

So, ya decided to Google me, did ya? Heck, what do you want to know? I've never made any attempt to hide my identity (I did note that YOU posted here anonymously though).

I'll help you out a bit;

1) the 7/8 year old you find in the White/Yellow belt Karate tournament in BC -- not me (but my parents live about 20 miles from there, how weird is that?)

2) the address/business you find in Florida -- no longer at that address either (phone numbers are bad too)

3) the 'quote' you find as being credited to me (some guy uses it on eBay) -- not mine, but I have used it as I do like it (are you the one?)

4) thesafeguys.com -- yep, my site -- I am a Certified Master Safecracker

5) internet-locksmith.com -- nope, no longer mine -- and hence your "thief" comments, but we'll get to that in a minute

6) the stuff you find from dragonflycms.com, myndworx.com, xtremethemes.com and other such places -- yeah, I like to dabble in PHP programming every now and then

7) the reference to being a "Clearstar member from outside the USA" -- no longer a member (hey, I've got my own sites!) -- Wow! That was a while ago... still a Certified Journeyman Safecracker!

8) FireKing University and MBA references -- just some of the places I've been trained at

OK, so I just got home from work -- I'm hungry, and my dinner is far more important than replying to some guy (girl, kid -- whoever you happen to be) Googling me, quoting things they find in an attempt to make me look bad. I have simply 'unpublished' your comments for now, but will be more than happy to repost them here (in the proper place mind you, not thoughtlessly placed amidst a thread that has nothing to do with your comments) and will do so later this evening.

Stay tuned! (UPDATED -- read more -- this is VERY LONG, be forwarned!)

Well, it's that time again -- time to upgrade the service vehicle. For those of you that have read some of my posts regarding my '03 Blazer, you'll know why I'm happy to get a new vehicle -- a 2007 Dodge Nitro.

I was going to say that I was happy to get rid of my Blazer, but that just didn't happen. You see, I put on a lot of kilometers with my job -- about 60K a year. So, my Blazer, after 3 years, had just over 180K -- which made it 'undesirable' by the dealership. They offered me $4,500 for a vehicle that I paid $30K for three years prior -- I'll keep it, thanks.

Again, for those of you that have been following my 85 Short-Box, Step-Side Restoration project -- you may have noticed that I also had an '86 that my dad drove. I sold the '86 yesterday and my dad moved into the Blazer. Hey, I still have the '85 to work on! (Which should be soon... damn, I wish it would warm up!)

The way I look at it is, my dad does very little driving -- pretty much city only. So, the Blazer will give him a little more comfort than the PU, not too mention the safety aspects of it. Plus, in two years, the vehicle will be worth the same as it is now simply because the kilometers will be allowed to 'catch up'. If he puts on 10K in the next two years, I'll be surprised. The goal is to keep in under 200K.

(As a side note, I still have to post about most of the problems I've had with my Blazer... just to keep you from going through the same thing.)

I was stunned when I read that 199 out of 200 programmers can't program -- and I'm not speaking figuratively -- they can't write a single line of code.

This fact intrigued me, so I Google for more information on it. That is when I ran into the FizzBuzz Test. Basically, the test is as follows;

Write a program that prints the numbers from 1 to 100. But for multiples of three print "Fizz" instead of the number and for the multiples of five print "Buzz". For numbers which are multiples of both three and five print "FizzBuzz".

Here's mine, in PHP;

FizzBuzz();

function FizzBuzz()
{
for ($i = 1; $i <= 100; $i++)
{
$out = (($i % 3 == 0) && ($i % 5 == 0)) ? "FizzBuzz" : (($i % 3 == 0) ? "Fizz" : (($i % 5 == 0) ? "Buzz" : $i));

if ($i == 1)
{
echo '[a href="http://kylestubbins.com/node" alt="Return to KyleStubbins.com home" title="Return to KyleStubbins.com home"]KyleStubbins.com[/a][br /][br /]';
echo '[b]Fizz[/b] is divisible by 3[br /][b]Buzz[/b] is divisible by 5[br /][b]FizzBuzz[/b] is divisible by 3 AND 5[br /][br /]';
echo "Let's Begin![br /][br /]";
}

echo $out.'[br /]';
}
echo '[br /][br /]All Done![br /][br /]';
echo '[a href="http://kylestubbins.com/node" alt="Return to KyleStubbins.com home" title="Return to KyleStubbins.com home"]KyleStubbins.com[/a][br /][br /]';
}

Note: I have changed all < > brackets to [ ] bbcode style simply so they wouldn't parse in this post! Sorry, but the formatting won't hold for the post either! This really could be cut down to a couple of lines -- all of the "extra" stuff is to display the start and end, and to add a link to get you back here, but is not needed for the actual "test".

You can see the results here. Feel free to post yours! :)