I like the Firefox browser (only as a friend) but I hate its search bar. By default it gets installed right next to the URL address bar on the Navigation toolbar and it's shrunken down to a miniscule, ridiculous size and it doesn't support History. Needless to say I had to tweak it. Read the rest of this entry ...

§29 · January 31, 2005 · Technology, Tips · Comments Off on Making Firefox Search Bar Resizable ·


Well I spent some time last night trimming the fat on my old PC (PIII-450 MHz, Win98) including removing applications and MP3 files I no longer use and then starting a defrag of the 3 different hard disks. This is all in preparation for a re-install of Mandrake on a bigger Linux partition with hopes of running the box as a fileserver for my LAN.

Anyway, my Dad and his girlfriend are coming to visit the boys this weekend. It should be a fine time, though and I have to figure out what the menu will be...

§28 · January 28, 2005 · Life · Comments Off on Doings and Goings On ·


Every guy with a webpage eventually gets really curious about who is reading his website and whether he's doing anything worthwhile or if he's just entertaining himself. Serious webmasters will ensure they get server logs so they can analyze their traffic thoroughly. The web package that I purchased through my host gives me some standard web site statistics (produced by Report Magic) and these reports are great as summary information. But if I want to look at my actual server logs I'm out of luck unless I want to pay an extra couple bucks a month for them.

Ok, so I'm cheap. Instead of doing that, I thought I'd brush off my PHP manual and figure out how to do it myself. It wasn't that hard to do. Consider that it only took a couple hours time, I wasn't testing it locally (had to FTP every time), and my PHP knowledge is maybe just a notch above novice (though my familiarity with C/C++ certainly helps). Read the rest of this entry ...

§27 · January 27, 2005 · PHP, Software, Technology, Tips, Web · 1 comment ·


I'm a sucker for the Academy Awards, not sure why I care but I usually tune in (even though I wasn't able to get out and see too many movies last year).

Two years ago, actor Adrian Brody won Best Actor In A Lead Role for The Pianist. His acceptance speech for the Oscar became newsworthy because he was so excited that he grabbed presenter Halle Berry and planted a big wet one on her and he also shouted down the orchestra when they started to play over his speech (due to limited time).

So at last year's awards show, he was the presenter for Best Actress In A Lead Role. As a gag, before he presented the award he spritzed his mouth with breath freshener. Ha ha. Actually, pretty funny for Hollywood. But he got to smooch with the orange-skinned Charlize Theron (who won for her role in the film Monster), so I guess the gag paid off.

Then, yesterday morning they announced the nominees for Academy Awards for 2004 and I happened to catch it since I was working from home. They had Adrian Brody as co-announcer. He did the same breath freshener gag (but this time with his male announcer). Time to find another reason to be in the spotlight Adrian...

§26 · January 26, 2005 · Entertainment, Movies · Comments Off on Move On, Adrian ·


This entry will be the first of a series that describe in fine detail how I transferred video from old VHS tapes and Laserdiscs to brand-spanking new DVDRs. It includes the video capture, the MPEG encoding, some audio engineering, DVD title/chapter/menu creation and burning. Get ready... Read the rest of this entry ...

§4 · January 26, 2005 · Technology, Video · 1 comment ·