Gosh this blog looks terrible in Internet Explorer (at least in version 6), not that I’d advocate using IE unless you have to; especially now that Firefox 3 is out!
Speaking of which, so is Opera 9, and IE8 is in beta. New browsers galore!
Anyway, will fix, gentle reader(s).
OK I admit that the title of this post is slightly hyperbolic, but I’ve just installed and started using PmWiki to replace my well-worn, dog-eared copy of ASPWiki that I have loved so well since about 2003, I think. And, I’ve gotta say that I love it! Out of the box it’s simple and easy to use, easy to setup, doesn’t require a database (PmWiki uses flat files for storage, which I think makes sense for big slabs of text content), but it’s flexible and extensible and there’s a great ecosystem around it with a metric assload of cutely named “Cookbook Recipes” instead of the over-used “extensions”, “add-ons” or “plug-ins”.
I chose PmWiki because I was looking for a PHP-based (for web-hosting reasons) wiki that’s small and simple, and then found out that it’s also really extensible and easy to customise to your liking, which of course I’ve done as part of my usual procrastination routine — see my snazzy theme in the attached screenshot. I also very much like and agree with its philosophy:
And just have a look at what PmWiki can do! With the help of the many cookbook recipes you can do all this and more:
Plus there are a bunch of skins you can use to make your wiki more amenable to your tastes. I also liked the security features, because I use mine like a personal notepad so I don’t want other people being able to scribble all over it, or even to be able to read it, really. So my security needs are pretty simple, but you can go paranoid/berserk if you need to.
Oh, and you can try out PmWiki on your own machine without a full-on web server if you want to by downloading the Standalone recipe which you just need to unzip a directory into your PmWiki directory tree, double-click a .BAT file and type http://localhost/! Easy peasy. You can run on other operating systems with just a PHP script, also provided on the Standalone recipe page. Running locally makes it super easy and quick to customise your PmWiki because you don’t have to upload your changes to a server, or wait for page refreshes to download. Also, you don’t have to worry about messing up your main “production” installation if you have one, you can mess around locally as much as you want to.
Which brings me to my next point, which was that I wanted to do two things:
I’m mainly a C# developer, so I logically decided that I’d write a tool to import my old data in Python. I’ve written the odd Python script before and this didn’t seem like such a big job — some file I/O and some search/replace stuff. It didn’t turn out to be too difficult but it did take a bit longer than I expected as I learned more about the language; or more specifically, how the expat XML parser works. I’m pretty happy with how it works, I ended up getting my 300+ pages imported just fine.
import xml.parsers.expat import re class elhandler: def __init__(self, filename, wikiGroup): self.buf = ” self.wikiGroup = wikiGroup self._parser = p = xml.parsers.expat.ParserCreate() p.StartElementHandler = self.start_element p.EndElementHandler = self.end_element p.CharacterDataHandler = self.char_data p.ParseFile(open(filename)) def start_element(self, name, attrs): self.name = name def end_element(self, name): if self.name == ‘Title’: self.title = re.search(‘\w+’,self.buf).group(0) elif self.name == ‘PageData’: self.buf = self.wikifix(self.buf) of = open(‘import/’ + self.wikiGroup + ‘.’ + self.title, ‘w’) of.write(self.buf) of.close self.buf = ” def char_data(self, data): self.buf += data def wikifix(self, contents): contents = contents.replace(‘ * ‘, ‘* ‘) contents = contents.replace(‘\t* ‘, ‘* ‘) contents = contents.replace(‘ 1.’, ‘# ‘) contents = contents.replace(‘\t1.’, ‘# ‘) contents = re.sub(r‘(^|\n)+====’,‘\g<1>!!!!’, contents) contents = re.sub(r‘(^|\n)+===’,‘\g<1>!!!’, contents) contents = re.sub(r‘(^|\n)+==’,‘\g<1>!!’, contents) contents = re.sub(r‘(^|\n)+=’,‘\g<1>!’, contents) contents = re.sub(r‘\b([A-Z][a-z]+[A-Z]+\w+)’,‘[[\g<1>]]’, contents) contents = re.sub(r‘(\n\ .*)+’, ‘\n[@\g<0>\n@]‘, contents) return contents eh = elhandler(‘aspWiki-export.xml’, ‘Main’)
My second mission, to create a skin that would work if using PmWiki for a normal content-based website, is at least a partial success because I’m happy enough with my skin to use it on my wiki — at least for now. My skin is named PmGk, not too imaginatively. 
So if you’re looking for a Wiki that can do everything, or even just something, check out PmWiki, it could save your life!
Wow.
It looks like my dreams are finally coming true; Krispy Kreme is opening in Brisbane! They were going gangbusters in Queen Street Mall today at lunchtime, giving away 500 dozen doughnuts and they had a giant Krispy Kreme sandcastle — I don’t know why they had that but it was awesome.
And they had a van and promo chicks and ex footy players (Paul Sironen) and balloons and what not.
I snapped some pics on my phone (see em on Facebook):
My Dad and I went with some friends on the 2007 Camp Quality esCarpade rally. We’re still in Tasmania as I write this but we’re heading back on the plane tonight — thank the Lord we don’t have to drive all the way back to Queensland.
The 2007 esCarpade started in Canberra and Dad drove down from Brisbane with Ray and Tracie (they’re from Gympie and supplied the car) in our HZ Holden Kingswood rally car “The Red Baron” with its 202 Holden motor (3.3 litre), Commodore 4-speed gearbox with sticky linkages, flashing orange lights for dirt roads, knobbly dirt tyres and big steel boxes on top for luggage which you need because the boot fills with dust when you’re bashing down gravel roads.
Everything was going great until before the rally had started when on Thursday arvo, 150km out of Canberra the old six cylinder started spewing oil all over the place and making some unhappy noises. They limped into sunny Canberra as gently as they could, where the esCarpade organisers gave them the number of a top bloke named Charlie of Hughes Mechanical, who were also the support team for the “Ours” esCarpade team. This guy was awesome and the lads worked their asses off until late in the night to get a new motor into the old beast and have it running again for scrutineering the next morning!
So the team managed to enter the rally with a new motor and I was airlifted in Friday night so that I could be there for the start of the rally on Saturday morning.
We headed off with Tracie at the wheel and the old Kingy seemed to be running sweet as a nut until we noticed some banging noises underneath the back end, and it started wagging its tail like a dog over any kind of corrugations. Tracie held on through some hairy moments as the car waggled around on the gravel and we started to think something could have been wrong. We stopped for lunch and had a quick look but everything seemed fine, and then it was my turn to drive.
We were pretty convinced something was pretty messed up under the back of the car as it tried to swap ends any time the road got bumpy and it was scaring the crap out of all of us, and embarassing us too as pretty much every other car in the rally flew past us and we were eating their dust. So we stopped and jacked up the car and we didn’t even have to take of a wheel to notice that the passenger side shock absorber was just hanging around and had snapped at the top where it mounts to the chassis. That explained a few things…
So once again the car was limping to Canberra after every car parts shop in Yass was closed. Repco in Canberra weren’t keen to sell us a pair of shocks over the phone by credit card and they were going to close before we got there, but some desperation, harassment and cajoling eventually convinced Brian to take our credit card over the phone and leave our package of salvation out the back behind a rubbish bin. Then it was Charlie to the rescue again, he put the car on his hoist and had the shocks changed in literally ten minutes and we were driving on with smiles on our dials.
Heaps and heaps more stuff happened on the trip with plenty of cars having mechanical dramas, navigational problems and driving indiscretions, but it was heaps and heaps of fun and in total all the cars raised over $917,000, which was nearly two hundred thousand more than 2006. A top effort.
So now the plan is to build up a car of our own, get some sponsorship and go again next year. Should be awesome.
I came across this Swedish guy’s blog. I’m mentioning this for three reasons:
Plus there was a link to a page that linked to a talk by Adam Bosworth that goes into ajax, databases, Google, information organisation and more nerdy cool stuff that you would like if you were as nerdy as me. Adam Bosworth is a mySQL guy who now works for Google by the way, and the talk is from April 2005 but it’s still a feast of info.
My shiny, expensive (for a 17″) TFT is being a moron and going bright for about a second before turning off its backlight so I can’t see a thing. I think it’s under warranty…I hope it’s under warranty.
Anyway you don’t care about that, you care about finding out what to do when your Philips 17″ 107P monitor picture goes fuzzy, don’t you? This would probably apply to other monitors as well, and anyway you should definitely read this
FAQ called “How do I adjust the focus of my monitor?,” which I used and found inspiring and helpful. Yeah I said inspiring, I wasn’t going to try fixing the screen myself because I nearly killed myself messing about in the insides of a monitor once before.
Anyway, you don’t care about me nearly dying either, you want to know how to fix your blurry Philips 107P screen, don’t you? It’s really easy, you just need a philips head screwdriver.
So what you need to do is take off the plastic cover of ye olde Philips, by removing the screws marked in the pic below:
That pic is kind of unnecessary, basically just keep taking screws out until the plastic cover comes loose. If you take out more than 6, you’ve taken out too many, you fool.
Now all you have to do is use your trusty screwdriver to twiddle the internal focus knobs through the holes in the aluminium shielding, as indicated in the pic below.
I actually took off the aluminium shielding, but you don’t actually need to, I just had no idea what I was doing, and the FAQ linked above said that you may need to take it off, so I did. Now that I’m shining a light to show you the way, you won’t need to go through the pain that I endured. Good luck to you, old chap.
So basically the story is that you need to have the monitor turned on and plugged in to your computer, so you can stick your screwdriver in and twiddle the focus knobs. The top one seems to be the main one, but the middle knob seemed to me to be adjusting the edges of the screen a bit better. But I can’t say for sure what they do, so just twiddle until it looks right.
The bottom knob adjusts brightness or something, you will probably want to leave that one alone.
Good luck adjusting your fuzzy, blurry Philips screen. Don’t electrocute yourself, that would be moronic because you need to be living to be able to enjoy a sharp monitor. Dying is for quitters.
Check out this video of a dude drawing a car in MS Paint. His skill and attention to detail are insane!
I think he’d even put Maddox to shame, and Maddox knows how to handle MS Paint.
Our IT Department’s Christmas Party was at Friday’s nightclub in
Brisbane. It’s all fun and games until somebody loses their
wallet/phone/dignity.
At Chermside shopping centre north of Brisbane yesterday (Sunday), which has recently been expanded with a bunch of new shops and food places, including a dreamy donuts. Dreamy is about 90% as good as krispy kreme donuts but just dont quite have that super light “you’re eating a thousand empty calories” fluffiness about them. Anyway, this crowd of people prevented me expanding my bloated waistline any further, so for that i thank them. I wish i could scrounge together a few million bucks for a franchise of my own, donuts sell like crazy!
