I was just in the process of downloading Java on a Windows VM and noted that during the process you explicitly have to remove the checkbox or it will install the "Ask" toolbar.

Now i've no doubt that Ask have either paid for this privilege, but people, in general, if something you are installing EVER gives you the choice to install a toolbar, just say no.

Leave that previous browsing space for actual web browsing!

Toolbars typically add next to nothing to your experience, but they do provide a good way for the toolbar provider to get more information about you.

Smashed some brick pallettes to bits last weekend and built this rustic woodbox to go at the back door and free up our wheelbarrow for real work.

With the latest thunderbird, the string to search for in the config editor to set it to check all folders for new email has changed from:

mail.check_all_imap_folders_for_new to mail.server.default.check_all_folders_for_new

As detailed here: http://kb.mozillazine.org/How_do_I_check_for_new_messages_in_other_fold… Which caught me out for a while as I was looking for the old one in the config editor.

Sick of having to click on a window, then click on the button you think you already clicked on? Paste this into a terminal:

defaults write org.x.X11 wm_click_through -bool true

Driving on the road near our house last night, and came across this little guy in the middle of the road.

He was about 50cm long, including tail.

He showed off a bit once it was clear I wasn't just going to leave him alone, but really I was just trying to get him off the road, so he was safe. In the end, I had to get a stick and put under his front legs to drag him off the road!

We've been using Trixbox for many years as our PABX at iseek computing, but I wasn't happy that it was moving forward nicely as a project, so last time we rebuilt the PABX using AsteriskNOW instead.

It all worked fine, slightly easier that Trixbox perhaps, and no weird forum registration required, and its pretty clean with FreePABX being the main interface.

Also went out and got another trailerload of firewood, but didn't take a photo of that ;-)

Did you know you can see what advertisement categories Google will offer you?

You can even customise them to show things that you want to see!

Checkout yours.

http://www.google.com/ads/preferences/

If you are using a Windows SBS 2003 or 2008 with a domain, and client computers are taking a while to login, make sure that you've got the DNS server set to the SBS box as the default.

We use a linux box as the dhcp server and gateway, and this small change to the dhcpd.conf reduced login times from 2 or more minutes down to seconds.

Wish i'd discovered that earlier!

I've developed a little script over the years that dumps production databases, and loads them locally on demand, and its been very handy.

However, it was taking ages to load a database on a Virtualbox ubuntu environment I use for debugging with Zend.

A quick look into it, and I found that i'd put

--skip-extended-insert

on the mysqldump command sometime in the past.

I changed that to

--add-locks --extended-insert

and the loading has gone from over 12 hours (I was asleep, not waiting for it ;-) down to 30 minutes.