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May 31, 2006
Installing Captchas for MovableType: SCode
What a pitsa. I wanted to install Captchas for my MT Blog, because of the huge amount of comment spam, I recieve.
Captchas are these annoying pictures you need to decipher:
So I installed SCode, but I got a strange error message during building my site, after I put in the code into the templates:
Undefined subroutine &SCode::scode_tmp
Which turned out to be due to missing GD.pm. So I went and tried to install GD from the source, but that failed because the GD headers were missing.
What helped in the end on Mr. U's Debian Server was this:
apt-get install libgd-dev apt-get install libgd-graph-perl
And another pitfall: SCode also fails, if you don't have a slash at the end of your temp-directory, like /home/marco/tmp/
That's the problem with free software, you can't really complain about that kind of stuff ;)
Update:
Captcha discussion on Slashdot
The maintainer of SCode, Arvind Satyanarayan, commented on this entry and promised fixes and improvements in summer! Jay for free Software! ;)
Posted by marco at 10:45 AM | Comments (2)
May 24, 2006
Old Images for free
Need some old images like the nice graveyard below for your Website or Project?
FromOldBooks.org has tons of images scanned from old books. The best about it: They are free as the copyright has expired. Please donate, if you like and use this page often.
Posted by marco at 1:45 PM | Comments (0)
Online Tv Recorder
I used to swear by shift.tv, but now I found something better, the
onlinetvrecorder.com/
Not only is it free to use, it's also much more reliable!
Currently they have the following channels:
ARD, ZDF, RTL, Sat1, Pro7, RTL2, Kabel 1, VOX, MTV, 3sat, Arte, BBC WORLD
And more channels are coming soon:
EUROSPORT, ARD EINS, ARD EINSFESTIVAL, ARD EINSPLUS, BAY3, BELG.FL.,
BELG.FR., BR ALPHA, CH1, CH2, CNN, DAS4,
EURONEWS, FAB, HR3, KIKA, MDR, ZDF THEATERKANAL,
ZDF DOKU, NDR, NICKELODEON, NTV, ORF 1, ORF 2,
PHOENIX, DSF, QVC, RBB, SPREEKANAL, SRTL,
SW3, TELE5, TERRA NOVA, TNT, TRT, TV5,
TV-BERLIN, VIVA, VIVA PLUS, WDR, XXP
After a recording finished, you can either download it for free from their server, but you'll have to wait a little while. Or you pay 25-50ct via paypal and download it faster and without the wait. Or you can use P2P software like BitTorrent, also free.
Check it out!
Posted by marco at 11:09 AM | Comments (0)
May 23, 2006
I failed the Da Vinci Code Quest
I was pretty happy, when I came in as one of the first 10,000 people solving the Da Vinci Code Puzzle on Google. But when the finals started, I realized, I might have just been lucky.
I had seen other people's times of being about 30min. So after 45min on just the first part of five I gave up:
After about 10 tries and two hours, I managed to finish number one, but number two proved to be no easier:
But at least I got the cool cryptex ;)
Posted by marco at 11:07 AM | Comments (2)
May 15, 2006
Dissected: Da Vinci Code Cryptex
My Cryptex - dissected:
I count 13 metal parts, 5 white alphabet dials, 1 spring and 6 screws.
Posted by marco at 10:29 PM | Comments (1)
Da Vinci Code Cryptex
Just got my Cryptex in the mail - I'm one of the lucky 10,000 solving the Google Da Vinci Code Challenge first.
It is remarkably heavy and contains a little scroll, telling you to visit www.google.com/DaVinciCode. The site also has a link to a little documentary about the movie and some sponsor's messages and discounts.
Damn! Some people are paying 80$ for one of these at ebay (I see 47 auctions at the moment). Make me an offer I can't decline and you can have mine!
I'm excited about the next challenge, which will commence 1pm EDT May 19th. This time, the fastest players that complete the game during two days, will win. Luckily, I played a lot of NotPr0n - The Hardest Riddle Available on the Internet, so I hope I stand a little chance ;)
Update: There goes my feeling special: About 600 other bloggers ramble about the same topic....
Yeah and some asshole on ebay wants to sell the links I gave you above for 5$. Disgusting!
Posted by marco at 8:56 PM | Comments (0)
May 14, 2006
I pinch
OK, I don't watch that much TV, so it took me a while to discover the funniest advertisement I've seen in a long time:
Click for Video (QuickTime, 1.8MB)
Posted by marco at 5:16 PM | Comments (0)
May 10, 2006
Maraschino Cherry
Do you like those red cocktail cherries? I always hated them and now I know why:
They are so nice and red, because they are colored with Carmine, which is the juice of crushed femal bugs. I knew they used that stuff in Lipsticks, but it's also used in a lot of other foods. See the Seattle Times article for all the appalling details.
Posted by marco at 9:52 AM | Comments (2)
May 6, 2006
T-Shirt Hell
I don't know why, but this is just so funny ;)
And it's even funnier, because I know so many people can't laugh about it... T-Shirt Hell is great at pissing people off.
Posted by marco at 11:14 AM | Comments (0)
May 5, 2006
It must be true
...if the church says it
Posted by marco at 12:06 PM | Comments (1)
May 3, 2006
Recipe: Plum Streusel Cake
This very easy but delicious cake I made for my wife's birthday:
cook 1 pk. vanilla pudding as usual (pudding powder,
2 cups milk, 2 tbsp sugar, try to avoid pudding skin
wash plums, remove stones
preheat oven to 390 degrees F,
butter 11 inch springform pans
melt 4 oz butter in a small saucepan
mix 1 1/2 cup flour with 2 tbsp sugar and 1 tbsp vanilla sugar
(or 1/2 tsp vanilla extract), stir in the liquid butter and
knead batter to crumbly streusel
spread 2/3 of streusel batter into the bottom of pan,
smoothing the top,
layer vanilla pudding on top of batter,
arrange plums on top of pudding, peel facing downwards
optional: add a hint of cinnamon
sprinkle plums with rest (1/3) of streusel topping
bake for about 40 min., remove from oven
serve warm or at room temperature with vanilla ice cream
or softly whipped cream.
For zee Germans: Chefkoch.de
Posted by marco at 5:22 PM | Comments (0)