These two sites, lolz.ws and lulz.ws, are now live as URL Shortening sites.
You can now create URLs like for example:
- http://lolz.ws/alias
- http://lulz.ws/alias
Enjoy, lulz.
Create an IM Protocol?
Recently, I have been thinking about creating my own IM protocol. Mainly due to the fact that I think there should be another alternative in a lightweight client that supports every OS (using Java).
However, I think this wouldn’t be that worth of a write. This is because there are already written alternatives out there. For example, there’s XMPP (or Jabber), Skype, and Google Talk (Jabber). Yet, people do not use these are much. This could possibly be that they are not as popular as AIM or MSN. Also, there is already alternative clients that support multiple protocols, such as Pidgin (no ads), and Disgby.
Of course anyone that uses the official clients can easily modify them. For MSN, there’s A-Patch, Mess.be Patch, and Messenger Plus! Live. I personally use A-Patch (Mess.be never updated to 9.0 so they lost out, which sucks as they used to be my favorite), and Messenger Plus! Live. For AIM, there’s Aim Ad Hack. I personally use this cause not only does it get rid of the ads, it get rid of that garbage the AIM installer likes to put on your computer, such as the AIM Toolbar (ick!)
So would it be worth it to write an IM protocol that does what just about everything that’s already out there? Probably for a learning experience, yeah, but for a wide audience, probably not. People don’t like switching or changing from things they are used to, that’s just how the way we are. Most likely if that user is already on an IM service, they would probably stick to it for the convenience, and we all know how hard it is to get your friends to switch over to another service too (i.e AIM to MSN and vice versa).
Upgraded My Computer to an i7
I’ve decided to upgrade my computer, here’s what I got, what I didn’t upgrade, and what I’ve replaced:
What I’ve Upgraded To:
- ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 – $289.99 EVGA X58 SLI LE – $239.99
- I was using an ASUS board but it had known issues such as CMOS resetting when unplugging or switching off power regardless of the battery, due to it thinking of a overclocking failure (apparently it’s my GPU, what bullshit, and I doubt it was a DOA or defective deal as people have RMA’d this problem several times). It also had shut down problems, and all these issues were out there since the board was released. It was even all over the ASUS forums and no fix or anything for it, and from that point I also learned ASUS has shit support, and thus I do not recommend ASUS. Thanks a lot ASUS, for all the stress and bullshit… /rant
- Intel Core i7 920 @ 2.66 GHz – $279.99
- 6 GB of DDR3 RAM (OCZ) – $124.99
- HP DVD+/-RW SATA – $49.99
- Corsair 850W PSU – $139.99
I’ve noticed it’s not cheap with Intel, but I thought I’d give them a try as I heard the i7s were badass at the moment. DDR3 memory isn’t cheap at the moment, however the i7s only support that. I didn’t care for Lightscribe when I bought the DVD burner. I’d probably never use it anyways, as I even barely use the drive.
What I Didn’t Upgrade:
- 2 x 1 TB SATA Hard Drives (less than a few months old)
- NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT (2 years old)
- I would have upgraded, but I’m waiting for DirectX 11 to come out in the next few months.
- 2 x Dell S2009W monitors (Dual Monitors FTW, less than a month old)
- Antec 300 Case (less than a few months old)
None of these really needed an upgrade as they are relatively new since when I ordered them and they work fine. The graphics card will need an upgrade, I may or may not do a SLi configuration. I find it’s best to wait for DirectX 11 cards to be released before I do go out and buy a new card though.
What I’ve Replaced:
- MSI K9N4 SLI nForce (2 years old)
- AMD Althon 64 x2 3.03 GHz (2 years old)
- 4 GB of DDR2 RAM (G.Skill) (half was 2 years old, other half was 1 year old)
- Pioneer DVD+/-RW IDE Drive
- Ultra 500W PSU (2 or 3 years old?)
Most of the technology I’ve replaced is becoming obsolete, the place I bought the motherboard from no longer sells it. The old processor came way down in price (I spent $156 on it, it’s $80 now). The old RAM I had is now 30 bucks per 2 GB! DDR2 is really cheap right now. I replaced the DVD+/-RW drive as I needed an SATA drive for the EVGA motherboard, no more IDE woot! I upgraded the PSU thinking I’d need more power for my upgrades (plus I needed an 8-pin plug).
Plans on Two New URL Shortening Sites
Recently I bought the domains, lolz.ws and lulz.ws. What am I going to do with them is make them URL Shortening sites.
Imagine linking to something funny on Twitter, Facebook, or to a friend using lolz.ws:
http://lolz.ws/alias
Imagine linking to something you are doing the lulz for using lulz.ws:
http://lulz.ws/alias
Of course it will be possible to use both URLs for just about anything. It will be a while before I get these sites up.
Ruby on Rails Sucks? I Don’t Think So
I have been playing around with Ruby on Rails for a while. You know how to program and know the commands for it, you’ll think it’s cool. Ruby on Rails is a MVC framework for the language Ruby. MVC stands for Model-View-Controller. The model is the database logic, the controller is the application logic, and the view is the presentation logic. Using this style, it keeps things organized.
People will think Ruby on Rails suck because they don’t know how to catch on to it. I admit, I was originally one of them, until I read Agile Web Development with Rails, Third Edition (Amazon). This book showed me how powerful this framework was and how much it was capable of doing. Doing validations is a breeze, embedding variables and Ruby code is a breeze in the views, routes are easy to configure (no .htaccess), database migrations to keep things in order, ActiveRecord to ease querying, updating, and inserting (no more SQL queries), and there’s so many other cool things with it. There is even loads of plugins on the Internet and on Github that do kickass things.
Does Ruby on Rails use a lot of RAM? From what I have notice from playing around with it I haven’t notice it take so much RAM. Besides, if I needed more RAM later and I was generating the money from the site, I’d just upgrade the server, piece of cake.
I plan on developing new sites using Ruby on Rails. PHP is just getting old (the new namespace delimiter is \, and that’s an escape character!)
Skype “Unlimited” Plans Are Actually Limited
I was looking at Skype‘s Unlimited Calling subscriptions again, as I had one for a month before. Then I read the fair use policy only to find it to be ridiculous.
Calls to phones and mobiles and Skype To Go* calls are included in your subscription subject to a fair usage limit of 10,000 minutes per user per month, with a maximum of 6 hours per day. Also, no more than 50 different numbers in total can be called per day. If your subscription includes more than one country, then this is the total amount of minutes allowed per month on your account, and is not a separate limit for each country.
I understand the 10,000 minutes usage per month cause of how cheap the plans are, but only a maximum of 6 hours and only 50 different numbers each day, what’s up with that. Not only is that the limit per day, users have been saying if you hit the limit (post 1 and 2), you lose the subscription for the rest of the month.
It doesn’t really make any sense why they are called unlimited when they are not, seems misleading. Although I’d probably never hit one of those limits myself, so it’s not that big of a deal. I know one day I might though if I did have the plan continuously and that would be a problem.