User Blogs

When a one day job becomes a two day job because a part is incorrectly specified or otherwise wrong, you can be sure that you are having an excellent time. When the new self-locking nut intended to retain one end of my driver's side front suspension carrier sheared away from its magical captive shim during yesterday's automotive repair attempt, I knew that I was in for a really good time.

I guess this should have been obvious to me long ago, but if you have shell access you can near-instantly upgrade drupal like this:

wget (new drupal release)
tar xfz (new drupal release)
cd drupal-(new drupal version)
rm -rf sites
rsync .htaccess * (your drupal root)

If you need it spelled out a little more closely, here's what the commands look like for me for 7.18, which seems to be a security update...

I haven't even read 1984 but I know what a Telescreen is; a fictional-cum-real display that doesn't just show you images, but sees you, too. While this is clearly a useful device, not knowing whether you're being watched is a worrying possibility. And Apple Computer, self-appointed guardian of virtue, has not one or two but three patents designed to permit a display to watch the watcher.

Various online resources say to hold down INPUT and VOL- on the remote while plugging in the TV. This doesn't work, at least on mine. Hold them down on the TV while plugging in the TV, that works. Then you press VOL- and CHAN- on the TV, to get into the menu. Channel buttons select, volume buttons alter.

Ever since I got it, my 1992 F250 has had a bad wiper motor. The symptom, which can be caused by several different kinds of faults, is that it didn't "park". That is to say, the switch turned the wiper motor on and off, regardless of setting. High speed always worked, but park never did. I proved that the motor was the problem by taking off the cover and cleaning the contacts, and having it work for a short time. Rather than fight corrosion and continually shave switch contacts, I decided to drop the forty bucks retail on a new window motor.