News & Updates

Change Nmap/Zenmap fonts on Windows

Application design is very important. The user-interface (UI) for applications should be clean and easy to read, and the font choices (while subject to personal preference) is critical. Some applications do a great job while others, especially apps that are designed for cross-platform use, tend to be hit or miss. Nmap, which is an excellent network diagnosis tool, is a great application but the choice of monospace font on the Windows platform (Courier New) is dismal. Fortunately, it’s easy to change this. Simply open the file pango.aliases (usually found in C:\Program Files\Nmap\zenmap\etc\pango\) and edit the line that reads

monospace = "courier new,courier monothai,mingliu,simsun, ...

Just add whatever font you want for the monospace font at the beginning of the quoted string. For example, to use Microsoft’s new open-type Consolas, simply change that line to read:

monospace = "consolas,courier new,courier monothai,mingliu,simsun, ...

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My Outlook is sending spam!! (But not really)

I was working at home late one evening this week and I was about to finish up the project I was working on and decided to make one more pass through my e-mail before going to bed. I launched Outlook to check my several accounts and, shortly after startup, I received a bunch of Delivery Status Notifications (DSNs) for messages I hadn’t sent.
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Kids say (or e-mail) the funniest things

Penny has a niece that has started writing her e-mail. Her niece is seven or eight years old and is very precocious. She is kind of quiet but once she gets to know you, she is a real hoot and says the funniest things. Her latest e-mail went something like this:

I e-mail you. You e-mail me. It all works together.

Oh, so THAT’s how it works! Maybe you just have to know her, but this just cracks me up.

Connecting PHP 4 to MySQL 5

I recently upgraded one of our MySQL servers from 4.1.22 to 5.1.26. In the process of upgrading, I dumped all the databases, uninstalled MySQL then installed a clean copy of 5.1.26. Then I manually created all the users and schemas by hand, then restored our backups to the new install. Everything went smoothly and all the servers that had PHP 5.x installed could connect with no problems (because they used the latest version of the MySQL client API.)
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Matt Mullenweg in Generation Kill?

I’ve been watching an HBO mini-series called Generation Kill. It’s a grim and gritty look at Marine forces that were involved in the second Iraq war. It is extremely well written and the actors seem to be authentic. But did anyone else realize that one Matt Mullenweg (the mastermind behind WordPress) is apparently moonlighting as Lt. Nate Fick? Inquiring minds want to know …

(It is actually Stark Sands that plays Lt. Nate Fick, but c’mon, you can see the resemblance, right?)

Yes, it’s okay to remove Bonjour from CS3

Yes, it is okay to remove Bonjour after installing Adobe CS3. Adobe even explains how to do this. It would be nice to be able to unselect it during the install without having to perform a complex series of steps. But still, at least the uninstall is painless.

WordPress and duplicate sites in stats plugin

I use the WordPress.com Stats plugin on my blog. It is great for generating basic traffic statistics. When I upgraded my WordPress version to 2.6, something happened during the process to create a duplicate site in my stats drop down. The biggest problem is that all my old stats are associated with the original site, while all my new stats (from 7/15/2008 forward) are being pushed into the new site. (more…)

MobileMe - what a bust (but getting better)

Wow. I’ve seen some pretty dismal web launches but I must say Apple and their MobileMe launch has become the colossus of debacles. After spending several hours (and I mean, literally, eight+ hours of off and on efforts) of trying to get my Outlook 2007 data to properly sync to MobileMe and to my iPhone, I am close to giving up.

Updated at 2008-07-17 @ 4:05 pm: It appears that it is working now! Wahoo! Resetting the sync history from the MobileMe control panel never worked, but I tried to reset my sync history from iTunes (Edit->Preferences->Syncing->Reset Sync History.) I then let the next automatically scheduled sync occur and it prompted me to choose what and how to sync. I told it to take my contacts on my PC and overwrite MobileMe and told the calendar to merge. When that finished, I logged into me.com and all my contacts were there! Next, I reset sync history again from iTunes and the next sync, I selected merge for my contacts and to overwrite MobileMe’s calendar with the one on my PC. That finished, and my calendar was updated, too. Keeping my fingers crossed!
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