Eagerly awaiting KATG Iphone App
In the meanwhile I was playing around and now I have the Keith and The Girl Twitter feed on my lock screen.
Every time my iphone locks, it grabs the latest twitter updates, if it can't connect to the internet at that moment then it's left blank and you have your regular lock screen.

Requirements [with tutorials]:

• Hacked/Modded iPhone - [link]
• Winterboard - an app you install through Cydia - [link]
• Server Lock Screen - a theme extension? you install through Cydia and activate with Winterboard - [above link will explain this too]
• SSH - [link]

How To:

1. Make sure Server Lock Screen is activated in Winterboard. When your iPhone is locked you should see some text below the time that says it was loaded from a remote server.
2. Start SSH on your phone and connect to it with an ftp client, the ftp client in the tutorial is called Fugu, but any will do that has SFTP. Once connected you'll see your iphone's directory structure.
3. Open /Library/Themes/Server Lock Example.theme in an html editor. Some text editors will parse the html.. if you can't see the html code then you opened it wrong or with the wrong program... notepad/textmate should be fine.
4. You should see a line that looks like this: src="http://cydia.saurik.com/lock/"
5. change it to this: src="http://fightskillz.com/lock.php"
6. Save the changes to your phone.

edit: here's a copy of the php file I have up at http://fightskillz.com/lock.php, it requires php5.

it's zipped, click here to download.

If you visit http://fightskillz.com/time you'll see a clock and an insulting yet motivating phrase. The phrase is random, I'll be adding more to the pool whenever I get a chance to ponder what a lazy bastard I am, and it changes every minute. I want to implement this better, but I don't have time right now so it'll have to do.

Here's a screenshot or two:

 

Setting up my own server is a little more involved than I originally envisioned. It seems every ounce of functionality I want requires several different open source projects to work together, and I have to go hunting and learning about the history and versions and how each service, server, community, app, etc. works and what's compatable with what and which workarounds, plugins and everything is best to use and which isn't and why and what to keep an eye on. It just goes on and on. This is all running on the new server which is a lot faster(after a reboot) although at the time of writing I just configured a whole lot of stuff and it's all lagging a bit. I don't even want to mention the dent in traffic from repetitively having to restart the server, apache, rails, etc.

I can't wait till I'm happy with the set up and can get knee deep in writing code again. I don't want to evaluate anymore, I just want to program. I've got all this ambition and innovation locked away in a special compartment of my neural network, hopefully it won't have gone stale by the time I get around to implementing it. grrrr.

Two perfect streams, with one perfect seam. I look down and scream, although to myself, it appears.

Once everything is soaked, not a happy artichoke. I off to the store, to return and get more

But apparently there's a policy against my accident.

 

I wrestle with the store clerk and tell 'em he'll pay,

he said no you have to.

Left pondering in an isle, cans all strewn about. It's vengance i want, yet i'm all flushed with doubt

FULCHED! i say...

i mean FLUSHED. That's it, i've got it, the answer i want

it.

Today in my full stream, full scream, private isle.

I soaked the place silly and grafted on a smile

 

When clerk returns to see what I've done

he doesn't so i look around, put away my gun

my face, my hands, my stupid grin

i missed all the cans, all the cereal, everything.

i return past the tills, covered in shame

at my own, my own, improbable aim.

ah wells, ah wells, a grin on the store clerk.

so i throw an old lady's walker at him, what a jerk...

the old lady falls, tralls, fippersnaps.. oh wait, that was her back.

 

so off the hospital covered in pee, my bathroom i know, looks just like me.

at the back of an ambulance, i'm to blame, for the old lady's accident, and my accident fame.

quite the opposite i tell some local news, all of them, the entire crew.

they'll have none of it they question and they blame.

so i pee on all of them and proudly exclaim.

MY FANCY, SEAM OF A STREAM IS MIGHT, NOW I'VE GOT YOU ALL IN MY SIGHT.

so soaked they be, and soaked they were.. I left them there it was a mutual blur.

I'd just soaked the town and began a new day

 

soon later I was parched.

I just uploaded a bunch of really great ChalkBoards that have been building up in my inbox: http://fightskillz.com/chalkboard-gallery/. Draw your own here: http://chalk-it-out.com/#/Draw Here are some of those new ones:

I woke up today and realized my current hosting plan just isn't gonna cut it anymore, I've grown past a certain point where I need to install certain things like Rails and after shopping around a bit it looks like I'm going to need direct access to a server so that I have greater control over running processes, etc. I installed Linux on an old Desktop I had lying around a few months ago trying to familiarize myself with the OS so the jump to server Linux wouldn't be so cumuddeling  when I had to make it. At the same time in my search today I really wanted to find a managed host so I wouldn't have deal with it {yet}. After interrogating a whole lot of hosting options, specs, tech-support and sales agents I was re-introduced to how good I have it with my current host and got a better plan from them. They have an outstanding datacenter, great speed, great tech support, and hopefully a great VPS solution. More about them once it's activated and I transfer a few things to my new virtual server.

So, You're looking for a new host.

If it's too good to be true, it is. That's pretty much the only thing you need to remember, now before you get into any hosting plan there's a few things to mark off your checklist.

• Have they been around for a while? A few years aught be enough for people to have problems with them, prompt them to fix it, and for them to work out the kinks of their infrastructure, get into the game, and be competitive. It's not that all new hosts are bad and should be avoided, it's that they're untested, and not guaranteed to be there tomorrow.
• What's their setup? What's their server setup, what companies are they affiliated with, where do they co-locate, avoid small-time resellers*, do they have more than one server farm(one in the US and one in Europe), are they hooked up to strong internet backbones, and do they have backup power supplies.
• Do they have good tech support? They better, you will have to contact them once you have an account, for something or another, and they better be there for you 100%, polite, helpful, etc. Some have live agents, ticket/email based support systems, others have forums, or toll-free numbers.

If a prospective host doesn't meet every expectation in the above checklist you should be extremely wary. If it's been more than 35 minutes since your last meal, run for the hills. If and when you find a host that graduates your first pass inspection you should be asking the following directly into their pre-sales support mic.

• What happens if I go over the prescribed limits? This is important, some hosts will charge you(some exorbitantly), some will cut off your service without telling you, and some don't have 'limits'.
• Are there any limits to file size? You'd think that if a host offers unlimited storage, you could upload a rather big site or web app, but you'd be surprise how many of them don't tell you upfront and will do whatever they can to beat around the bush in trying to get you signed up that they have a 5 or 10MB upload limit. What good is that to anyone? none. Granted it's generally only the shadiest hosts that would try and pull a stunt like this, which is why you follow the pre-preflight checklist up there, but there are quite a few sites masquerading around as legit long time hosts that can slip through the cracks of said first pass inspection and it's better to make sure.
• How full are your servers? Overselling is a common practice, on shared and VPS, most clients will never use anything close to their prescribed limits, and so for the most part in practice there isn't really a problem with it. However there are hosts out there that go overboard and it affects their service, no matter how good their available infrastructure is, if they've packed their servers too dense you'll never realize what you were promised.
• Do you have a demo site set up under the hosting plan I'm interested in? Due to overselling, bullshiting on package specs, and the hosts overall competency you'll want to browse around on a live demo site so you know what you're getting in terms of performance. In addition to an actual functional website, you'll want to test the consitancy of their speed. They should have a few files in various sizes 1MB 5MB 10MB 50MB or something similar so you can see if the speed drops off after a few seconds of downloading. This is really important if you're hosting Flex/Flash applications, or other software or content of any decent file size. If they can't show you one, ask them to set up a demo. If they won't show you an adequate demo then don't bother, they're hiding something, and have already shown you inferiour customer service, run far those thar hills. Better hosts will host a part or all of their site on one of their own plans, this is a good thing and shows that their service is good enough to use themselves.

You have to do a bit of searching on the interwebs at various hosting review sites, there are plenty. There are also plenty that are full of paid good reviews. Some good reviews are paid for by the hosting company to a third party, meaning the entire review site isn't necessarily tainted, just those reviews. While there are plenty of people happy with their host, it's generally unlikely that happy comfortable people go searching for a way to express themselves. If you can't find a few bad reviews of a web host you're not looking hard enough. A slightly more reliable source of unbiased reviews are blogs and forums, but they too can be tainted. When researching a particular host you'll get a feel of their history, pay attention to review dates, there will be a trend, perhaps the host upgraded a big part of their infrastructure and had problems with some accounts because of it. The puzzle pieces should all fit together, and the host's reported problems should be at least 4 months in the past, with you finding somewhere or by talking to a sales agent that they've since fixed that problem. It's also very important to understand how the company handled these disgruntled clients, very important, the companies priorities should lie in your satisfaction, especially through the bad times. Remember that there are certain tiers of hosting, and they serve certain levels of client. Disregard any notice of unlimited bandwidth/storage/etc. as it's merely a marketing thing to fashion you a feeling unrestricted. If you have a certain amount of traffic, whether by visitors or by you uploading(ftp) too much at a time you'll be kicked off your shared host or asked to stop because you're using up too many resources. The same goes for virtual private hosting. When they say 'unlimited' there should be an asterisk elaborating, "unlimited as long as you don't disrupt other client's services by using up too many shared resources, and you actually have to pay proportionally for a better plan to have access to more resources". A server can only take so much, and the more packed they are shared vs. dedicated the less you'll get out of them. You get what you pay for, and there's little deviation from competitor to competitor. With that said, there are some hosts that go the other route; instead of charging average/competitive rates for subpar overstocked service, they'll charge more and claim to have some special tech that makes it worth it, but turns out to be poo on a stick. *Small time resellers are people like you and I who purchase a plan from a hosting provider, and mark it up. There are large companies that rent part of a server farm, even though they may not own the servers themselves or the facility they're located in, they have full control over each server and generally have them configured into their own massive infrastructure. These large-scale resellers are ok.

It's weird how there's always this buffer where I wholeheartidly regret doing something. Every blog post, application, website, everything I say and do and have done. Sometimes it doesn't last long, sometimes its so short I barely notice it, and sometimes it never goes away. Wonder why...

The new Safari finally includes a version of WebKit that passes the Acid 3 Test. Joining the growing list of browsers that can interprit the latest web standards, including Opera 10(in alpha). I think it's safe to say that other browsers using WebKit who've been putting off upgrading will have to now to compete with Safari and Opera, and it's a simple upgrade for them anyway, most notably I'm referring to Google Chrome here who still haven't got around to releasing a mac or linux version of the browser, and the Windows version still contains plenty of bugs. Google's main objective with Chrome, at least for now, seems to be overthrowing Internet Explorer's market share. Which according to W3Schools is still steadily declining at 44.8%. That's IE 6, 7 and 8 combined. The three are substantially different browsers. Internet Explorer 6 is so outdated I'm surprised it's still being used at all, and Internet Explorer 8 was primarly pushed out with Vista and only has 0.6% market share among developers. Leaving IE 7 with 25.7% compared to Firefox's 45.5%. With Internet explorer so incompatable with the standards (always scored extremely poorly on acid tests), and Firefox being so bulky to work on it seems only a matter of time before Google pushes WebKit to the top runner. They have this golden opportunity, this window, that it almost feels like they're not going to take advantage of or miss. I'd be quite happy in a world with Gecko and WebKit sharing the majority but they still have substantial differences and I'd be happiest in a world where cross-browser compatability is a thing of the past. Here's a screenshot of Safari 4 Beta taking the Acid3 Test The new Safari has some cool eye candy, and interesting ways of visualizing open tabs and most used sites. The overall interface still looks ugly as fuck.

So I was watching the Discovery Channel the other day, and there was this piece on panda bears in zoos, and all this research that's going into why they won't fuck each other. I'm paraphrasing here but the scientist or professor or something, lets just say the highly educated guy that is leading the research and who served as information source for the story said something like this, "in the wild they reproduce at about the same rate as other bears, but for some reason, in captivity they seem to lack the drive to reproduce." As I sat there I tried to wrap my mind around what I was seeing and why scientific and financial resources were being devoted to studying why any intelligent living breathing being would lose their sex drive after being forced into captivity and surrounded by fake plastic trees only to be gawked at by hordes of snot nosed children and lost elderlies of an alien species for hours on end day after day. If any of you idiots who commissioned the study are reading this, it's you. It's the very people who want the pandas to screw that are draining their sex drive. Ironic, a bit, but it's true. So just stop it. You want a panda that sits on the couch all day eating cheesy poofs and watching tv, put it in a zoo. You want a panda to act like a panda, put it where pandas generally live and let it be.

This is one of those videos where companies ask designers to show a concept of what life should be like and what products the company should aspire to create. Hopefully this, like the Microsoft Surface, and Xbox, is foreshadowing a day when Microsoft re-invents itself and finally gets out of the OS, web service(email, search, etc.), and browser game, and starts creating things that make life better and not worse.