Dogpile search gadget for iGoogle

While comparing Google with Dogpile I discovered that there was no dogpile search gadget for iGoogle so I created one.

Use this button to add the uk dogpile search gadget to your iGoogle page


Use this button to add the dot com version of dogpile to your iGoogle page.


Enjoy

Find out where spam came from using Gmail

When registering for an account on any online service it's always best to check the site's privacy policy to see what a site will do, or will not do, with the details you provide.

Personally I can't be arsed with all that fannying around so I just fire in my details and hope my spam filter is up for the challenge, and to be honest, Gmail's spam filter is very good. A way in which you can find sort this out is to sign up with your email address as username+sitename@gmail.com. So if I was a wary customer signing up for Blogger, I would enter mine as graham.macleod+blogger@gmail.com.

You can even have these filtered accordingly, by going into Gmail and select Settings, then Filters and Create a new filter. Add in the address which you signed up with into the To field, and on the next step select Apply the label and then create a new label, I.e. Blogger.

If any spam comes in, you can view which email address it was sent to and therefor tell which site's admin's balls you can go and break. Make sure you don't select Delete it at step 2 of the filter making process as you will still want to receive authentic emails from that site.

This doesn't always work and sites with more advanced registration processes may not accept it. It can't hurt though, unless you have had to enter a mountain of personal info and because an error was detected, you have to start again. But in that case, the website is shit and you should think twice about registering in the first place.

Getting high off nutmeg

Have you ever thought to yourself, while sitting home on your own on a Friday night, "I miss those nights when I used to go out clubbing, get mashed and stay up until 10pm the next day feeling shit."? Well to recreate that feeling legally and inexpensively, all you need is a nutmeg seed and a grinder to get completely off your tits. WARNING: May be the shittiest high of your life.



Grind up a tablespoon of fresh nutmeg (not the ready ground stuff) and mix it with milk and add sugar to taste. Neck it and wait an hour. If you still don't feel anything after an hour, repeat. I've heard that up to 3 tablespoons is "safe" but any more and you risk having a pretty shit time, like not being able to walk for a few hours, nasty hallucinations for example, feeling like you are melting.

To start with you might feel slightly nauseous.

Then you get dry mouth and red eye.

After a couple of hours you'll start to feel drowsy.

WARNING: Nutmeg contains an MAO which should not be mixed with any other MAOs for example antihistamines, alcohol etc. for a full list of MAOs see the Erowid site.

It has been rumoured that you can hallucinate while on nutmeg but I reckon it's all bollocks. I'd be interested in hearing anyones experiences on nutmeg.

Devastatin' Dave The Turntable Slave is my new hero

Look at him there with his can-do attitude and shiny leather trousers. How can you not idolise the man who gave the world lyrics such as...

Zip dip zap, a zip wit a wabbit,
Zippy dipa wippa got a cocaine habit,
Scooby dooby bip a zip bop blam,
It started with a quarter now it is a gram.

Let's just stop and think for a second. (Like you needed any prompt to start thinking, after such a thought provoking blast of lyrical wizardry.)

You ready for another? OK here goes...


Zoom zoom with a scooby doo bop,
Buy yourself into projects you're tryin to cop,
Rip and a rap I wrote with a rhyme,
I think you better call the cocaine hotline,

Yeah. did you hear that? That's the sound of a million wraps of cocaine beign flushed down the toilet. Dave, or DDTTS as his mates know him, and AIDS are the only 2 things from the 80's worth writing about. One will fuck you up... and the other is AIDS. Recognise.

Why do we still get gmail invites

Back in the day it was necessary to beg the lucky few who actually had a Gmail account, to send you an invite, in turn you dished these out. The reason for this was to keep the load on Google's servers to a manageable level.
You started out with a few invites which, as Google's capacity increased, also increased. eventually I ended up with 100 or so. I have dished out 15 as can bee seen in the screenshot below.

Why is Google still displaying this facility to invite other people to Gmail, when you can simply go to www.gmail.com and sign up for one by clicking on a link on the homepage?

Come on Google. I know we can minimise it so that it is barely noticeable but it's still there. At least give us an option to hide it completely.

Sharing folders between host and guest on VirtualBox

While trying to share folders between VirtualBox and ran into a few problems. Here is a run through of how to do it so that hopefully you don't have to suffer for a couple of hours searching google.

Note: This was done using Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy as the host and Win XP as the guest.

1. Ensure you are not running the OSE version of VirtualBox.
2. Start your virtual machine and click Devices > Install Guest Additions. If nothing happens click Devices > Unmount CD/DVD-rom, then try again.
3. Click Devices > Shared folders
4. Click the add button and on the next screen and enter the path of the shared folder I.e. "/home/graham/whatever" (without the quotes|) and then add in the name for the shared folder. This name you have just given the folder is the important part.
5. Open a DOS command prompt and enter the following
net use z: \\vboxsvr\whatever

The "whatever" part is the name that you gave the shared folder while specifying the path.
After this the Z drive or whichever drive letter you assigned it to should appear under "My Computer".

XHTML 1.0 Strict Java Applets

While coding a program for a college submission, I spent ages trying to get the page to validate as XHTML 1.0 strict. I eventually came across Shayne Steele's webspace (link no longer working) at Florida State's computer science department which has this page that explains the various parts required by the object tag.

Check out Shayne's page ot just copy and paste the code below. all you need to change is the Class name and the height and width of the applet/object.

<object type="application/x-java-applet"
  height="500"
  width="500"
  classid="java:YourClassName.class">
  <!--[if IE]>-->
  <object classid="clsid:8AD9C840-044E-11D1-B3E9-00805F499D93"
     height="500"
     width="500"
     codebase="data"
     type="application/x-java-applet">
     <param name="code" value="YourClassName">
  </object>
  <!--<![endif]-->
</object>