NSLog();

Question: What's your computer's uptime output?

My Answer: 15:31 up 2 days, 6:04, 2 users, load averages: 1.08 0.64 0.49
BTW, uptime | pbcopy is a great way to copy your uptime to the clipboard. I've found that few people are aware pbcopy. It's quite handy.

Incidentally, this QotD came about as a result of The Sand Trap's load average. Check this shit out:
15:11 up 17 days, 9:16, 19 users, load averages: 69.16 59.18 49.15

Needless to say, the site is hosted on a shared server, and one of the other users is running some exceedingly intensive CGIs. Needless to say, I'm not too happy about the hogging, and I'll be considering moving the site to a dedicated plan shortly.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

As usual, Apple creates one of the best looking "Our Staff" or "Meet the Team" designs I've ever seen.

Well, it looks as though Photoshop CS 2 (and Camera Raw 3.0) will not support the Digital Rebel XT.

That sucks. I wonder how long I will have to wait…

For those who weren't sure, two feet of snow melting in two days causes quite a lot of flooding. I won't be playing golf this week regardless of whether the last bits of snow remain or not because I don't feel like sinking in mud up to my knees.

Previous notes about the snowstorm here and here.

I happened to glance at NSLog();s stats today, and I checked out the referrers section to see if I was getting any spam. Along with Google and Bloglines hits I saw that someone named Jeremy Boles was linking to me. Hi Jeremy! Very nice site you've got there - real nice.

I am, after reading Judi's note about Web Stats, also giving OpenTracker a try. OpenTracker works by including a single line of code somewhere on your page:

<script defer src="http://server1.opentracker.net/?site=thesandtrap.com"></script>

Simple enough! I'm not sure it's worth $17/month, but I'm giving it a shot. Click on over to The Sand Trap to get yourself in my stats! 🙂

Question: If you were elected Pope, what would you make your first order of business?

My Answer: I'd find the room to build a golf course somewhere in Vatican City. No, I'm kidding. I'd attempt to reunite the sciences with faith, and show that the two are not mutually exclusive in any way, and are often far more aligned than people seem to believe.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

The Masters is supposed to be embracing technology by including a live look at the Practice Tee. You can hit up masters.org and click the "Live Video from the Practice Tee."

It don't work. I try Safari, I try Firefox, I try Camino, I try OmniWeb. I try different browser settings and user agents. I have WMP 9 and the latest versions of whatever else I might need.

This ain't hard! It's very, very easy. And yet The Masters site, like countless others, needlessly discriminate against Mac users.

If you can get it working, please let me know how. I once got an error message about not having a handler for application/x-ole-object or something, but I can't get back to that message. WMP media rarely plays - on any site - within my browsers.

For various reasons, including product reviews at The Sand Trap and a growing (but still quite small) interest in macro object photography, I'm considering building a "soft box" for photography. The soft box is, in case I'm using improper terminology here, a "box" built with translucent (like white cloth) sides, into which I can place objects and upon which light can be shown. The cloth diffuses the light, creating a soft, all-around light.

I've heard that they're relatively easy - and cheap - to create, but I'd probably need to buy some lights, some PVC pipe, and the cloth. If anyone has seen instructions online somewhere, please point me in the right direction. I'd buy a pre-made kit if it made sense as well, but my local shop can't figure out whether they're a pro, semi-pro, or purely consumer getup.

Question: Do you actively block web advertising (or do you just not pay any attention to it)?

My Answer: I don't block it, but I don't pay much attention to it either.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

When ordering the Adobe Photoshop CS 2 upgrade today, I noticed that their shipping had a few options, like "Continental US" and "Alaska" and "Hawaii" for the same DHL Express service.

Since when did Alaska get stuck on another continent?

Might I suggest the term "contiguous" United States? Cuz, last I checked, Alaska was still stuck to North America.

A project I'm working on needs a small piece of software, and I'm a tad too busy at the moment to write it myself. The software, which should run on Mac OS X 10.3/10.4 and which should ideally have a Cocoa UI, has a few simple requirements. At its core, it's a method for testing server statistics software.

1. Randomly per time frame, in seconds (customizable with high/low ) "visit" a web page and randomly follow links matching (for or against) a list of sub-paths (i.e. "cgi-bin"). Regular expressions would be overkill here - a simple "string contains" is all that's needed.
2. Each visit should spoof a different (random) IP.
3. The number of links followed should be random within a customizable high/low range. So one time, the app would "visit" one page, the next time it might visit five, following four links.
4. The app should randomly choose from a set of four or five common browser user agents.
5. The app should keep a log of some sort, probably plain text.

NSLog(@"Finish Reading %d Words", 309); »

Just a quick follow-up on the blizzard from a day or two ago: it's now supposed to get up to 74° by Wednesday. You know, two days from now. These two pictures were taken mid-day yesterday (we got another six inches after it) and this morning, when it had already gotten up to about 42°.

I didn't care much about composition, getting a great shot, or anything. Frankly, I just wanted to document the weather and get back inside where I had no Internet service or power. 🙂

Question: Does anyone actually use the ADC CDs/DVDs as anything but a coaster or, in my case, trash?

My Answer: Nope. For some reason, I have a big ol' stack of them though. I should probably trash 'em. Question inspired by Dan.

You are encouraged to answer the Question of the Day for yourself in the comments or on your blog.

The Pope's personal impact on my life was rather minimal. I respect the work he did, and I was only mildly frustrated that, typical of US and world news coverage, we talked more about the great things the guy did after he'd died than in the past, y'know, eight months while he was dying.

However, Carey and I find it pretty darn stupid that every news media outlet says things like "he's the most well-traveled Pope in history." Of course he is. He became Pope in 1978. Everyone travels more now than their predecessors did 30 years ago. And who cares how much the guy traveled? Is that that best you can find to characterize the guy? C'mon.

OK, so yesterday I played golf for the third day in a row. Today, we get six inches of snow in blizzard-like conditions. By Wednesday, they're predicting partly cloudy skies and 66°.

Friggin' Erie!