VaxCave

Since Bridget has been gone, I decided to tackle some of the projects that need to be done around the house. The bathroom being a little too daunting for me caused me to try my hand at wallpapering again. This time it has been much better. I re-thought my attack on the wall and proceeded to finish over the course of a few hours. I’ve also taped up the crown molding so I can prime and paint the ceiling since there was some damage to the previous paint job. A fresh coat of white will look good up there. I’m sure it will make Bridget happy too.

As an update to the bathroom project, I’ve got a call in to the plumber to come help with the radiator. I’ve cleaned and taped about half of the room. Hopefully I can start priming sometime this week.

I realize that almost no one cares about this, but writing it down motivates me to keep going.

IMAGES: Wall before the paper : : : : Wall after the paper

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Filed by AxsDeny at 5:24 pm under General
3 Comments

Bridget is out of town this weekend so I just bought a new toy. Being alone allows me to spend money irresponsibly. This is why I’m not allowed to be left alone for more than a few days. Anyway… being a homeowner has required me to do more work than my manual tools will allow. This thing will allow me to do some cool work and make some interesting projects. It has this thing, which is amazing. It has allowed me to cut my cable bill in half with extreme accuracy! Let the good times roll!

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Filed by AxsDeny at 8:29 pm under General
2 Comments

I’ve been getting hammered with trackback spam. I have my blacklist setup to weed out anything that comes from our good friends, the “texas hold em / online poker” folks. However, this just puts the trackback spam into the moderation queue. That means I have to clean it out ever so often. I’m lazy, so that rarely happens. To get around this, I wrote a modification to the WordPress wp-trackback.php file to search for these spammers and nix their attempts at making me do work.

I created a new file called ‘wp-trackback_spamkiller.php’ that contained the following code. You can add whatever words you would like to be blacklisted in the $blacklist array.

<?
function trackbackSpamKiller($message){
    # add to this to get rid of trackback spam containing these words
    $blacklist = array(
        'online casino',
        'texas hold',
        'texashold',
        'online poker',
        'virtual strip poker'
    );
    
    foreach($blacklist as $key=> $val){
        # if it's in there... kill the attempt
        if(strstr($message,$val)){  
            die("Please don't spam me.");
        }
    }
}
?>

After you have created that file and uploaded it to the same folder as your ‘wp-trackback.php’ file you will need to make a call to the function in the ‘wp-trackback.php’ file. Download the ‘wp-trackback.php’ file and find the line that reads:

require(dirname(__FILE__) . '/wp-config.php');

Directly under that line, insert the following line:

require('wp-trackback_spamkiller.php');

This will allow the trackback file to call the function that we created earlier. Now you need to actually call the function so that the test can be performed. Find the line in your ‘wp-trackback.php’ file that reads:

$blog_name = $_POST['blog_name'];

Immediately after that line, paste these lines:

trackbackSpamKiller($title);
trackbackSpamKiller($blog_name);
trackbackSpamKiller($excerpt);

Now, save the ‘wp-trackback.php’ file and upload it to the server. Your trackback spam should no longer appear in the moderation queue. I’ll probably refine this in the future but for now, it works. Of course, caveat emptor.

UPDATE: I changed the formatting a little and made some changes to the blacklist array. I’m looking into allowing the blacklist array to be pulled from the moderation queue list. That way you can use the same blacklist rather than maintaining two lists. –Axs (3:15pm 2005-02-23)

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Filed by AxsDeny at 4:02 pm under General, Web Design
4 Comments

I sent an audio comment to Adam at the MacCast podcast show and he used my comment on the show. I was pleasantly surprised that he used my comment considering their are nearly 1000 listeners of the show. I like the idea of podcasting, it seems more personal than simply blogging since their is a production value associated with it. I could see creating more in depth audio blogs (podcasts) for long term discussions. I’m getting my new microphone next week, so hopefully I can start playing with that sort of stuff a bit more.

If you’d like to listen to the show, check it out here. My commentary is near the end (about 30 minutes in).

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Filed by AxsDeny at 1:41 pm under General
1 Comment

They’ve been giving away Green Day tickets all week on The Alan Cox Morning Show on The X. Bridget and I have been camping out by the phone waiting for Alan to play Green Day when we at home. Unfortunately the past few days the tickets were given away while we were in the car on the way to work. We even tried a four-phone tag-team effort one day. To our dismay, no tickets.

Fortunately, this morning Alan reported that he would be giving away 2 sets of tickets during the show. I took a record breaking shower as to not be indisposed when the possibility arose for free tickets. I sat on the edge of the bed in my boxer shorts with the phone in my hand. I had already predialed the number so I could just hit redial when the song came on. Then I had an idea. They always play a ‘bump’ when coming out of commercial and going to a song. When I heard the bump I dialed. The line rang as soon as the first chords of Boulevard of Broken Dreams began to play. The phone rang at least 20 times before Alan picked up….

Alan: “The X.“
Me: “… uh… what number am I?“
Alan: “five!“
Me: “WOOOOOOOOO!!!“

Bridget and I will be attending the Green Day show on April 23rd, 2005 at Mellon Arena thanks to 105.9 The X and The Alan Cox Morning Show. Flippin’ sweet!

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Filed by AxsDeny at 9:51 am under General
8 Comments