Humour is Lubricant

Humour is a lubricant. If you want to shove big ideas into people’s heads, you need a lot of humour.

Convert SWF Shape to EPS (and other vector formats)

A client had a logo done in Flash and it was part of the website. I needed the logo in some vector format for further manipulation. They obviously didn’t have the logo and couldn’t get it from the original designer. The following are the steps I had to take to be able to extract the logo. You might be able to substitute some of the software, but I can’t guarantee the results.

1. Save the SWF file on your computer.
2. Open the saved SWF file in Sothlink SWF Decompiler. This step might be illegal in some countries.
3. In the Resources browser on the right hand side, find the shape you wish to export and tick the checkbox next to the shape’s name.
4. Press “Export Resource” button and save the results somewhere on your hard drive.
5. Open the resulting SWF shape file in Firefox (you can drag and drop it into the window)
6. Print the “page” using doPDF into a PDF file
7. Open the resulting PDF file in CorelDRAW
8. Select the resulting object in CorelDRAW and Ungroup it if necessary
9. Select the necessary ungrouped pieces and go to File -> Export
10. Check “Selected only”
11. Save as type: EPS
12. Press “Export”

Plesk With External Mail Servers

If you want to setup one of the domains in Plesk to use an external mail server (e.g. Google Mail), then you need to change all the MX records, and mostly important switch off mail service for that domain all together. If you don’t switch off mail service, the qmail daemon will try to perform local delivery all the time and all the mail sent from the internal server functions (e.g. php mail(), sendmail, etc…) will always fail with a bounce.

To switch off the mail service go to Domains > yourdomain.com > mail — click “Switch Off”

How to Download YouTube Video to Your Phone

1. Copy YouTube URL (address) (e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgV58M2kpfM).
2. Go to YouTube Video Online Download Tool.
3. Paste YouTube URL into the input field and press “Get Link” button.
4. Then you’ll be presented with the “Download Link”.
5. Right click the download link and choose “Copy Link Location” [FF] or “Copy Shortcut” [IE].
6. Go to Media-Convert.
7. Choose “URL” option, and paste the URL from the step above.
8. In the “Input Format” drop down choose “Flash Video (.flv)” from the Movie group.
9. In the “Output format” leave preset at “No video preset” and choose “3GP/3G2 Video (.3gp)”.
10. Check the “I accept the terms” and hit “OK” button

After a few seconds or minutes, depending on the movie size, you’ll be presented with the download links. You can either save the video on your computer and upload it via conventional means (e.g. USB cable or Bluetooth). Or they also offer mobile download link where you can download the video straight to your phone. The latter option might be costly, first check with your phone carrier.

How to Configure ModSecurity to Play Nice With Subversion

I am using the following components:

• Apache/2.0.52
• ModSecurity/2.1.0
• Subversion/1.1.4

By default ModSecurity will block commits to SVN with threatening error messages. To overcome this place this overriding config file (e.g. modsecurity_crs_99_svn_ignores.conf) together with all the other mod_security rules (e.g. /etc/httpd/conf.d/security).

SecRule REQUEST_METHOD "^(PROPFIND|PROPPATCH)$" allow
SecRule REQUEST_METHOD "^(REPORT|OPTIONS)$" allow
SecRule REQUEST_METHOD "^(MKACTIVITY|CHECKOUT)$" allow
SecRule REQUEST_METHOD "^(PUT|DELETE|MERGE)$" allow
SecRule REQUEST_METHOD "^(MKCOL)$" allow

Fast Food: Ads vs. Reality

Take a look at these ads and then compare them to the actual product. It’s pretty gross!

Putin’s Guards Race

Probably it is one of the most strangest races - it is a race of Russian president’s guards racing competing to each other in order to prove who can drive governmental guard cars better.

Tons of photos on English Russia.

India issues a zero-rupee note

A direct copy of the 50-rupee note, including Gandhi’s portrait, it is designed to be handed out to officials who demand backhanders.

Read the full story on the Times Online website.

Ringxiety

From Wikipedia on Ringxiety:

Ringxiety is a portmanteau neologism formed from the words “ringer” and “anxiety.” It was first coined by David Laramie, a doctoral student at the California School of Professional Psychology, whose dissertation concerned the effects of cell phones on behavior.

Hill of Crosses in Lithuania

English Russia writes about the Hill of Crosses in Lithuania:

It has more than 50,000 crosses on it, and no it is not a cemetery.

The reasons for the crosses to be there is that there is a story that each one who would put his own cross on this mountain would become a lucky guy, so thousands come here and install their custom crosses.

They say this tradition appeared before the Christianity came to Lithuania and Russia and is of pagan origin.