Today, I awoke and performed my normal routine.  Shower.  I learned that the Japanese do not shower in a tub.  They shower outside of the tub and then take a bath.  Interesting factoid one.

We decide to go to some temples and the base.  Base was not interesting.  Yay, Americans!  Then we headed to one of the temples.  It was interesting.  There were two dragons guarding the entrance.  One with an open mouth and the other with a closed.  My thoughts lean towards protective symbolism of sorts.  After the temple, we head down to the beach.  The beach consisted of black sand and demolished seashells.  The mixture was silvery from far away.  Very pretty and different.  At the end of the “pier” were very interesting y shaped cement structures.  Supposedly over from WWII.  Factoid Two.

Before the beach, we had met up with Duke, Adam’s dog, at the new owners.  Talk about one hyperactive dog.  Cool though.  The base is built around a lake.  What can I say about the base?  It sucks.  There are Americans everywhere… in Japan.  However, factoid three concerns the lake.  The lake is the original training ground for the Pearl Harbor attack.  There are ships at the bottom that were made to mock the American ships during training.  So, Japan renounces war and we take over their Pearl Harbor training facility.

The culture is extremely different than America.  The store fronts are open in the mall.  You can walk by, pick something up, and walk away without anyone being the wiser.  Only, no one steals here.  They leave bikes outside unlocked.  Everyone trusts everyone else.  I have never seen that before.  We ran across a news crew in the mall.  Unfortunately, I did not have my camera.  It was filming some orange, double upside down hershey kiss with big eyes, small feet, and stubby, red hands.  Hilarious.  The grocery store had fresh squid and fish halves for sale.  Their version of beef jerky is dried fish and squid… blah!  Subway… YAY!

A few words on air.  The air is amazing.  It smells different.  Good different.  Foresty, piney, salty… just depends on what area you are in.  But it is not polluted crappola… at least up North.  Tokyo is different.

The plane ride was terrible.  Double decker plane with absolutely no room for people my size.  I could barely move my legs.  There was a child behind me kicking the seat constantly.  The fella in front decided to put his seat down and hold me in position.  And to top it off, I could not sleep.  So, fun.  I just listened to my fake-pod the whole trip and stared out the window until the Sun decided it would burn my retinas from their sockets.

After landing in Japan, everyone had to go through customs.  Cake walk.  I saw a girl with a Toturro backpack.  I just want to pet the backpack.  Pick up baggage and be checked by guess who look like they are prepared for the next biological war.  Of course, they just look at your passport and go “OK!” then point to the door.  Met Duke outside and went to the train station.  Where we were ARRESTED…

… or not.  We were standing by a pillar.  A cop comes up and says “Excuse me.  But this is a random security check.  May I see your passports.”  Duke pulls out the military id.  “Oh, oh. So sorry.  Military. You may go.”  Best cops ever.  Never would a cop see you on a street in the US and say “Random security check.  Passport please.”  He would get shanked.

Then we have to go to Tokyo.  Wait, I was in Tokyo.  Yea, but you have to ride a train for over an hour to actually get into Tokyo.  Tokyo is the largest city ever.  It took several hours and several trains to exit the city.  People were everywhere.  Before we left, we grabbed some grub at the best place ever… KFC!  Quick, easy, taste good food.  I plan on eating Japanese food, but when you are barely able to move, you want something quick and delicious.

Over 4 hours later we arrived in Misawa.  Duke has a little mini car.  This is where I learned why Japanese people are terrible drivers.  You can pretty much do whatever you want when it comes to traffic violations.  Plus, you are constantly playing “Hey, let’s not hit the people on the road.”  They just walk down the road.  So the cars are driving around the people in all the lanes.  Yea, that’s where the poor driving comes from.

So over 48 hours of wakeful teleporting, I finally passed out.

(Written on the plane without internet and posted today) … It has been several weeks since I actually partook in strong caffeinated beverages.  Today, that ended.  I am few sodas and powerful coffees in.  I have not slept in a long time and have no intentions of doing so.  My squiggly spooch is crying for freedom. It is currently enduring a caffeine induced Hell.  And not the redeem your sins Hell.  The Little Nicky, psychotic, I am on mushrooms type of Hell.  I can feel it’s pain.  But I don’t really care.  Mwahahaha.

So what happened so far.  Let’s see.  First, I went through airport security.  That was more than a joke.  Seriously.  I walked through the metal detectors with my watch on.  Then, proceeded to do the casual look around.  Half expecting to be tackled by security and have several M-16’s shoved in my face, I quickly grabbed my things and continued down the path.  Doing the casual “No, I am not doing anything wrong” routine. The metal detectors never went off.  I laugh but then realize I just avoided a cavity search.  Then, I don’t laugh.

Next, we travel to Chicago on a sardine can.  3 rows of seats.  I had great displeasure in that plane.  The view was good.  Dr. Rockso would have opened the hatch and jumped into the white powder like clouds below.  It would be too late as everyone yells “They are clouds you retard.  Clouds!!!!”.  Kudos to those of who understand the reference.

I watched until the happy clouds disappeared and were replaced with sad farmland.  At which time a great displeasure arose.  I realized that for every acre of woodlands, there were 20 acres of farmland or homes.  There was no true forest in miles.  Sad sight.

I entered the Chicago airport.  YAAAAY!  Wait, you didn’t compensate for the time change.  You are stuck here for another hour, 4 hours. NAAAAYYYY! At least there is a giant brontosaurus.  I think it is fake. But what the heck, I believe.  He will come to live and eat the little child that crying excessively in the next lounge.  Even the people next to me are like “C’mon! C’mon!”.

Also, a big thanks goes out to my friend Planty.  He always manages to bring humorous to my adventures.  Even when he is not there.  I was reading Y The Last Man, a graphic novel he gave me for the trip.  Of course, someone walks by as I flip the page and boom.  Half naked people.  I hear someone behind me gasp as I laugh a little inside. Good job Planty.  Thanks for the warning.  I have finished the two volumes.  Y The Last Man is a definite recommended read.  Buy it. But heed my warning above.

Next Contact: Somewhere in Japan.

… to save the world.

Grif, my best friend, and I are heading on a mission of the utmost importance.  We must save the world from mythical beasts, snow monkeys and giant salamanders.

Above: A picture of Grif before he was kicked out of the core for his attitude problem.

Some may wonder, “Where are we in danger from these great creatures?”  The answer, Japan.  We are taking every armament know to man, if we can get past customs.  Hopefully, they do not find the phosphorous smoke grenades, crossbows and battle axe.  Sure, Japan may be one of the most peaceful cultures known to man, but we must protect ourselves.  You have no idea how angry a snow monkey gets when he smells your sweat.  One angry monkey can throw a pound of poo grenades per minute.  Not a beautiful sight.  Then, they yell out to their faithful Yeti companions.  That is when you are really screwed!  But I will have Grif, the  master of combat *cough, cough*, as my faithful sidekick.  The world of white monkeys and blind salamanders shall tremble before our presence.  It will be legen… wait for… and I hope you are not lactose intolerant… dary!  Or I’m going to perish while Grif reads through the latest Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition.

So at 3am I will leave my humble abode, get into my car and head to the Cleveland airport.  There we await the giant bird that will take us to Chicago.  From Chicago, we have a 14hr flight to Tokyo Japan, where Grif probably won’t make it through customs.  He’s a bit of a douche when it comes to authority figures.  One time he grabbed a rifle from Sarge, his commanding officer.  Let’s just say that didn’t end well.  After 25 stitches and a black eye, the teenager apologized to Grif.  Grif walked away without a scratch and was escorted by several others out of the comic-con.  He really hurt that poor kid for pretending to be Sarge.  But at least we got a nerf rifle to add to our collection of toy guns.

Once we arrive in Japan, we will journey to the northern battlefields.  Let’s just hope Grif does not fall to his legendary laziness, while I am pinned down by angry snow monkeys.  Or the world may be lost forever.

So our journey begins…

This seems to have been the week of weird caching issues.  I was working on a Drupal project and learned I had to flush the caches when creating templates.   Of course, that was after a few hours of banging my head against the desk.

Then, I was working on a static website and having trouble reloading the css changes.  The site was located on a client server, not one of my own.  I updated the stylesheets and tested on my local machine.  Everything looked fine.  And then, after uploading to the client server, the changes would not take place.  I would clear the browser cache and reload the page.  Still nothing.  So, I tried several different browsers and even a computer that had never loaded the website.  Still nothing.

I sat there scratching my head as my eyes started to pop out of their sockets.  Another caching issue.  You have to be kidding me.  I knew something was caching the stylesheets.  But what?  With a few Google searches and the proper keywords, I came across Jason Beaird’s website, Jasongraphix.  Jason is the author of Principles of Beautiful Web Design,  a great read.  He has a post on his site called CSS CacheBuster which describes a solution to the issue at hand.

The server is caching the stylesheet.  You need to make the server think the stylesheet is a dynamic page, therefore changing constantly.  This keeps the server from caching the stylesheet.  By adding a query string to the stylesheet, you have successfully tricked the server.

<link href=”stylesheet.css?cachebuster” type=”text/css” />

Problem solved.  Though, you should still try to solve the issue on the server.  In my case, I was unable to access the server and therefore this solution worked beautifully.  There is still a chance that the server will cache this page sooner or later.  The address stays the same.  You could change ?cachebuster to ?cachebuster1, ?cachebuster2… and so on.  But that gets to a pain.  I just added a random number to help eliminate the issue.  My final code looked like the following:

<link href=”stylesheet.css?cachebuster<?php echo rand(0, 100000);?>” type=”text/css” />

If you are unable to modify the server settings, use the method above.  Otherwise, I would suggest checking your server settings and turning off the stylesheet caching.

This is a bit of an old story, by a week, but I found it and the technology blog worthy.  When an 8,8 earthquake hit Chile last week, many were concerned about friends and family members.  One woman, Sheryl Breuker, used Twitter to find her family members.  By posting status messages and focusing on hash tags, she was able to contact locals.  The locals retweeted her information.  Soon she received the following response: “found her! she is OK…. she told me to tell Twinkie to stay cool, she is fine!”

It is amazing what social networking can do.  In Chile, Twitter was in use when phones lines and email were not.  View the full story here.

Also, check out Google’s Person Finder.  It was created to quickly connect individuals with missing friends and family members.  You simply click “I’m looking for someone” or “I have information about someone.”

More and more I notice antitrust lawsuits appearing against larger corporations.  Google and Microsoft seem to be at the forefront of the attacks.  Of course, this is expected.  Company A blames Company B of such and such.  Company B retaliates after losing the suit and blames Company A of something else.  Back and forth, back and forth.  Why can’t we all just get along?  Because business is business.  So what’s new in the world of cyber suits?

Microsoft Starts The EU Browser Update Option

Microsoft has been forced to provide users with browser options when setting up their operating system.  The cyber giant made a deal with the European Union when they were questioned about the legality of offering Internet Explorer with Windows.  Now, Windows operating systems will offer a variety of options including Microsoft’s leading competitors; Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Safari and Opera.  Personally, I am happy the option is being enforced.  I would like to see this happen in the US.  The ability to give people options and hopefully turn them away from Internet Explorer would be amazing.  IE is regarded as one of the worst browsers to develop for.  Despite the smile it would put on my face, I doubt this will happen in the US.  Business is business.  Read more about this subject at the following locations:

Microsoft Agrees To Browser Ballot Terms

Microsoft Starts The European Browser Choice Update

Antitrust Suit Against Google… No Really?

So now appears that Microsoft may be trying to push an antitrust suit against Google.  The accusation is that Google’s search result algorithms are unfair.  Foundem and ejustice.fr have ties with Microsoft and are two of the companies accusing Google.  The third is Ciao, which has been acquired by Microsoft.  Microsoft is pushing it’s new search engine Bing.  It does not surprise me that this suit is being started by Microsoft and affiliates.  Google is the leading search engine and Microsoft wants to take over the market share.  Do they have a suit?  Of course.  Google has the ability to deny sites visibility in search results.  So we already know they can modify the results.  But do they do it intentionally?  I do not think this is the case.  I would agree with Craig Buckler “If Google engaged in mass rank manipulation, it would involve a colossal amount of human effort and search results could become meaningless.”  Read more on the subject at:

Wired.com – Google Hit With Antitrust Complaints In Europe

Sitepoint.com – Google Faces Antitrust Inquiry

So What Do You Think?

Personally, I think Google and Microsoft could get along.  There is plenty of market share for both companies.  I am also against monopolies.  In my opinion, Microsoft still has a monopoly with operating systems and Internet Explorer within the general public.  And if you are a general user, you are going to use the products installed by default.  Of course, there are more options now.  Mac and Linux are gaining more popularity.  Mac is no longer just the choice of graphic artists and Linux is no longer just for techies.  I would still like to see options enforced to help keep Microsoft’s domination at bay and raise awareness of the other products.  That being said,  the same applies for other companies, not just Microsoft.  When one falls, another rises.  Your thoughts?

Start Supporting The MVC Pattern

Joomla! recently released a video about the next version, 1.6.  The video talks about many of the changes to Joomla!.  One comment was made about the MVC (model view controller) programming pattern.  It was mentioned that developers not using MVC will have a difficult time upgrading to 1.6.  I always promote good programming habits, ie using the programming patterns.  Time and time again, I will run into a third party component that is built off a several pages of linear code.  This is frustrating to modify and shows the developer is either lazy or has no knowledge of programming patterns.  All developers should use patterns.  Joomla! was designed with MVC to increase portability and scalability.  MVC makes it easier to develop and modify applications without drastically effecting the overall application.  I am glad to hear that Joomla! is starting to become stricter.  This means applications will be forced into following programming patterns making life easier on developers.

No More Legacy Mode

If you run Joomla! in legacy mode, be prepared.  Joomla! 1.6 will no longer support legacy mode.  WOOO, finally.  Legacy mode is a disaster for 1.5 components.  A component built for legacy mode will break just about anything.  I have run into situations where a client “has to have legacy mode” and then is unable to use more modern programs.  Whenever possible, avoid legacy mode.  Now that Joomla! 1.6 will cease support, I am hopeful that legacy enabled components will slowly dissipate.

Prepare For Upgrades

If you use components that are not built on MVC, start to look for replacements.  When Joomla! 1.6 is released, you will most likely want to upgrade if time and funds allow.  Start preparing for the upgrades now.  Otherwise, you may be in for a nasty surprise when you try to install that legacy photo gallery or help desk.

Your Thoughts?

Watch the Joomla! 1.6 video here.  What do you think about this new release?  Personally, I am very excited.

Phoca Gallery is a photo gallery component by Phoca for Joomla!.  This component is highly extensible but lacks one basic feature.  The ability to edit the copyright information.  In the earlier versions, the copyright was easy to find, wrap a tag around and style.  With the newest version, the copyright has been moved and buried in the code.  I would speculate this is due to many users removing the copyright information.  You should always leave the copyright information if the author asks.  The product is free.  By removing copyrights the author may start charging fees for use.  But you should be able to modify the styles of the copyrights.

I searched several forums, blogs, etc and found nothing on where the copyrights were stored.  It took me a little bit of testing to finally determine the location.  I only use the categories and category views.  Therefore, this solution may only apply to them.

In order to edit the information, go to line 1589 in the file /components/com_phocagallery/views/category/view.html.php.  Around this line you will see something similar to the following:

parent::display($tpl);

echo $tmpl['go'];

The line echo $tmpl['go']; prints the copyright information.  The copyright is not wrapped in a tag with a class.  Whenever the category rendered, the footer was the same size as the rest of the content.  You should keep the copyright information present, however, you should be able to style it so there is little effect to your page content.  So I modified the code to look like the following:

parent::display($tpl);
echo ‘<div class=”phoca-footer”>’ . $tmpl['go'] . ‘</div>’;

Hoo Haa….  We now have a CSS abled Phoca Gallery footer.  As I said before, please leave the copyrights in place.  The author worked hard on the component and is providing it for free.

Online security is becoming more and more important.  Everyday we hear about hackers breaking into websites and stealing a user’s identity.  If a hacker can gain access to a website, they may possibly have access to your credit card information, social security numbers and more, depending on the data the site collects.  A simple, yet overlooked security measure is the password.

I have met users who use common knowledge terms for their passwords.  The password may be a pet’s name, family member, favorite car, birthplace… Users choose these passwords because they are easy to remember.  In most cases, a user will use the same password for all of their accounts.  Doing so is simple and requires memorizing only one phrase.  There are two problems with this.

1) Common knowledge passwords are very easy to guess.

2) If a hacker guesses a password, they could have access to all of your accounts.

I propose two solutions.  The solution to the 2nd problem is easy.  Use different passwords for all accounts.  It may be more difficult to remember them.  But it is better to provide more security than less.  The common knowledge solution is a little more difficult.

Many websites are starting to require a certain number of characters and character types to be present in a password.  This is great.  It helps provide a unique password that is difficult to guess.  For example, the password @3T_6y is harder to determine than one that is your spouse’s name.  Due to the difficulty of randomized passwords, few users choose to implement them when not required to.  By choosing the easier route, you leave yourself more open to attack.  How do you remember a difficult password?

Start by creating a reference sheet.  A reference sheet references a different character (or characters) to each letter of the alphabet, punctuation mark and symbol on the keyboard.  For example, A may be @, I may be 1, E may be 3.  Memorize your references.  Do not write them down.  Do not let others know about it.  If someone knows, then someone will be able to use it against you.

Next, while creating a password, choose a term or phrase to apply your reference sheet to.  If you are on an insurance website, you may choose the term “insurance”.  Depending on your reference sheet, the password may become “1NSuR@Nc3″.  Because you have you have a capital letter, lowercase letter, symbol and number you have already bypassed many password requirements.  Because the word visually represents “insurance” and you have a specific reference to each letter in the word, it is easy to remember.  Now you have a way to create unique, difficult passwords.  Passwords that are easy to remember.

If the word is random, every site will have a different password phrase.  Having hundreds of accounts would mean hundreds of passwords.  With the scheme above, you still have to remember the password phrase you used.  Or do you?  When creating a password phrase you could create a scheme to create the phrase.  You may choose to use the website name, tagline or url.  You may even make it more difficult by choosing the first letter of each word in the company name and tagline together.  By employing one of those schemes, you can easily determine what your password phrase was.  Sure, someone could figure out your scheme.  Even if they did, they would still have to know the references to each character.

I have employed similar techniques with my accounts.  I have a reference sheet memorized.  Some characters are represented by two or more other characters.  This adds even more security to my reference sheet.  I also have my own scheme for determining what my passphrase was.  I never memorize a single password.  Well, after repeat visits to the site, I will memorize it.  In the beginning, I just determine my passphrase and then convert it to the proper characters.  Easy to remember and difficult to guess.  Simple, great security.

Just remember, never, ever give out your reference sheet or any other schemes.  Do your best to stay secure and stay safe.