A big thanks for saving me a shit-ton of time goes out to Emil Haukeland and his post about configuring lighttpd for wordpress. Lighttpd is a very lightweight open-source web server emphasizing high-performance with low system resources. I had been using the industry standard apache web server, but I was interested in fine-tuning my host-box like a good little dork.

Anyway mostly for my own reference here’s the code:

url.rewrite-final = (
        # Exclude some directories from rewriting #
        "^/(wp-admin|wp-includes|wp-content)/(.*)" => "$0",
        # Exclude .php files at root from rewriting #
        "^/(.*\.php)" => "$0",
        # Handle permalinks and feeds #
        "^/(.*)$" => "/index.php/$1"
)

Hot on the heels of yesterday’s IT related video, here’s another absolute GEM:
“Computer Friends” [Stack the Memory] by Sniper Twins feat. Rob Collier

PURE. AWESOME.

How to get the IT department to do their actual job.

The Archive from Sean Dunne on Vimeo.

And Christa thought SHE had it bad with my collection hogging up space in the basement. Check this dude out. Stick around and watch the whole thing, it’s well worth it.

I love my (little) record collection.

I know I’ve been complaining the past few weeks about how we have gotten screwed out of a good winter storm at least 3 times already this year, so let me just say “you were right” to all those people telling me to STFU. After getting up at 10am and spending a good couple hours outside in the snow clearing 9″ from the drive & sidewalks as well as helping the neighbors, I was officially cured of the gin hangover I woke up with care of Justin and his Feliz Navidad party (which we left from at 4:30am).

When I finally came inside, C was watching the beginning of The Fellowship Of The Ring on tv. Not being one for edits, commercials, and crappy formatting-for-tv when I have the complete set of super special widescreen extended edition (uber geeky abbreviation alert) LotR movies, I threw the first DVD in. Ten hours later we completed the entire trilogy.

It was worth every minute.

If you’re like me, you’re never going to deploy Windows CRAP Extreme Edition (Vista) on anything, ever. I tried to blog about having to deploy Vista to a user here on a new notebook but couldn’t (I have received complaints that when I swear on the blog it blocks some people out from viewing the site, suckers).

Anyway, the bottom line: don’t.

If you ARE stuck with Vista, consider upgrading to XP. You’ll thank yourself, and I’ll thank you because you won’t be calling me for help.

If I didn’t have music at work, I would have killed myself a long time ago….

[12:37] djdefunkt: frisky just dropped
[13:50] mrelectro37: why
[13:51] djdefunkt: you know what
[13:51] djdefunkt: it was just my net
[13:51] djdefunkt: i have been on the phone for the past hour
[13:51] djdefunkt: our t1 dropped
[13:51] mrelectro37: SUPER WEAK
[13:51] djdefunkt: [12:37] djdefunkt: frisky just dropped
[13:51] djdefunkt: thats the timestamp all the VPNs dropped at the remote offices as well
[13:52] mrelectro37: haha. so your notification alert for service disruption is frisky radio going down
[13:52] mrelectro37: thats your network monitor??
[13:53] djdefunkt: yah
[13:53] djdefunkt: whats wrong with that?

July 27th, 2007 (Last Friday Of July)
8th Annual System Administrator Appreciation Day
[source]

Friday, July 27th, 2007, is the 8th annual System Administrator Appreciation Day. On this special international day, give your System Administrator something that shows that you truly appreciate their hard work and dedication.

Let’s face it, System Administrators get no respect 364 days a year. This is the day that all fellow System Administrators across the globe, will be showered with expensive sports cars and large piles of cash in appreciation of their diligent work. But seriously, we are asking for a nice token gift and some public acknowledgement. It’s the least you could do.

Consider all the daunting tasks and long hours (weekends too.) Let’s be honest, sometimes we don’t know our System Administrators as well as they know us. Remember this is one day to recognize your System Administrator for their workplace contributions and to promote professional excellence. Thank them for all the things they do for you and your business.

No surprise, my users didn’t get me anything except more trouble calls. Typical.

Note: if you are intimidated by geekspeak look away from this post.

I spent the better part of a few hours this morning trying to figure out why I could not get a virtual appliance to boot on one of my VMware Server boxes. I would start the guest OS, but would get nothing but a blank screen in the Console.

The why:
The problem is due to a permissions error; in order to see the machine through the console the .vmx config file must be executable for the user you’re starting it as.

The how:
Log into your VMware Server machine and find the directory where the virtual machine you are starting is located at. Find the .vmx file and chmod it so that it’s executable (ex. chmod 755 vmachine.vmx).

Thats it!