Google's New Custom Search Beta Tool

The new Custom Search tool from Google is Awesome. Now you can put a custom search on your site and not only have it search your own site, but as many other sites as you want. There are fine customization controls, and the possibillities are endless. For example, check out the custom L.A.M.P. search block in the top right. This custom search block took seconds to create and searches perls.org, search.cpan.org, php.net, mysql.com, drupal.org and api.drupal.org. I will add more to it in the future, but I am really impressed with the usefullness of this tool.

MSNBC 2008 Olympics coverage the worst ever

The 2008 Olympics coverage by MSNBC has been the worst ever.

Abundance and Wealth DVD

Abundance and Wealth is another powerful video from igetrealtv.com. This video features powerful messages to promote wealth, abundance and generosity. That last one is worth mentioning again. generosity is an important concept when it comes to promoting self wealth and abundance. The only thing stopping a lot of poeple from obtaining wealth is the feeling that they don't deserve it. If you are generous and do good things with your abundance you will know that you do deserve it and the world will be a better place for it. I really love this video.

Healthy Self DVD

Healthy Self is a Powerful DVD to promote Health.
Using powerful proven techniques like Self Affirmation, Repetition and subtle audio and visual ques this DVD helps to promote a healthy mind and body. The unique blend of audio and video elements is very stimulating and is an absolute joy to watch.
Get it now and start feeling helthier today.

Amazon Unbox Beta

Finally, A pay per download service that doesn't require a proprietary player. The new Amazon Unbox service, which is still in beta, allows you to watch pay-per-download movies directly in your browser. The only requirement is Adobe Flash 9 and a fast internet connection. This means that Linux users now have a legal alternative to downloading torrents.

How to create a Rubber Stamp Effect using Gimp

This is a simple tutorial on how to create a ruber stamp effect like
the one pictured below in Gimp.

dvgrab / ffmpeg capture / compression

Recently I volunteered to record video for the DrupalCamp Seattle 2008. It quickly dawned on me that to record 10 hours of video, bring it home and capture it to disk and then compress it would take 30+ hours. Also, that wouldn't be anywhere close to live and they were hoping to post the video as soon as possible. Since I am only running Linux on my laptops now, I decided to see what could be accomplished via command line tools in Linux. I quickly stumbled on ffmpeg and dvgrab. DVgrab can capture raw dv from firewire and has features for detecting scenes when capturing from tape.

How to set up Mevio Channels in MythTv

I wrote this parser specifically so I could watch GeekBrief in MythTv.
Writting a parser for MythStream is pretty easy. Basic Perl stuff using XML::Simple and XML::DOM.

For more information on MythStream including how to create parsers go here:
http://home.kabelfoon.nl/~moongies/streamtuned.html

 

And now back to the How To.

 

If you haven't already done so, install the MythStream plugin for MythTv.

HowTo Setup a Wildcard SSL Cert in CPANEL / WHM running Apache 2

After reading several blogs saying this was not possible I almost gave up on this, but finally got it working - wohoo!

SVN remove symlinks How To

It is easy to accidentally commit symlinks to an SVN repository. Once you do it is not so easy to remove them.
When you commit a symlink to svn, svn doesn't commit the symlink file, rather it adds the symlink as a directory and follow the symlink adding the contents. This isn't really svn doing this but rather the filesystem.

For example (I will use a Drupal site example) I typically checkout files and modules via CVS in a contributions dir and symlink to those from the modules and themes dir so my file sistem is like this