andreirailean-blog - Tumblr blog

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AnyPrice.com.au

I'm building AnyPrice.com.au

I got together with friends and launched AnyPrice.com.au in july 2013. It's a shopping research site. We collect prices from as many shops as we can and group and analyse them to make it easy for anyone to get a good deal.

www.anyprice.com.au

Check it out today. Let me know what you think.

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Dr. Joan Vernikos, author of Sitting Kills, Moving Heals, presents a simple yet powerful scientific explanation why sitting may negatively impact your health.

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Our bodies operate by the same 90 minute rhythm during the day. When we're awake, the movement is from higher to lower alertness. Researchers have called this our "ultradian rhythm."

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Draft is simple and cool

I wrote this in Draft and published it to Tumblr.

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Updated siter.com.au home page to include some Raphael-powered goodness.

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Skype Etiquette

Before you ring, You ping

Return calls (just like on mobile, see no.1)

Do not assume I'm there even if it's Green

If you don't have a camera, I don't have a camera

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I just recycled an old idea to create my own 3d photos that don't require glasses to see.

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brockdavis:

Gummy Bearskin rug

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This is partly why my dairy intake is almost zero (sometimes unavoidable). Other reason is my health concerns. Some call milk "liquid meat" because it similar properties to meat. And I don't eat meat.

lachstock:

This is so so fucked.

I guess from now I’ll be taking my coffee black.

Go to Animals Australia for more on this or directly to this page to send your thoughts to Dairy Australia.

via edm.fatpublisher.com.au

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PHP MySQL localhost not finding socket on mac

On my mac, PHP wouldn't connect to MySQL to "localhost" server. It turns out that when "localhost" is used, MySQL uses sockets instead of TCP/IP connection. Terminal mysql access to localhost was fine, which suggested that there's nothing wrong with MySQL config. Only after a while did I think to look at php.ini to see if there are any setting there. Yep, my mac uses /tmp/mysql.sock and php.ini was setup to use /dev/mysql/mysql.sock. After changing to /tmp/mysql.sock and restarting apache it now works like it should. 

Hope you find it helpful.

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I came across this video that provides a view on AIDS I didn't know existed. It's long but worth seeing.

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On energy consumption of electric cars

We hear about electric cars more and more. Apple showed a Nissan Leaf iAd in their latest keynote. Australian agencies a looking forward to electric cars (CIO article).

There's also talk about charging stations and distance one can travel on a 100% electric car. I am all for an electric car that drives quietly and without emissions.

However, as I think about it I realize that with electric cars we will need to take many more things into consideration while driving.

With petrol-powered cars electricity was free - it was generated as a by-product of the engine spinning the wheels. You can have as much electricity as you can consume (or as your generator can produce). Nobody ever hits the limit of available electricity when the engine is on. Nobody says "Oh, I can't play my iPod because there's not enough electricity".

Heat production is a given, too. Radiator was invented to get rid of heat. When it's cold outside and you want to heat your car, you just let the heat from the engine in.

On a hot day we turn on air conditioning. Cold air, unlike hot, does not exist anywhere inside a car for free and needs to be generated. Many of us understand that aircon eats up petrol and affects the distance we can travel.

What about heat and energy in an electric car?

It's pretty simple, really. You will have to take everything into account. I mean everything. Kilometers or Miles per gallon will not make sense anymore. Kilometers per dollar will not make much sense either.

All of the things described above will consume electricity.

How far can you drive on a dollar? That depends on whether you want to listen to the radio, have a GPS plugged in, keep the air conditioner or heater running. I hope you get the idea - everything needs to be taken into account. The louder your stereo is on, the smaller is your travel distance. If you are driving at night,  you will need more energy to get places. If you think you need your high beams on, you'll need even more energy. What if it rains? Turning on the wipers is costly too. Freezing outside? Time to turn up that heater. And you know how that affects your home electricity bill.

In the end, it will depend on the size of your battery. And the size of your battery, just like the size of your petrol tank will determine how far you can go and what lifestyle choices you will make while driving.

Even with all these considerations I am all for the Electric Car. Can't wait to be part of the future.

Last photo is taken from The Motor Report article which says Nissan Leaf is coming to Australia in 2012.

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NearlyFreeSpeech.net DDOS effect

I'm using NearlyFreeSpeech.net (NFS) for some web and DNS hosting. It's pretty cheap and has plenty of controls - just right for the technical person like me.

However, the recent DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack has shown me that their network is not resilient at all. Particularly, I'm concerned with DNS service. Commercial DNS offerings are meant to use geographically distributed servers NOT all on one network.

Couple of weeks ago, there was a network hardware failure at CrazyDomains.com.au. All of their web sites were down, but the DNS kept going. This is the way it's supposed to be done.

Now, I'll probably move all the domains to Zerigo.com and take advantage of their API and domain templates. I was thinking of using the DNS service offered by Linode.com when you sign up to one of their VMs. However, I feel I should go with a dedicated DNS hosting provider this time, not some free or cheapish add-on to hosting.

To conclude, I would like to say that there really aren't many good DNS hosting services available.

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Testing Balsamiq Mockups - an application I won a license for at the recent Web Blast event. Looks good so far. I hope there are stencil libraries available to extend the stock offering.

First impression is positive.