wangarific » Technology

YSlow 2.0.5 Conflicts With Google Toolbar

jim — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:03:38 +0000

I haven’t updated YSlow but a couple people I’ve been talking to did and they’re reporting that the newest version of YSlow will crash Firefox browsers also running the Google toolbar. Here’s a Yahoo! Groups discussion about it and it appears that the culprit is the Google toolbar, version 6.1.20091216W.

Kind of funny that YSlow, a Yahoo product, isn’t playing nicely with the Google toolbar.

In unrelated news, Google toolbar still sends data even if you turn off “enhanced features” transmissions.

YSlow 2.0.5 Conflicts With Google Toolbar is a post from: wangarific

How to Delete EMail Addresses from Gmail Auto-Complete

jim — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 14:58:21 +0000

Out of all the people in the world, I email my wife the most (awww… isn’t that sweet?). However, when she quit her job last year and went back to school for her Ph.D, I had an annoying problem every time I drafted an email to her. When I would start typing her name in the To: box, it would always suggest her work email address. And every time, I would have to navigate to one of the other email addresses Gmail had on file for her.

It was only a minor annoyance so I let it go for a few months but it turns out the solution is quite simple. GMail maintains a list of your contacts even if you never add them to your address book and it uses that list to help you auto-complete email addresses. To remove an address from the list, do the following:

Click on Contacts in the left sidebar, it’s under your labels and above Tasks and the Chat box.
Then click on All Contacts to show your list of contacts.
Check the boxes that you want to remove, then click Delete contact(s) all the way to the right.

I circled the Contacts link in red and the Delete contacts button in green, here’s what it looks like:

That’s it, no more auto-completing old email addresses that don’t even work anymore.

How to Delete EMail Addresses from Gmail Auto-Complete is a post from: wangarific

Find Fastest DNS Servers with Namebench

jim — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 16:21:39 +0000

Namebench is a side project (20% project) of Belgium-based Google engineer Thomas Stromberg. It’s a little app that can help you find the fastest DNS server available to you and it’s absolutely free to use. It’s a 5MB app that you can download from here and it takes only a few minutes (five according to Stromberg).

I ran it and the results said that using the Verizon NSRest US DNS server was 60% faster than my current primary DNS server. In terms of time savings, it’s really just a few milliseconds but every little bit counts right?

My current DNS server had an average response time of 38.29 ms while Verizon NSRest US responded in 23.87 ms. Now I need to find something to do with all this free time I’ve uncovered.

How to Change DNS Server Settings

To change your DNS server settings, you will need to go to the control panel. In Windows, go to Control Panel and then Network Connections. Click your connection, go to properties, and then view the properties of your TCP/IP internet protocol.

Under the general tab, the second set of boxes will be for your DNS server address. In most cases, it’s set to “Obtain DNS server address automatically.” Now enter in the values that Namebench indicated as faster.

It really does take only a few minutes and you might as well do it, time saved is time earned!

Find Fastest DNS Servers with Namebench is a post from: wangarific

Chicago Cops Get Segways

jim — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 12:40:56 +0000

As if the stereotype of the fat cop with a mouthful of donuts chasing a perp isn’t already deeply ingrained in American culture… now cops in Chicago are getting segways. For half a million you can get a hundred segways, with parts, and it seems like the trend is growing since the article claims that cops are a key market for the scooter.

Honestly, I think it’s a pretty good idea because it does let the police stand taller and cover more ground but I think it’d be funny to see a police officer on something I usually associate with nerds, i.e. myself.

Chicago Cops Get Segways is a post from: wangarific

Improve Your Net Privacy

jim — Wed, 31 May 2006 22:15:50 +0000

Good article on how to create a USB key that will help you obfuscate/scramble/bojangle your online activity.

Improve Your Net Privacy is a post from: wangarific