Todd Ritter
- http://www.toddritter.com
Filed under: Internet, Security, Web services, Open Source
phpMyID: roll your own OpenID provider
With more and more web sites and services offering OpenID for authentication, you may want to use your own domain name as an OpenID provider instead of selecting from the wide array of other providers (like Blogger, AOL, Wordpress.com). phpMyID is a pair of PHP files that allow you to easily use your domain name for authentication to OpenID-supporting sites like Sourceforge, Skitch, and Technorati.
To use phpMyID (substitute "yourwebsite" with your domain name or website address):
Indecent Haiku: inappropriate poetry
We're no strangers to potentially inappropriate versions of Internet memes, but why not apply that same inappropriateness to haiku? Indecent Haiku offers plenty of 3-line gems covering topics like sex, alcohol, love, and nature.Like any good haiku site, they allow you to submit your own. Their submissions page even offers a reminder of haiku structure (5-7-5) and their take on good content.
If these types of haiku aren't your thing, learn how to write your own or check out some famous examples.
Filed under: Fun, Social Software
Whopper Sacrifice: ditch 10 Facebook friends, get a burger
Whopper Sacrifice is a new Facebook application from Burger King that promises to give you a free Whopper if you delete 10 friends from your Facebook profile. Simply install the application, click a friend to "sacrifice," click the little "x" by the friend's entry, and verify that you really want to remove the friend.If you decide to complete the decimation by removing nine more friends, you'll receive a coupon for a juicy Whopper (if you live in the US). You can add the app to your profile page so that your other friends can mock the people you deemed less valuable than a burger, or perhaps they will beg you to not give them a similar fate.
I'm going to justify my deletions by considering it a housecleaning of people I don't communicate with on Facebook anymore. That should help me sleep at night.
[Via del.icio.us]
Filed under: Fun, Social Software
Historical Tweets: Twitter posts from way back
Historicaltweets.com takes us on a journey through time to see Twitter posts from historical figures like Abraham Lincoln and Michael Jordan. There are categories for 1800's, various decades of the 1900's, and even Comically Old when the word "Twitter" would have fit nicely in iambic pentameter.
You can submit your own ideas, choose to view a random tweet, and will soon be able to buy merchandise which I'm sure will be decorated with popular historical tweets. This site has earned a distinguished spot in my feed reader so that I'm able to keep up with the tweets I missed from back in the day.
You can submit your own ideas, choose to view a random tweet, and will soon be able to buy merchandise which I'm sure will be decorated with popular historical tweets. This site has earned a distinguished spot in my feed reader so that I'm able to keep up with the tweets I missed from back in the day.
Filed under: Internet, Text, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Productivity, Freeware
Openfire: cross-platform Jabber server
by Todd Ritter Dec 31st 2008
Openfire conveniently supports LDAP and Active Directory authentication as well as SSL for encrypting communications. If you require high availability, you can enable clustering to eliminate a single point of failure. Common databases like MySQL, Microsoft SQL, and PostgreSQL are supported, or you can use Openfire's embedded database.
While the developers offer a web-based (SparkWeb) client and install-based (Spark) client, it's possible to use any IM client that supports Jabber (Adium, Pidgin, iChat, etc.). Openfire runs on Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows and since it's Java based, it will require that you have a JRE installed.
Timeous: Simple Time Tracking in OS X
by Todd Ritter Dec 9th 2008 {5 comments}
Timeous is a simple and effective time-tracking app for Mac OS 10.4 or later. It allows you to track time on multiple projects ("tabs") and set independent hourly rates and tax percentages. Each time you start the Timeous timer, an entry is created in your current project tab. These entries are then sorted by day and time. When you stop the timer, you will see the total time of that chunk of work, ...Three apps for the Windows sysadmin - Holiday Gift Guide
by Todd Ritter Dec 1st 2008 {5 comments}
If you have a Windows systems admin (the kind of person responsible for managing a computer network and/or server farm) on your holiday gift-giving list, check out these three commercial apps that they are sure to love: Hyena ($199) - This Windows application is an Active Directory admin's sidekick. In addition to acting as a an AD Users/Computers snap-in on steroids, it also lets you easily ...Glassbooth: it's not too late to choose a candidate
Back in January I wrote about Glassbooth, the web service that helps you choose a Presidential candidate by answering questions about your views on common issues. Any voters who are still undecided may want to use the site as an aid in their decision-making process, especially because there have been some significant updates to Glassbooth since my last post:
Additional issue categories (like ...WinAdmin: Remote Desktop on the iPhone
by Todd Ritter Oct 17th 2008 {8 comments}
As an iPhone user who works on Windows servers daily, I decided to purchase the WinAdmin application ($11.99) which promised to provide remote desktop connectivity from my iPhone to supported Windows operating systems (XP, Vista, 2003, 2008). So far the app has worked as advertised. I have a list of servers with all the necessary login information saved (name, IP address, username, password, ...Todd's Favorite Mac Apps: CoRD
by Todd Ritter Oct 8th 2008 {4 comments}
Since I often have to connect to Windows servers (or sometimes workstations) from my Mac laptop, CoRD is my RDP client of choice. CoRD is a free and open-source application for Mac that allows me to save multiple servers' connection information in the handy sidebar so that I can quickly start remote desktop connections. CoRD lets me connect to multiple servers simultaneously while only taking up ...
So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do.
Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game.
The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...
