General

Testing a new anti-spam recipe [updated]

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For the last while I've been using a combination of the reCAPTCHA service with the reCAPTCHA module, via the CAPTCHA module, and the http:BL module in an effort to reduce the volume of spam on my site, and they've been working really quite well since I upgraded the site to Drupal 7. Tonight I'm adding another item to the mix - the BOTCHA module that adds some additional tricks to help prevent spam. I'll see how it goes.

Update: After monitoring it for a little while, BOTCHA and CAPTCHA were blocking the exact same messages & actions, so I've disabled CAPTCHA entirely and will see how it goes for a while.

New home for the website

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After several months waiting to do so, I've finally moved this site to Drupal. Right now the content has been moved over and I've set up most of the bare features I wanted, but I still have to finish some functionality and, obviously, make it not look quite so horrible. More updates will be arriving over the coming weeks, stay tuned!

Google earth to increase mapping detail

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Google's mapping systems (Google Maps, Google Earth, plus anything else in the skunworks) will soon have extra detail down to the half-meter / 1.5 feet mark thanks to an exclusive deal with the company launching a new geo-imagery satellite later this week:

This will be good for me trying to map out my favorite haunts back home. What's your take?

Amusingly the satellite will support data down to 0.41m but the US government only allows the satellite provider to go as far as 0.5m - those 0.09m / 3 inches make all the difference, don't you know.

Working around Exchange Webmail / OWA constant logoffs

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I've always found that Exchange's webmail system, aka "Outlook Web Access", to be extremely buggy regarding remembering who you are. It sets sessions cookies with a pretty far-away timeout but regardless of whether I'm connected via a VPN or from the public internet it always delights in logging me out as quickly as it can. Well, I've worked out a work-around for these all too frequent occurrences. Here's what you do:

  • When you are provided with the login prompt, login.
  • Click the Back arrow in your browser until it asks if you would like to resubmit the form again.
  • Click Cancel.
  • Click Back again. This will take you back to the original edit window with the fresh empty (or if it was a reply, the original quote) edit page ready to go.
  • Click Forwards. It will say that it needs to resubmit a form in order to proceed.
  • Click OK / Accept / Aye Cap'n, whatever is the appropriate response to the affirmative.
  • Your message has now been sent, just like when you originally clicked Send.

Hopefully this will help some others who are also loosing their hair over this stupidity.

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