redneck laptop hacks April 21, 2008
Posted by Al Castle in : Puter Stuff, Squirrels, Picture of the Day, Friends , add a commentI was talking to a friend of mine last night and he was telling me how the backlight for his laptop went dead. This is the light inside of the laptop screen (monitor) that illuminates it and lets you actually use / see the items on the screen.
He’s a technician and not afraid to take anything apart. He’s also evidently quite crafty as you can see from this picture he sent me.
Click on the image for a larger view.
He’s removed the cover from the laptop, and then placed an industrial shop light behind the screen, with a flap of tinfoil over to act as shield and prevent the user from having their retinas burnt out. I’ve detailed some of the finer points of the picture so be sure to check it out.
adult spider bot poking my web April 20, 2008
Posted by Al Castle in : Puter Stuff, Squirrels, TimeWaster, Castle , add a commentI tend to keep a tail open to my web logs, much in the same way I usually keep the TV on as background noise. My highly tuned Über brain keeps a look out for odd traffic for me to go easter egg hunting with.
Just a minute ago I saw three unusual direct hits, no referral, no other requests.
64.27.21.2 “GET /2006/10/15/crossover-revisited-osx/ HTTP/1.1″ 200 23337 “-” “Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)”
64.27.21.2 “GET /2006/12/18/cowboy-al HTTP/1.1″ 200 24358 “-” “Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)”
64.27.21.2 “GET /?attachment_id=79 HTTP/1.1″ 200 21207 “-” “Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)”
A whois gives us this.
Hollywood Interactive, Inc. HOLLYWOOD-INTERACTIVE (NET-64-27-0-0-1)
64.27.0.0 - 64.27.31.255
AirlineReservations.Com, Inc. HWLD-AIRRES-005 (NET-64-27-21-0-1)
64.27.21.0 - 64.27.21.255
Yeah. Right. AirlineReservations is a great domain name, but it’s just a series of Google Ads pages with nothing of its own. More of a ruse than anything.
Accessing 64.27.21.2 on port 80 gives us a page titled “Adult Search”, without any search functionality, just a list of adult sites with thumbnails.
What’s funny is look at the pages they wanted from me. I’m guessing these are quality adult keywords?
- crossover-revisited-osx
- cowboy-al (this could also be a regex looking for cowboy-gal?)
- attachment_id=79 (not sure on this one. My page is about Audio Hijack so who knows).
Nothing terribly exciting for a lazy Sunday morning.
Pabst Beer April 19, 2008
Posted by Al Castle in : Squirrels, Picture of the Day, Friends , add a comment
More Info On The Black App April 16, 2008
Posted by Al Castle in : Squirrels, gnash-teeth, OSX, TimeWaster, Marketing, Castle, Web Design & Dev, iPhone , add a commentThe Black App - A possible iPhone application of unknown coolness. For more info, you could go to the website. That was a joke.
They Hype::
All the references and blubs are essentially the same, I’m guessing it’s by their own people digging themselves and such. Since they hit dig, twitter and a few other places, it’s been syndicated and quoted all over the place.
No one knows anything though.
The Companies ::
Epic Apps is the company producing this and purchased the “theblackapp.com” domain via proxy in an effort to hide. They’re hosting at Media Temple, Inc. who provides services to big names and high traffic sites.
theblackapp.com was registered for only one year on Mar 31st 08
epicapps.com was also only registered for one year, 7 days later on Apr 6th 08 - redirects to theblackapp.com
epicapps.com ping responses come from godaddy.com though.
The Code ::
Since the web page is really simple there’s nothing to gleam from the markup accept that they are using google analytics. I’m sure they’re collecting a lot of good marketing data.
The registration page, now this is interesting, is posting to theblackapp.wufoo.com
Related ? ::
wufoo.com was registered Jan 16th 06 to Chris Campbell - http://wufoo.com/about/
So three guys with an idea and venture money from Ycombinator started Infinity Box Inc. and built wufoo.
What is wufoo?
Wufoo is an Internet application that helps anybody build amazing online forms. When you design a form with Wufoo, it automatically builds the database, backend and scripts needed to make collecting and understanding your data easy, fast and fun. Because we host everything, all you need is a browser, an Internet connection and a few minutes to build a form and start using it right away.
Chris also has a site called particletree.com, which is hosted and links to mediatemple and their venture backers.
Chris Campbell is too common of a name. I’ve yet to find anything relating him to even owning an iphone. I’ve also yet to dig around about his two other partners. So we’ll prematurely jump to the conclusion that this is probably just a tangent.
Or they were simply hired to setup the whole site. Which could mean that Ycombinator (the venture company) is also working with Epic Apps and recommended wufoo to them.
————
This is all from wee hours digging last night. I did find a few articles about social networking apps for the iPhone, nothing too exciting. As you can tell I’ve lost interest.
Let me know if I’ve got something wrong, you have more information or if Chris actually does own an iPhone.
Unthreaded Editable Tagline April 15, 2008
Posted by Al Castle in : Puter Stuff, Squirrels, TimeWaster, Marketing, Castle, Web Design & Dev, Friends , 4commentsFor a long time I had a bit of code in my blog header, just beneath the blog title (Unthreaded), that randomly choose and displayed a quote, quip or blurb that I had written. Things like “Castlemonkey Speaks of Lemon Scented Victory” or “Castlemonkey Speaks of hotdogs with no cream cheese” and so on.
Sure to become a bore quickly, I’ve added in some code to make the tagline for this blog editable. By anyone. [Currently I’m not requiring you to identify yourself or login to do so. This may change later.]
Simply click on the text, whatever it may be, as anyone is free to change it, and you should see something like the picture above.
Type in whatever you like and click SAVE. The changes are global and saved to the database, meaning everyone who views the site right after you made that change, will see the new tagline. Until it’s changed again.
Dangerous huh?
Attribution Update: This idea was swiped from my amigo David. You can also see his version at Cranberry.
happy birthday to the midget April 3, 2008
Posted by Al Castle in : Squirrels, Picture of the Day, Friends , 3comments
i’m a little surprised and disturbed that someone else thought of the whole raccoon laying eggs thing. of course my twist is better. raccoons lay eggs in your brain, not your car. duh. although since you’re leaving town, i guess the raccoons will be forced to lay the eggs in the glove box, under the seats and of course in the darkest reaches of the trunk.
ultra mega supremo birthday wishes.
Tags: raccoons, eggs, happy birthday, ultra mega supremo, midget
its still good, just give it a rinse. March 25, 2008
Posted by Al Castle in : Squirrels , add a commentOne of my favorite bloggers had this great post about a tea hunt and the discovery of reusable feminine products.
I laughed so hard I cried. Thanks Jeanna.
Project LOL Izzy: Purrito Party March 7, 2008
Posted by Al Castle in : Squirrels, Picture of the Day, TimeWaster, Izzy , 2commentsUgh. I’ve been sick for awhile, I’ve been sleepless and feeling worse. Izzy who’s been avoiding me for the most part during this last week of illness must be trying to cheer me up. She’s been feisty, biting my toes, nuzzling and trying to drink my juice.
So we decided it was time for another purrito party. I think she had even more fun this time.
Izzy doing her Keanu Reeves impersonation.
Izzy all snuggly
Izzy tries to do a little worm type slithering.
She looks upset, but she’s really not.
Izzy doing her, ‘keeping it real’ look.
Project LOL Izzy February 19, 2008
Posted by Al Castle in : Squirrels, Picture of the Day, Izzy, Friends , 7commentsI love this Eye-Fi SD card. While I took pictures it automatically uploaded them to my compooter via wifi. So sweet.
Anyways so my friend Pithy (aka The Bitter Bean) sent me this hilarious picture of a Purrito which has been sitting in the back of my brain for a few days.
As I come in from a smoke break, I drop my hoodie on the floor, directly onto my beloved Izzy. Well, it was bound to happen. I ended up unceremoniously stuffing her into the sleeve. The first few seconds before her confusion wore off it was perfect, but I couldn’t hold the camera still from crying and laughing so hard. By the time I was able to regain enough composure, she’d already managed to squirm onto her feet.
Aside from looking pissed, the results are far from being purrito-rific.
Maybe if I fashioned a tiny belt I could get her to look more like a Jawa from Star Wars.
I wanted to try again, but she ran off somewhere.
…a little while later, I came up with this…..
Sexiest Homeless Women February 17, 2008
Posted by Al Castle in : Squirrels, TimeWaster, Castle , add a commentThis is really weird. I just stumbled upon, the Sexiest Vegetarian Next Door 2008 Contest. Seems like a really dumb contest idea. Why not the Sexiest Homeless Women of 2008. Now that would be interesting, cause for the bios of each contestant they’d have to count their teeth. Or maybe something like MTV Homeless Crib Contest. Now we’re thinking outside of the box. (oh! pun.)
I don’t think I personally know any vegans that are hot. All the chicks I think are sexy are meat eaters. Mmmm. A steak from Chris Ruth’s sounds really good right now. With a hot, scantly clad meat-eater sitting across from me.
It’s almost 4 am, cut me some slack for posting while delirious and on an empty stomach.
