Learning About htaccess Files
Today I learned about the htaccess file. The htaccess file is used to override default configuration of a web server. For example, many web servers will have a default file or files set as to be displayed when typing in a folder path. Usually this default file list consists of something like “index.html,index.htm,index.shtml”. In other cases it may just be “index.htm”, or it may include a number of other files such as “index.php,index.asp,index.jsp” and could even contain “my_weird_file.my_weird_extension” if you really wanted.
The htaccess file is very very powerful. You can use it to redirect paths (perhaps if a file has moved), or if you want to change a hard to remember path into something a user might be able to remember easier.
Something to remember: a directory is affected by all of its parent directories’ htaccess files, not just its own. Order of effect is from its htaccess, up the path, towards /.
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Also, apparently either WordPress or Apache do not like you to literally type “(dot)htaccess”, where “(dot)” is a “.”. The error returned is not very useful either: “You do not have permission to access post.php”. Ah well, it’s a good security feature of one or the other I suppose.
Installed Lightbox2 and Search-Everything
I noticed that by adding tags to all the posts, that tags are not searchable by default in WordPress 2.5.1. I installed a plugin called Search-Everything to enable that as well as searching lots of other data. Seems to work fairly well.
I also installed Lightbox2. This gets the nifty animated larger versions of pictures when you click on them. Try it out on almost all the old posts (or the title image of this post). (Yes, I went back and updated all of them to work.) I really need to find a way to automate that better. It’s very repetitive blocks of text.
Tags: intartubes, lightbox2, plugins, search-everything
Tags!
Alright, so I went through all the old posts and added tags to them. Not really sure the value of this, but we’ll see. Going to make good on my promise for those retroposts. Honest! Just need to figure out where my muse is hiding.
Grand Intentions, but lack of updates.
Ok, I had these grand intentions of updating a lot, but I failed to actually do so. I’m going to necropost a bunch of updates. That’s not exactly the right word here to use, but it’s close. I cannot think of a better one. Anachropost? Retropost? I think retropost is probably best. So I will be retroposting about the following: GDC, WonderCon, Maker’s Faire (with possibly a post devoted solely to Abney Park), Dream Of Mirror Online (review), Final Fantasy: My Life as a King (review and notes). I think (?) that that is everything I’ve skipped posting about.
Spam
Added spam blocker. We’ll see how it works. Die in a fire spam!
Just a quick note. Started using Twitter and added a live update at the top of the side bar. In the links section, there is also a direct link to my Twitter page. I can now send quick short update notes using it, either by IM, twitter.com, or text message. And all y’all can recieve them those three ways, or read them here.
Playing with ustream.tv
Colin and I were playing with the recording feature of ustream.tv. This is what resulted:
Tags: evangelion, intartubes, nge, streaming video, unit02, web service
Old Flash Players
I’ve recently been assigned the task of rewriting Mapwing Flash Viewer (MFV) to be more optimized and add new features, etc. In the course of this task, it’s become necessary to be able to test the MFV in older versions of Macromedia’s Flash Player (FP).
On my development machine, I use Flash 8 Pro to develop our software. I also have a copy of MX 2004 Pro that I keep around in case I want to test something. The problem is that I didn’t want to have to install the entire development program on machines to just test the MFV in the two versions of FP (and the fact that doing so would be in violation of licenses).
Thankfully, Macromedia (or Adobe, now) provides a repository to download almost all old versions of the FP (including different revisions of major versions) on their website. You’ll find a link, just below.
New Link:
Archived Flash Players at Adobe.com.
Old Link:
Archived Flash Players at Macromedia.com.
Pertains to:
Flash Player 7 Download, Flash Player 6 Download, Flash Player 5 Download, Flash Player 4 Download, Flash Player 3 Download, Flash Player 2 Download, Old Flash Player Download, flash7installer.exe Download, flash6installer.exe Download, flashplayer7_winax.exe Download, install_flash_player.exe Download
Updated Aug 12, 2010 to point to new adobe.com page.