More Website Work

I'm giving Catallaxy Services a little bit of TLC lately, and I like some of the things I've done so far. The first thing I've done is emphasize our status as an independent software vendor.  I will gladly take people's money to write consulting documents for them or to do contract work, but I'll also gladly…

Forcing Lower-Case URLs In Apache

I've been working on a few tweaks to Catallaxy Services and one of the things I wanted to update was URLs.  In the UNIX world, URLs are be case-sensitive, so /Page1.html is totally different from /page1.html.  In my case, I had some presentations which had capital letters, but a person typing might enter lower-case letters and get…

Stop the QB carousel, I want to get off

So, as you may know, Johnny Football is hurt and Hoyer got back in the game. He is doing reasonably well. Since this is happening in Cleveland, naturally, everybody says Johnny is a bust since we all know that 7 quarters of football is enough to tell you whether a QB is good or not. Mary…

It was fun to be relevant for a while: the road to 7-7

Inspired by Kevin's post, I'm writing one of my own about the Browns. Buffalo and Cleveland have both enjoyed a renaissance this season (screwing up both of our draft picks; thanks, Kevin). The comparison to Buffalo is particularly apt because, in my opinion, the causes of both team's success stem from one person: Mike Pettine.…

This will be the first year that Buffalo has not had a losing record since 2004, and only their third non-losing season thus far in the millennium (2002 saw the team go 8-8, and 2004 9-7).  Here's how: Step 1:  Trick me into believing that this wouldn't be the year that Buffalo has a chance…

Smell ya later, guys (and gals??)

I'll be in the UK for a couple of weeks, so my normal hard-hitting HOF coverage will be softer-hitting. Less Mike Schmidt and more Jason Schmidt. Depending on my interwebz coverage, I might try to post once or twice.

What I’m Reading: Programming Hive

The problem with writing a book about a platform like Hadoop is that as soon as the book gets published, the material is already outdated.  Programming Hive is just two years old and already has that problem.  What it has going in its favor is a comprehensive look at how Hive works (for the most…

Tightening A Convertible Top

This probably won't be a very useful post, but it is something I learned recently and figured I would share. My 1999 Mazda Miata had a bit of a problem recently:  the top got loose on one side, up near the latch on the passenger's side. This bothered me for a few days but it…

Is Buster Olney stupid or brilliant?

I have failed you, those who count on me for Hall of Fame coverage. I have missed that two writers have already claimed they are abstaining from the process. First up, Buster Olney: To repeat: I think Mussina, Schilling and Raines and others are Hall of Famers, but it's better for their candidacy if I…

More On Free SSL Certs

Earlier this week, I blogged about Let's Encrypt, a new, free certificate authority.  Let's Encrypt looks like a great service, but it's not out yet and I'm not sure if it will be generally applicable.  For example, if I want to host my website on Azure, I might not be able to use this service…