cfyves.com

Google releases Public DNS

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 00:33:00 -0300

Google recently announced a new service they're offering... "Google Public DNS".

I'm kind of surprised that it's taken this long for one of the major players in web technologies to have released a service like this. DNS is such a huge part of the internet... and it seems as though I've been reading more and more about DNS poisoning...etc.

Security is always a huge issue and it's but one of the things Google is trying to help address with this project.

Quoted from their website:

The DNS protocol is an important part of the web's infrastructure, serving as the Internet's phone book: every time you visit a website, your computer performs a DNS lookup. Complex pages often require multiple DNS lookups before they start loading, so your computer may be performing hundreds of lookups a day.

This is a service I'll be looking into. I've never used my IPS's DNS servers but I've used a few services that were included with domain purchases.

I'll be giving this a look.

It's been far too long - Hello World!

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 11:00:00 -0300

Hi there!

It's been so long since I've posted on this blog.

I got busy blogging on sports and only touched a little bit on drumming.. which I intend to blog more on in coming weeks.

My plans for this blog is to blog solely about my work in technology and other technology related articles.

I was also planning to redo the graphics which is long long overdue.

Lot's has gone on in my personal life over the last several months.... it's pretty wild.

Anyway. Hope the internet hasn't missed me too much!

Another blog I started : yvesdrummer.com

Sat, 05 Sep 2009 11:24:00 -0300

Alot has been going on for me. Something I decided earlier in the summer was really to learn about blogging and learn about the possibility of growing traffic... or better put "readership".... getting it "out there" so people who share the same interests could find the blog. The next challenge with that of course if writing something that is worthwhile in reading!

So I started a couple of blogs and then moved on to my 3rd.

yvesdrummer.com

On this new blog, if you haven't guessed it by the domain name, it's centered around drumming. I've been playing drums since the age of 12 and have had the pleasure of playing in many different styles and have also had the pleasure of teaching.

So this new blog will revolve around practice techniques, drum videos of drummers who inspire me, drum videos of me, stories... ideas.. events... whatever I come up with.

The art of drumming is something I've always been passionate about.

My new Montreal Canadiens blog

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 00:10:00 -0300

Some time ago I had started a blog on my favorite NHL hockey team the Montreal Canadiens. Writing on it really became a fun hobby..... reading all the other hockey bloggers out there also became quite a fun hobby.

It was first started on a Blogger.com blog and I found there were numerous limitations so I was quite tempted to move it to a WordPress blog on 3rd party hosting.

After seeing a really great deal for a cheap hosting account, I decided to jump in and do it.

I used WordPress's import functionality to get all the content from the old blog onto the new one. This worked very well but there was a hitch. I used Blogger's labels as "tags" and not categories. Of course in the import the labels were treated as categories... so I spent lot's of time re-working the categories and redoing the tags for every post on the blog. Thank God that's over with.

So now I can concentrate on writing some stuff again. My new blog can be found here:

Mostly Habs Talk - Yves on Habs

Tesla motors is making money!

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 11:41:00 -0300

Ever hear of Tesla motors?

They make really sweat electric sports cars. They're out of my price range of course but that's another topic.

Apparently, Tesla motors have had their first profitable month. Although that might not sound great... to have 1 profitable month it still means that maybe their brand of high end electric sports cars are taking off.

CNN Money reported on their profits.

I think they're beautiful cars... and for the sports car lovers out there they seem to boast power. The Roadster gets 0-60 in 3.9 seconds... not bad.

Check out Tesla Motors on their website!

CentOS 5 YUM Repository for Zend Optimizer

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 15:37:00 -0300

I had the task of installing Zend Optimizer on a client's new VPS and it was proving a bit challenging, not necessarily because I could find any info on Zend Optimizer or anything on the server.... but because my home office internet connection kept crappin' out on me!

When I was getting ready to attempt the install it occured to me to look around to see if I could find a YUM repo. I first became familiar with YUM repositories a few years back while working with a server which used CentOS.

This new VPS that we setup is using CentOS 5 and out of the blue I thought... ."What if I could find a repo for Zend Optimizer"... I thought for sure I wouldn't find one.

But as I looked I found.

This is a short "how-to" explaining how to set it up on the Question-Defense website.

Drum gig - Playing Friday with Platinum Drive

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 22:34:00 -0300

Thought I'd just throw this out there.

Recently I've been looking to play some gigs, play more music again.

I've had the pleasure of playing with Platinum Drive a few times lately and will be playing with them at The Silver Fox in Summerside on Friday night.

Last sunday afternoon I had the pleasure of sitting in with Muddy Buddy for a Canada Games volunteer rally at the Credit Union Place.

I'm still looking for work... and would gladly consider a full time gig.

The anti-IE6 movement is getting noticed

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 13:55:00 -0300

As some of you have experienced working with Internet Explorer 6 can be frustrating. Increasingly harder to support.

There's been a movement towards trying to free the world of Internet Explorer 6. One such website called "IE6 No More" explains in a simple way what the goal of the movement is.

I saw that CNN took notice of the movement and wrote an article about it entitled "Web citizens trying to kill Internet Explorer 6". Great name.

They estimate that there are still 15 to 25 percent of people still using IE6. Still a very large number.

A nice multi-purpose pop up window javascript

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 17:07:00 -0300

Today I ran a little search and found a nice little script I had never seen before... not like I've seen them all!

It's called GreyBox and I've been playing with it on a project and it's very easy to use.

What's really nice about GreyBox is that you can easily use it to display image galleries but you can also use it to open webpages. Pages on your own site or even external sites.

There are nice easy to follow examples on the website and you can find out more about it by visiting the GreyBox website.

Google Chrome will have support for Themes

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 00:20:00 -0300

Reading up a bit tonight and saw that Google Chrome will support themes and their preparing to launch a theme directory.

I've been using Chrome since it was released. I don't really use 1 browser exclusively but I generally test stuff in a few different browsers (FireFox, Safari, Opera, IE, Camino to name a few others).

I've never really been a huge fan of themes just because I don't feel the need for it. Widgets on the other hand are something that I find quite useful.

In Firefox for instance there are a few widgets that I find quite handy for debugging a web application or Delicious bookmarks... twitter...etc.

Found and read a short article on the new Google Chrome Themes on TechCrunch.

Online resource - Ever need to create quick gradient color image?

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 17:01:00 -0300

Today I fell across a website that was kind of neat.

I needed to create a quick background for something and after a "2 second google" I found "Grad Color". Grad Color is an online gradient color creator.

It's awesome to see so many tools online.

I thought I would post it. So you can find the Gradient Color creator here.

Huge iPhone problem - Possibly hack every iPhone

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 22:48:00 -0300

Just found this on Yahoo's website.

It's reported that there is a huge security hole in Apple iPhone and it could result in massive amounts of phones being hacked.

According to the article Collin Mulliner will publicize their findings. Essentially by sending a text message, they were able to take complete control over any smart phone's functionality.

Imagine!

Someone could dial numbers on your phone, visit websites, turning on the camera... and who knows what. I'd say the who knows what is the scary part.

The only defense appears to be turning off the phone.

A warning sign for this hack is receiving a text message with a single square character. They suggest turning your phone off. "Quickly" is the exact quote.

Read the article here:
How to hijack 'every iPhone in the world'

New music on the way : Krantz Carlock Lefebvre

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 13:23:00 -0300

This morning, I got an email from waynekrantz.com, a fan mailing list I subscribed to long ago.

Hadn't received an email from that list in a long time. Too long in fact. Wayne Krantz is a truely great guitar player from NYC and some of his trio recordings have been favorites of mine for some time.

I remember reading that the trio was on hiatus and I was disappointed by the news.

But this morning... what a great surprise. Seems as though the trio is alive once again!

They are releasing an album and are called "Krantz Carlock Lefebvre".

Here they are at the Montreal Drum fest in 2005... Keith making a little noise.

I love these guys.

New website - My adventures in learning to create income online

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 15:11:00 -0300

I'm pleased to have my new site online!

The last week and a half, I've been reading and thinking, reading and thinking... all about how I can try to create a second income online.

The point of this excercise isn't to get rich quick. The point isn't even to be "rich" in strickly financial terms.

The reason for this new website and this new journey is to experience something new. I enjoy doing research and I love trying new things. This is part of it. Of course, I do have a goal. And my goal is to try and generate a bit of revenu by doing something I love.

But there is also opportunity to learn, to face new challenges, to meet new people and to share what I find. Share useful information to anyone looking to do the same, share my successes, share my failures... share my experience!

This website will continu to be more "personal".

But my new website will be a blog about trying to create income online.

Join me and let me know what you think!

www.yvesarsenault.com/

Building a Wordpress blog part 2

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 00:21:00 -0300

Another aspect of putting together a Wordpress blog that I didn't mention in the last blog post is looking for a theme.

It wasn't mentioned in my last writing, but I've already spent a couple of hours looking through different websites and running some Google Searchs to find a theme that I would be fairly content with. I'll likely make some small modifications once I do find the one I'm gonna go with. And so far I believe I've found one that's a strong possibility.

(How about changing this blog's layout???? - I've been wanting to for a while)

;-)

What are my credentials for a theme? Well, I'm looking for something that's about the colour that I want.... a blue as the main colour although I'm still not %100 decided on the colour. Sometimes it helps to see a bunch of themes to help me "clear the path" to the ultimate decision.

Other then the colour, I've been searching for an SEO friendly theme and I've found a few sites that offer SEO friendly themes. I'm not looking for anything really flashy, but something that is easy to navigate and generally nice to look at.

Still enjoying the journey so far.