Dmitry Dovidenko’s Blog

Picasa Sucks

November 8, 2008 – 11:38 pm
Usually I like Google utilities and applications, but Picasa just plain pisses me off. I don't understand why Google seems to think that it HAS to scan your hard drive or at least a portion of it after installation. Why can't I cancel the initial scan? Why does Google assume I'm retarded and won't be able to drag in folders I want it to index!?!?!?

Posted in Windows | No Comments »

THC IRC Bot (Perl)

October 17, 2008 – 11:31 am
This is a very old basic IRC bot I wrote at some point. I recently found it when a coworker wanted to learn about threads. It uses Perl and requires that Perl is built with threading support!

Posted in Perl Programming | 1 Comment »

Alpha Red Inc

October 14, 2008 – 5:37 am
I've not posted in a few weeks, because I've been so busy trying to cleanup the mess our CEO left us in! For those that are interested in the Washington vs. James Reed McCreary IV, Branch Software Inc,  Alpha Red Inc lawsuit take a lookat the full post! While we don't work for or represent Alpha Red Inc anymore we're still trying to fix things for customers hosting at our data centers so they can keep getting awesome cheap services!

Posted in Events & Trips | No Comments »

I don’t like Ike!

September 15, 2008 – 2:13 am
Well I take back having said that this storm will not be a problem. My apartment still does not have electricity and I've lived at the office for the last 3 days. Houston has lots of damage. WEDGE tower which houses DC1 and our offices (including mine) had wind damage and lost many windows, but none on our floors!

Posted in Events & Trips | No Comments »

Hurricane Ike

September 12, 2008 – 2:59 am
Hurricane Ike is about to make landfal on Texas. I'm currently located in Houston, Texas and everyone is so excited about Ike that grocery stores are out of... bananas! I'm going to be spending the weekend at the office if the hurricane does end up hitting hard. I'm not sure it will and I'll post as it progresses!

Posted in Events & Trips | No Comments »

R.I.P SAMSUNG Blackjack II

August 17, 2008 – 3:52 pm
It was eleven in the morning and I was leaving the local "24 hour fitness" after a good workout. I walked down the sweltering parking lot becoming increasingly thirsty. As I tried to open my water bottle I lost grip and the bottle went tumbling down. Being worked up from my exercise I instinctively tried to catch it before it hit the ground. As my sweaty hands fumbled with the bottle the unexpected happened.

Posted in Events & Trips | No Comments »

NFS Shares on CentOS

July 5, 2008 – 8:10 pm
Many situations require a "share" of some sort where data is accessible on several machines from a common source. This way data does not have to be duplicated every time and can be accessed over network. The two popular methods are NFS and Samba. For this tutorial we will try to use NFS. Setting up NFS shares on CentOS is fairly easy and mounting them is even simpler!

Posted in Linux, Networking | No Comments »

Installing FFmpeg & Dependencies For FLV Conversion

June 29, 2008 – 11:57 pm
This is my original guide for installing ffmpeg and all of these dependencies. I originally wrote this guide while working for HostGator in order to save myself time installing. I posted a copy of this guide in our company notes which was later copied by one of our employees into his own blog which he failed to credit me for :-( and now it's all over the internet. You should use this guide as it's probably the most up to date as I still use this script on a semi-regular basis and update the links whenever new versions come out. This guide should teach you how to install all the needed dependencies for ClipShare or other flash video conversion scripts. It's primarily focused on RHEL or CentOS installs for the dependencies of these packages. The links in this guide are fresh as of 08/04/2008. Here is what this guide will help ...

Posted in Linux | 4 Comments »

Exim Tips & Tricks - Howto Unclog your queue!

June 29, 2008 – 8:39 pm
This article will focus on some general Exim MTA tips and tricks as well as how to parse mail logs. I originally put this guide together for use with Exim on cPanel. Many cPanel server administrators use the built in Exim MTA without giving it a second thought because it works. It works until they end up providing virtual hosting systems (shared hosting) where some of the users do not update their scripts regularly or simply think setting a cron job that runs every minute and clogs the queue is a good idea. Then running the built in Exim MTA with no knowledge of how it works becomes a disaster! Learn Exim today and save your self some serious headaches!

Posted in E-mail & MTAs | 1 Comment »

Trip to Lake Conroe

June 29, 2008 – 5:30 pm
Last Sunday my friend Sanjin Suljic and I took his 2006 Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor (right) for a drive. We left Houston, TX and headed to lake Conroe. It was a fun drive and we got to see some of the towns outside of Houston. We reached and crossed lake Conroe (left) near New Waverly, Texas.

Posted in Events & Trips | No Comments »