James Rohal

Some sites like Myspace allow for the use of vanity URLs. For example, my page is located at http://www.myspace.com/jamesrohal. Although not all sites allow for the use of vanity URLs (like Facebook), you can make up your own using 301 redirects in the .htaccess file. For example, I can now link to my Myspace profile using the vanity URL: http://www.jamesrohal.com/myspace. Typically 301 redirects are more efficient than meta, CNAME, and Javascript redirects because the server checks the .htaccess file first before fetching any pages.

To create a vanity URL http://www.yoursite.com/vanityurl that links to http://www.somesite.com add the following to your .htaccess file.

Redirect 301 /vanityurl http://www.somesite.com

For example, I have the following in my .htaccess file.

Redirect 301 /facebook http://www.facebook.com/people/James-Rohal/43202602
Redirect 301 /myspace http://www.myspace.com/jamesrohal
Redirect 301 /diigo http://www.diigo.com/user/jjrohal
Redirect 301 /googlereader http://www.google.com/reader/shared/14670748227574963949
Redirect 301 /citeulike http://www.citeulike.org/user/jjrohal
Redirect 301 /lastfm http://www.last.fm/user/jjrohal
Redirect 301 /flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/jjrohal
Redirect 301 /linkedin http://www.linkedin.com/in/jjrohal
Redirect 301 /thesixtyone http://www.thesixtyone.com/jjrohal/
Redirect 301 /youtube http://www.youtube.com/jjrohal
Redirect 301 /twitter http://twitter.com/jamesrohal

Each Friday I am going to write about three things that I am thankful for. It is so easy to overlook even the simplest things in life that we all take for granted. Even when you have the worst day, there is still something you have that many other people might not. I try to be an optimist and the best way to live life is to count your blessings; there is always something to appreciate in life.

1. Pets: Last Saturday, my dog Laddie passed away after almost 15 years. Although I was raised as an only child, I considered Laddie as a type of brother. Laddie is someone that would listen to me no matter what and would always be there to comfort me. He asked for little and lived life to the fullest. My parents gave me an article about what your pet can teach you. The article inspired me to write these weekly blog posts and to live a less stressful life. Being in the house alone without Laddie has been torture for the past week but I am finally coming to terms with it. I will miss him but he will live on in our thoughts.
   
2. Family: This seems like the easiest thing to write about because there are so many things my family does for me on a daily basis. Simple things like calling to see how I am feeling and inviting me over to keep my company are all things I am thankful for. My family is an integral part of my life and I am blessed to have such wonderful people near me.
3. Shelter: Days where it is blistering cold out make you realize how nice it is to have a roof over your head. Even being able to afford to have an apartment is something to be thankful for too!

I installed the Tweetbacks plugin and wanted to test it out on my blog since I recently upgraded to WordPress 2.7.

After months of research I have given up on a $2500 computer. The value is not worth it. Here is an updated list of parts with some research that I have done.

ASUS P6T Deluxe V2: Ideal for overclocking. Does not support true 3-way SLI. Placement of the PCI Express slots allows for optimal airflow in a SLI setup. The V2 refers to the missing SAS controller (thus making it cheaper). An SLI setup with two dualslot graphics cards would leave a PCI and PCI Express x4 slot open. Supposedly this board works well for a Hackintosh system as well.

Intel Core i7 920: Can easily be overclocked to 3.6-3.8GHz stable with a nice heatsink fan.

OCZ Platinum 6GB (3 x 2GB) 1600: Good timings for the price with decent overclocks. A better choice would be Mushkin 6GB (3 x 2GB) 1600

Coolermaster HAF 932: Great airflow and cable management. Tons of room for expansion. No air filters included but they can be made cheaply using vent filters from Home Depot (True Blue) or even a cheap pair of stockings.

EVGA GTX 285 SC: Not really the best value, but this is the top performing single GPU graphics card. The SC cards are better suited for overclocking and can easily be overclocked to SSC speeds. EVGA also has a lifetime warranty on overclock products!

Cosair 850TX: Allows the possibility for a GTX 285 SLI in the future. Pretty solid with >80% efficiency.

Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB: One of the fastest drives out there (besides SSD). The larger platter size makes this a great drive for the OS.

Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB: Extremely fast, silent drive used for storage. I read somewhere that this slightly outperforms the Caviar Black in reading and writing large files.

LG 22X DVD±R DL DVD Burner: Great reviews on Newegg. Works flawlessly in Vista x64 and Windows 7.

HT Omega Striker 7.1: Highly rated, works well in Vista x64 and Windows 7 and has no bloatware. High quality audio and digital out via S/PDIF.

Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme or Prolimatech Megahalems: The TRUE is one of the best heatsinks for the past 2 years. This is best paired with a high static pressure fan. Due to the machining marks on the base, it is useful to lap this. I am going to purchase the Delta AFB1212HHE 120x38mm fan if I get the TRUE. The Megahalems are made by those who originally made the TRUE but with an improved design and with an excellent mounting plate. I would pair a Yate Loon D12SH-12 with this.

Tuniq TX-2: This thermal compound (TIM) has no curing time and spreads nicely since it isn’t too runny. Supposedly one of the best. A good pairing is with the thermal compound remover.

BenQ 24″ G2400WD: One of the best gaming monitors with a 1920×1200, 1:1 pixel mapping, and a 2ms response time. Some other good choices are the Samsung T240 or T240HD (with TV tuner), or ASUS VH242H.

Logitech X-540: Good entry level 5.1 speakers. The next step up is the Logitech Z-5500 which have been known to go on sale as refurbished items.

A gripe that I have with Blackboard is its lack of RSS feeds. Minimally I would like to subscribe to my Announcements, but that appears to be impossible. The only type of feed I could even find in BB is in the podcast section.

BlB also makes it difficult to include RSS feeds into course modules. I am not sure whether the RSS module with descriptions is the solution to my problem or would even work on Miami’s BB server. The only reason I would want to implement something like that is so I could aggregate the course’s announcements and posts from the course’s brand spankin’ new blog. Currently I use Google’s AJAX Feed API to grab the WordPress feed and put it in a permanent announcement.