Jason Paschal's Blog

Quickly Remove Images From Imagearn.com Galleries [php script]

mellomutt — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 09:57:57 +0000

As is typical of my work, this is quick and dirty but it gets the job done. Use at your own risk. However, it works great for me.

You’ll need a web server with PHP that has the curl extension installed. By the way, my current browser is Chrome.

Make sure you’re logged into Imagearn.com when you use it. Their login sessions last for 30 minutes or so, or if you close your browser, so verify before you run this script. Nothing bad will happen if you’re not logged in at the time, only that the images you try to remove *won’t* be removed.

Note: this script can be tweaked in tons of ways, and I may get around to it, but don’t hold your breath. Better off tweaking it yourself.

First, after logging into imagearn.com, go to Edit the gallery that has the images you want to remove.

Then click on Remove Images.

Right-click on that page somewhere and select “View Source” or your browser’s equivalent option.

Copy the page’s source code.

Now browse to the PHP script.

In the textarea field, paste the source code.

Click Submit.

(Sometimes I have to click it again.)

A vertical list of thumbnails and links will appear below the textarea field. Middle-clicking either will immediately and permanently delete the related image by open up a properly formatted URL in a new background tab.

NOTE: You MUST MIDDLE-CLICK (open the links in a new tab) when clicking a thumbnail or the word ‘remove’. The link target is not ‘_blank’, because if it was set to ‘_blank’ then the current page will lose focus, and the whole point of me making this would be defeated. Middle-click opens them in a background tab (for me, at any rate). This allows me to middle-click through, staying on the same page, and getting rid of images must faster than via the means provided by Imagearn.com which forces you to confirm the removal. This is very time-consuming if you have alot of images to remove.

I had an enhanced script that would allow you to toggle a bunch of checkboxes at once from a point in the list, then use javascript to open a bunch of tabs with the correct links but the script disappeared from my local server (which is actually my motivation for putting this on the web).

 $v) {
	$$k = $_GET[$k];	
}

foreach($_POST as $k => $v) {
	$$k = $_POST[$k];	
}
?>




remove from imagearn gallery




  
    <?php print stripslashes($source); ?>
  
  
    
  
  




]+>[^<]* $v) {
		$thumb = $matches[3][$k];
		$f = $v;
		$s = $matches[2][$k];
		$rlink = "http://imagearn.com/profile.php?o=remove_images&id=$f&idimg=$s&yes=yes";
		echo " remove
";
	}
}
?>

Even Easier Ramen Noodles

mellomutt — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 23:22:32 +0000

One of my own discoveries.

1) Put ramen noodles in a large soup bowl (microwave-safe) with 2 cups of water. Make sure you the noodles are completely submerged. Might have to crunch them down a bit, depending on the size of your bowl.

2) Place bowl in microwave for 5 minutes (may have to play with the time, but 5 minutes is perfect for me).

3) Add seasoning and stir. I’m gonna just say it to be safe: bowl will be effin’ hot.

No waiting for a pot of water to boil, no having to clean said pot and you don’t have to worry about forgetting to turn off the stove.

You’re welcome.

Uniden DECT 6.0 – Get Caller ID to Display a 1 In Front of The Number [RESOLVED]

mellomutt — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 22:33:05 +0000

I’ve been unable to simply press the TALK button while looking at the Caller ID on the phone to call someone back.

Uniden chose to display everything except the number 1 in front of a number. I’ve never seen another Caller ID system do this.

So I called Uniden support and they solved the issue in 5 seconds (after being on hold for nearly an hour).

**THE SOLUTION: While looking at a number in Caller ID, press the * key.**

That’s it. A 1 appears in front of the displayed number.

PHP – Read/Parse an Exported Bookmarks File

mellomutt — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 11:03:08 +0000

Since I couldn’t find anything like this online, I thought it might help someone else.

",$line)) {
				
				$tmp = array_pop($catlist);				
				
			}
			
			
			if (eregi("",$line) && !eregi("href",$line)) {
				
				$catlist[] = ucfirst(strip_tags($line));
					
			}
			
			
			if (eregi("href",$line)) {
				
				preg_match("/href="([^"]+)"/i",$line,$matches);
				
				$url = $matches[1];
				
				$title = strip_tags($line);
				
				foreach ($catlist as $k => $v) {
					echo "$v/";
				}
				
				echo " - ";
				
				echo $title;
				
				echo " - ";
				
				echo $url;
				
				echo "
";
			
			}				
			
		}
		
    }
	
    fclose($handle);
	
}

?>

I used an exported Chrome bookmarks file. The kind that starts with:

Code I found online was broken, so I made my own bookmarks parser. I did modify the bookmarks file to help get the output I wanted (I have hundreds of bookmarks all categorized, so I deleted huge swathes of links I no longer wanted) and I modified this code before I posted it to remove bits that were for my particular setup, but it’s all generally there. I’m sure a clever programmer could take this and make something slick.

This is the rough draft. I wanted to get my bookmarks into a database and wanted to keep the organization intact. This meant tracking the folders and subfolders, and this does the job.

Re-reading Dune

mellomutt — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 04:31:15 +0000

I am an avid fan of the Frank Herbert Dune series. (The spin-offs, the ones not written by Frank, are really just utter crap. Irreverent assholes capitalizing on the work of a, dare I say, genius.)

The stories are epic. They feature intelligent characters. They are rife with ideas. After I read them, I sought out and found, then read, more of Frank Herbert’s work. Destination: Void. Whipping Star. The Pandora series. The Santoroga Barrier. Hellstrom’s Hive. The Heaven Makers. The Green Brain. The Dosadi Experiment (<- really, honestly, very good). et al.
But I’m poor and there’s nothing out there that appeals to me at the moment, so I’m re-reading Dune. (Strange. I’m suddenly not that poor when an author I like releases a new work.)

However, I’m out of cash and books, so I’m re-reading Dune.

And since I read this ages ago, and have touted it wonders to anyone who would listen, and have watched every TV and movie version that has been released (with varying levels of dismay), I wanted to mention the scenes that I have no recollection of ever reading.

Duncan Idaho comes in drunk off of spice liquor. Jessica berates him.

Paul saves his mother, Jessica, from a sandslide. Then using water and the batteries in the paracompass to create a foam barrier, they manage to rescue their pack.

Paul sings a love song to Chani.

Feyd fights a rigged fight with a slave/gladiator. Such a big scene, and I had no memory of it.

Count Fenring. He’s practically a new character to me. But such a good one. Almost glad I forgot about him, just so I could meet him again. Loved his scenes with the Baron around the gladitorial fight.

Thufir Hawat, the Mentat, captured by the Baron. Hawat still believing that Jessica betrayed House Atreides. This, too, was not recalled.

Well, there’s quite a bit actually. But there’s still alot that I do remember. I think that time, and subsequent big and small screen visual depictions, have driven from my memory alot of detail.

And re-reading it makes me hate those visual depictions all over again, but this time with a keener edge on my seething anger. Why is it so difficult to find a director who has read the novel on which the film is based and then bothers to read just prior to actually making the effin’ movie? Personally, I’d feel compelled.

I stumbled onto a Dune fansite some time back, and there was alot of talk about a new film in the works. There were alot of quotes from the potential director, Peter Berg. I learned to despise him.

He couldn’t stop using the word ‘muscular’.

Here, I’ll paste:

My experience with the book was different than David Lynch’s experience or the people behind the Sci Fi Channel’s experience. I found it to be more of an adventure tale, more of a muscular action/adventure story. I think that’s my approach, not as an R-rated film, but as a pretty hard PG-13 film about a young man dealing with issues of vengeance over the death of his father and wanting some payback and having to come to terms with his destiny along the way.

Peter Berg at MTV Movies Blog

“I think I had a much more different experience, I think, with the book than David Lynch did. To me, I think my interpretation will feel significantly different from that and the [Syfy] Channel miniseries that aired. I have a different experience than both of those filmmakers did.”

“[The book] was much more muscular and adventurous, more violent and possibly even a little bit more fun, I think those are all elements of my experience of the book that can be brought in without offending the die-hard fans of the Bene Gesserit and Kwisatz Haderach. There’s a more dynamic film to be made.”

“I’m finishing this [documentary] now, we’re editing it now, I think it’s going to be in the Toronto Film Festival. [I'm] working now on getting Friday Night Lights up for the new season and getting Dune up and running. I’m working all the time.”

Peter Berg at Sci Fi Wire

We’re gonna have a script in at the end of this month [January 2009]. Josh Zetumer’s writing the script. I fully intend to do it. It’s another example of where I’m aware that there’s — I don’t think rabid is a strong enough word — fanbase for the film, and I understand that some people support me directing it and some don’t. All I can tell you is that I was as much a fan of the book as anyone, and I’m really looking forward to getting that script in.

To me, the book had a tone that was, for lack of a better word, more muscular. It was a little dirtier, it was scarier, it was rougher, it was more intense, and I think that Lynch’s film and the Sci Fi miniseries took a tack that was different. It wasn’t any of those things as I remember the book being. There were so many different aspects of Herbert and his personality…. I will focus on — again, for lack of a better word — a rougher, more muscular version of Herbert’s work. A more muscular interpretation.

There’s a scope to Dune, and certainly a Shakespearian quality to that family, that I don’t pretend to ignore.

Peter Berg at Television Without Pity

“The hype around [Dune] is understandable but it’s a little excessive. The fanatics are worried I’m going to destroy it – I’m like calm down, I read the book when I was a kid too! If you re-read it – it’s just a great adventure story. There is a spirituality to it, and a mysticism, and there is a parallel metaphorically about oil, the corporatisation of resources – but at the end of the day, it’s about a kid becoming a leader. There’s incredible action in it and really great intrigue and betrayals, it’s Shakespearean in its scope and I think it’ll be a blast.”

Peter Berg at guardian.co.uk

One, with the advances in CGI, we’ll be doing things Lynch couldn’t do. Two, I had a completely different experience with the book than he did.

I look forward to taking it on as an adventure story, in the vein of “Star Wars,” “Indiana Jones” and “Lord of the Rings.” It’s a big, bold adventure story. That’s how I see it.

And, yes, I am out of my mind.

Peter Berg at austin360.com

There is a sense in the book that the commodity is driving the train. But I don’t want to hang the story on that. I read the book and really liked it. What I never saw in Lynch’s film was a really strong adventure story. There’s a much more muscular time to be had there.

Peter Berg at The Hollywood Reporter

Fortunately, Peter’s been scratched. 86′d. Nixed. The dude is fixated on muscles. Let him direct Bruno 2.

Why do all director’s miss the point? The essence that makes the stories popular to begin with? And WHY would they miss it? You’d think they’d want to tap into it.

And to make it easier, the author himself explained what he was trying to convey. This is the Foreword for Heretics of Dune:

Heretics of Dune (1984)

The interweaving of the many plot layers I had planned required a degree of concentration I had never before experienced.

It was to be a story exploring the myth of the Messiah…

When I was writing Dune there was no room in my mind for concerns about the book’s success or failure. I was concerned only with the writing. Six years of research had preceded the day I sat down to put the story together, and the interweaving of the many plot layers I had planned required a degree of concentration I had never before experienced.

It was to be a story exploring the myth of the Messiah.
It was to produce another view of a human-occupied planet as an energy machine.
It was to penetrate the interlocked workings of politics and economics.
It was to be an examination of absolute prediction and its pitfalls.
It was to have an awareness drug in it and tell what could happen through dependence on such a substance.
Potable water was to be an analog for oil and for water itself, a substance whose supply diminishes each day.
It was to be an ecological novel, then, with many overtones, as well as a story about people and their human concerns with human values, and I had to monitor each of these levels at every stage in the book.
There wasn’t room in my head to think about much else.

Foreword (April 1984)

And while I was looking for that, I found one of my favorite quotes:

Bureaucracy destroys initiative. There is little that bureaucrats hate more than innovation, especially innovation that produces better results than the old routines. Improvements always make those at the top of the heap look inept. Who enjoys appearing inept?

A Guide to Trial and Error in Government, Bene Gesserit Archive

First!

mellomutt — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 07:47:47 +0000

To forestall hate-mail, I’m going to try to replace the posts that I had with my Drupal install.

Google Chrome: Fast, But Retarded

mellomutt — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 08:17:58 +0000

Here’s a list of some basic elements that I require that Chrome ignores/craps on.

First,

Let me just say that I had to open Firefox to even post this story. Chrome wouldn’t process the rich text plugin I’m using (FCKEditor) and it ignored other basic elements in terms of display for this CMS. IE, Firefox…works fine. Whatever. I know I need to update this CMS [author's note: I've since switch to another CMS since writing this], but to just ignore basic/standard/popular JS and CSS? Not cool. I could be convinced that this is actually smart and cool, but you’d have to be naked and female.

2) New Tabs WTF

I had to install an extension to have Chrome just open a blank page in a new tab. By default, Chrome goes all Hitler on new tabs. It displays a thumbnailed list of pages you’ve recently looked at.

I suppose they assume that a) you’re the only person using your computer, or b) you don’t care if people know you’ve been looking at vintage lesbian incest bondage porn.

Well, I do care. So I went to Chrome Options, and, yep, you can’t change new tab behaviour. You have zero choice in the matter. Firefox gives you a choice. However, there is a Chrome extension that allows you to simply display a blank page in a new tab. Installed it. Worked great. But it’s the principle of the thing. Why did I have to bother? Showing your page history thumbnails in a new tab by default should be an “opt-in” sort of process. Like, I don’t know, a little window that pops up and says, “Do you want the world to know about your deviant interests? Check the box below.” Sometimes I want to show people some stuff online. I don’t want any new tab I open to taint the carefully constructed facade I put up between me and the world.

If Chrome were a car, bumper stickers would be applied by the manufacturer.

3) Friggin’ status bar.

There isn’t one in Chrome. Hover over a link, and a little bubble appears in the bottom left corner of the browser with the URL. But not necessarily the full URL. Nope. The bubble only extends through a 3rd of the browser space. So the end of most URLs get cut off, and to me, it’s the most important part. It’s like, why bother showing any of the URL? If you just want to make sure people are certain of the domain, then why not just show the domain? Someone had to code it so it shows the ellipses at the end when it gets cut off. Someone had to put in “statusbubble.width=33%”. You couldn’t make that adjustable? You couldn’t make that an option? You had to be Hitlers about it? You had to be dicks?

There are no extensions that fix this. Chrome is stuck with this retarded behaviour.
Maybe they just decided to be all maverick and question the whole existence of status bars. It’s been nearly two years since this issue was brought to the attention of Chrome developers. They refuse to fix it. And believe me, it’s an issue. Two years of comments attest to that. They do say they will get to it, but have to work through other issues first. Oh, right, excuse us. Probably more important things than basic usability.

If Chrome were a car, it’d go really fast, but you wouldn’t know where you’re going.

4) No simple on/off for Javascript/Java.

Firefox has some great extensions for toggling JS and Java on the fly. None for Chrome. You can turn JS on and off in Chrome, but it’s several clicks and a few windows deep. I’ve got some really handy buttons that do the same thing in Firefox. Where are those buttons located? You guessed it. In my frakkin’ status bar. Chrome, Chrome, Chrome. You mean well. But ffs, how about making a browser?

If Chrome were a car, you could drive at night, but you couldn’t dim your lights for oncoming traffic.

In conclusion,

As hard as it is for me to say (since I really enjoy google search, gmail and google docs), screw Google Chrome. At least for the time being. Fix your shit, and we’ll try again.

If Chrome were a car, the test drive would not have sold me.