http://www.spugbrap.com/blog This is a repository for my favorite scripts, regexes, commandlines, utilities, code snippets, tips, and other geeky things that might be useful to someone googling for an obscure solution some day. It's also a place to share my thoughts about companies I've dealt with, my favorite lifehacks, observations of interesting human behavior, clever and/or evil marketing schemes I've run across, and anything else I feel compelled to write about. Fri, 25 Jul 2008 05:11:49 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Today I needed to rename a column in a Sybase ASE 12.5.1 database, and couldn't seem to find the right syntax. My first few search results gave me syntax that was not actually relevant for my database. Two different pages led me to believe that some variation of this might ... http://www.spugbrap.com/blog/2008/07/how-to-rename-a-column-in-sybase-ase/ A website I use regularly requires me to verify my contact information annually. Today, I noticed that the last question on the verification page is for my "Challenge Question" -- the question/answer combo that I would need to use if ever lost my password. Here's a small screenshot showing this question ... http://www.spugbrap.com/blog/2008/06/usability-verification-of-challenge-question-and-challenge-answer/ You know those surveys that print out at the bottom of your Petco receipts sometimes? You just have to call the toll-free number, enter the Survey Pass Code from your receipt, and answer some questions through an automated system, then you get a validation code for a $2-off coupon. Usually, I ... http://www.spugbrap.com/blog/2008/06/petco-survey-fast-track/ News/Info: My at&t wireless service has been horrible for the past 3 days, and I am not alone. My wife and several friends in my neighborhood (in Bristow, VA) have been having the same issues. We are not able to reliably make or receive calls or text messages. Details on the ... http://www.spugbrap.com/blog/2008/04/att-wireless-outage-in-the-northeastern-us-day-3-april-13-2008/ This blog entry is mostly a stream-of-consciousness that I wrote the day after a major power outage that hit the Manassas/Gainesville area back in January. I was more interested in telling the whole story than I was about paragraphing, grammar, punctuation, etc., so it may be a bit rough in ... http://www.spugbrap.com/blog/2008/04/power-outage-in-bristow-manassas-gainesville-01292008/ I've been using Ext-JS on a new project, recently. It's pretty neat, and the examples are impressive, but the documentation leaves a lot to be desired. I needed to make a section of a we page collapsible, and it seemed like the Ext.Panel class was the way to do that, ... http://www.spugbrap.com/blog/2008/03/recursively-grep-for-a-substring-open-all-results-in-textpad-with-cursor-positioned-appropriately/ This is kinda rough, because I just took notes while watching. I haven't blogged in a while, and these are kind of fun to write. I do have like 8 other entries partially done, though (and none of them are pop culture related!), and my toblog.txt file is getting huge. ... http://www.spugbrap.com/blog/2008/03/american-idol-top-10-performance-show-03252008-liveblogging/ Ever since I removed the registration requirement for commenting on this blog, I've been getting a good bit of comment spam. Thankfully, Akismet does a great job of keeping it from polluting my blog. I do periodically go through the comments that Akismet has marked as spam, though, to ensure ... http://www.spugbrap.com/blog/2008/03/compliments-this-blog-has-received-in-comment-spam/ Tonight, Lacey and I watched the American Idol Season 7 Top 20 Results Show after our Tivo had finished recording the whole thing. I took a bunch of notes while watching, including some of Lacey's comments, then went back afterwards and put it into sentences and paragraphs. So, this isn't ... http://www.spugbrap.com/blog/2008/02/american-idol-results-show-02282008-liveblogging/ I'm not going to go into detail about last night's episode. Just going to post a few observations and make fun of a couple people. :) What was up with Simon having his hand up by his head like 1 moose antler all night? Lacey and I kept seeing it and ... http://www.spugbrap.com/blog/2008/02/american-idol-02262008-notes/