Archive of 2013 | The Kyle File

November 2013

SimpleWebRTC.js:…

I've been playing around with SimpleWebRTC.js and the very interesting-looking Talky website, which allows anyone to create a video chat room on-the-fly by entering it in a form or putting the name of the room at the end of the URL. I also looked at the SimpleWebRTC demo, because it seems to be a simpler version of Talky that I could use to get started. Apparently, something like this is extremely easy to implement, and can be set up in as little as 5 minutes. Sadly, it seems they were exaggerating just a bit when they said it could be set up in 5 minutes. SimpleWebRTC.js According to the website, SimpleWebRTC.js is a very simple modular library that allows developers to get a very basic WebRTC application up and running quickly and easily. There is some very basic documentation on the front page of the site that shows just how easy it can be, and a link to fork it on GitHub. All good so far. So I figured it would be fun to put a copy on my vps and play with it there. But the HTML and…

Permanent link to “SimpleWebRTC.js: Maybe Not So Simple”
Markdown in comments

As some of my readers may be aware, I am a huge fan of Markdown, because it makes writing much easier, and because it is human-readable. After all, people have been writing email using something very similar to ([Markdown syntax]https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax) since before Markdown was created, so the transition is quite natural. I never would have moved my blog to WordPress if not for the Markdown On Save Improved plugin, because I was quite accustomed to writing my posts using Markdown. A big thankyou goes out to Matt Wiebe for putting all the pieces and parts together that make this version of the plugin truly rock! Now for the good stuff for everyone else. For the first time in it’s 4-year history, The Kyle File now supports Markdown in comments, thanks to Evan Solomon's GitHub-Flavored Markdown Comments plugin, so everyone who reads my posts can easily write comments using Markdown syntax. If you have been writing your comments in plain text or HTML, don’t…

Permanent link to “Markdown in comments”

October 2013

Hard to believe…

I just received an e-mail from someone who believes that just because he refuses to use Internet Explorer and Outlook Express, that the viruses, spyware and other problems that affect these applications cannot impact his system in any way. He refuses to understand that Internet Explorer is still integrated so tightly into Windows that it always runs whether you use it or not, and is still capable of picking up viruses, spyware and other exploits that give attackers unparrallelled access to a computer at little to no cost of time or energy. Strangely, the same person thinks there is no speech synthesizer in Linux that can speak the language he needs. Funny that I found one in all of 1 minute, and wasn’t even half looking for it. Even better, the voices I found are able to be used by two different freedomware speech synthesizers, Espeak and Festival. I have heard it said that someone who has no knowledge of how a computer works shouldn’t even sit down in front of one. I never wanted to…

Permanent link to “Hard to believe some people's ignorance of how Windows works”
I did it! No more…

As part of the switch to a self-hosted blog, I decided to minimize the number of third-party services I depend on to make everything work. So after a good deal of fiddling, I have been able to cut the cord that was tying me to Feedburner. WordPress has built-in RSS feeds, both for posts and for comments, and I don’t have any problems with either of them. Even better, I was able to install a plugin that allows readers to subscribe to e-mail updates from a very easy-to-use form that I put right in the sidebar. No more clicking on a link that takes you to an entirely different website to subscribe to e-mail updates. It’s also better to have that subscribe/unsubscribe form in a visible location on every page instead of just having a little link that says "Get the email sitting up near the top of the page next to the archive. Maybe now I'll get some e-mail subscribers 😀 . Either way, I really like this whole layout better than anything I had with third-party services. I only hope my…

Permanent link to “I did it! No more Feedburner!”
Tumblr autoposting…

This is mainly just a test, but if I did it right, my posts on my old TumbleLog should look nearly identical to the posts on The Kyle File. I notice that even the subscription links for the feed and e-mail subscriptions on Tumblr still work as expected, because I haven’t yet decided to replace Feedburner with my self-hosted feed. I may test that shortly to see whether or not e-mail subscriptions will still work using the form on the main page if I switch to the standard follow button plugin. The only problem I may have with that is that my e-mails may not go out at the same time, or may be formatted differently, but that isn’t really a big issue at this point.

Permanent link to “Tumblr autoposting should now be seamless”
Permanent link to “Basic desktop posting client”
Welcome to the new…

The Kyle File's face lift is now complete, and all features are implemented. Reading and following my posts about all kinds of subjects is now easier than ever, and it is even easier for me to post all kinds of random ramblings to this nice little webspace. Although the most noticeable changes appear to be cosmetic, I am now making full use of a self-hosted WordPress installation on my own VPS, complete with plugins that have imported every post I ever made to my TumbleLog, automatically publishes my posts to Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr, with more to come in the future hopefully, and even keeps the same Feedburner subscription link I had. The most important changes I am introducing include the much more flexible and nicer-looking theme, the software freedom that comes from using free and open source code and the killer WordPress Android app, which works extremely well with Talkback on Gingerbread and up, and makes writing blog posts from my phone almost as easy as texting. Oh, and I…

Permanent link to “Welcome to the new and improved Kyle File”
Migration complete,…

So I've been playing around with Wordpress off and on for a couple of years in a rather half-hearted attempt to move my blog from Tumblr to my own VPS. Well, I finally started playing with it seriously over the last couple of days, and found that I was able to import all my posts into my new blog, which is now hosted on my own DigitalOcean VPS. After taking care of some theming and plugin customizations and rewriting my pages, I feel like The Kyle File powered by Wordpress is now ready to see the light of day. I have completed the migration of the domain name's DNS settings and edited the Feedburner details for the feed, so everything should just work mostly as it always did. Please note that if you have been following me on Tumblr, I will make every attempt to keep it updated as well, so my posts will still show up on your dashboard. However, thekyle.tk* will always bring you to my shiny new blog powered by Wordpress. * My blog's domain name changed; I keep the old text for…

Permanent link to “Migration complete, I think”
New blogging…

A special thanks goes out to my server provider, DigitalOcean. They are featuring a new free/open source blogging platform called Ghost, which may just give me the kick I need to move my blog off Tumblr, which is now owned and controled by Yahoo, onto my own server. DigitalOcean is even offering $10 promotional credits to pay for a new 512MB RAM/20GB hdd server for 2 months using promo code SSDGHOST10 when setting up an account.

Permanent link to “New blogging platform to try”

September 2013

Permanent link to “Holy cow! The Kyle File turned 4 today!”

August 2013

Trading one sin for…

I've been far too silent about this for far too long, but certain aspects of tonight's VMA award show have made me pray about writing this, and here is the result. God hates racism. God also hates homosexuality. He hates both these and all other sins equally. However, we have a political homosexual agenda in this country that is hijacking the Civil Rights movement, trying to bring together the rights of people who have fought, bled and died for something as simple as the right to vote or to sit down at a lunch counter with the rights of people to lust after people of their same gender. These things are by definition separate issues, and any attempt to bring them together or to in any way say that we can't have equal rights for people of all races without giving special privileges to people who want to redefine marriage and family is a lie perpitrated by none other than satan. I’m all for people having the choice to do whatever they want to do in private, but there should be nothing in…

Permanent link to “Trading one sin for another: homosexuality and today's Civil Rights Movement”
Yesterday I…

One of them, about 10 years old, is one we actually still use, although it’s a bit too old to run the Windows XP service pack 3 that was on it when we got it about 5 years ago, and Arch Linux + GNOME was freezing at times, especially when the browser was being used, and was also displaying fallback mode. The other computer has a default BIOS date of October 14, 1999, which I am guessing is the day the BIOS firmware was installed onto the motherboard. The CD-ROM drive appears to be broken, and it was therefore incapable of booting to anything but the hard drive running the same, even slower, Windows XP service pack 3 or a floppy disk. The 10-year-old computer has 512MB Ram, a 20GB hard disk and a Pentium iv processor that it claims runs at 2GHz, but feels much slower than that. The 1999 box actually has 224MB RAM, some of which was added later and is a different brand from the original, a 45GB hard drive, which I can only conclude was added at least 2 years later, and a Pentium 3…

Permanent link to “Yesterday I breathed new life into two very old computers”
Much is said about…

I got an email today with a petition telling Google to stop analysing users' email messages to target advertising to their inboxes. Well, first off, petition the Postmaster General, Congress, the President, or whoever has such power, to ban all the spam everyone with a postal mailbox receives nearly every day, then we can talk about email. It’s easy enough to hit the delete key on an e-mail, but postal spam wastes my time and energy, in addition to helping to decrease the number of life-giving trees on our planet. Also, I can’t read all that mess they send me anyway, so companies won’t get a cent from me via a printed ad in my mailbox. It just doesn’t work. Believe it or not, I hold the rather unusual opinion that if you want my business, you are more likely to get a response if you send me an email, especially if it is selling a product or service I have found I need or want. Maybe that’s because I am visually impaired, but either way, electronic communications just work better for…

Permanent link to “Much is said about e-mail spam, but what of postal spam?”

July 2013

Permanent link to “Lift Every Voice and Sing”
North Carolina has…

I'm by no means a lawyer, but it would appear that North Carolina has some sections in its "castle doctrine" laws that extend past the home, motor vehicle or workplace in a similar way to Florida's “stand your ground” law. Hopefully someone can clarify some of this, and share it. People need to know about this so we can get our “stand your ground” law repealed, or at the very least, significantly modified.

Permanent link to “North Carolina has a "stand your ground" law”
Justice is dead in America! A child can be gunned down in this country, and the killer will go free! Free to purchase another gun to kill another child! It is no longer safe to walk alone in the dark, even to go home from the store! It is now OK in the “great” United States of America to racially profile someone, shase that person down and kill him with a semi-automatic handgun, all in the name of the neighborhood watch! I am officially no longer proud to be an American.

Permanent link to “Justice is dead in America! A child can be gunned down in this country,…”
This real paranoid wannabe cop needs to go up for a long time. Believe it or not, he actually called police on a Black man who regularly picks up trash in his neighborhood. If "f???ing c??ns," or "f???ing punks" if you believe the attorneys, wasn't bad enough, it would seem that all Black men, especially those in their teens and twenties, are suspicious to him. It's truly sad that the jury only heard this specific call once, and the prosecution never used it in their closing argument. I pray this call is not lost on the jury, and that it helps them reach a guilty verdict. Life without parole for George Zimmerman!

Permanent link to “This real paranoid wannabe cop needs to go up for a long time. Believe it…”
Permanent link to “"The next witness that will be called is scheduled to appear via…”