Dragon*Con 2012 Interviews: Magician in a Hat

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Transcription Matt Refghi: Alright, so I’m here at Dragon*Con 2012, and I just saw this gentleman. I have to ask: did you wake up this morning and think “today, I’d like the rabbit to carry me around?” Michael Mirth: (laughs) That’s ri – well, he said so, actually. Matt: Yeah. Michael: I didn’t have much to do with it, really. Matt: That’s – alright, that’s pretty elaborate. Michael: I’ve been wanting to bring this costume to Dragon*Con for about seven years, since I’ve made it. But I never had a trailer, because it’s so large – it wouldn’t fit in my jeep. Matt: Yeah, it’s pretty elaborate. Michael: Yes, there’s a lot of parts to it. Matt: Alright, so where … Read more

Dragon*Con 2012 Interviews: Harley Quinn and Batman’s Severed Head

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Transcription Matt Refghi: I never expected to encounter this at Dragon*Con, it seems that Batman has met his end. So what are you going to do, Harley, now that Batman is gone? Harley Quinn: Well, now that the Bat is gone, Mr. J wants me to go after Robin, little nancy-boy. Matt: Well, Robin’s the only left right now. Harley: He is. Matt: So he probably has new tricks up his sleeve. Harley: Robin is a six-year-old loser, he can’t do anything to me. Matt: (laughs) Okay. So I was wondering, is this your first time at Dragon*Con? Harley: No, this is fourth year, and it’s just as amazing as always. Matt: Excellent. Is this the first costume you wear? … Read more

Interviewing Cosplayers at Dragon*Con 2012

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It’s no secret that I’ve been less active with this blog, as of late. I won’t go into the details, but I’ve been putting a lot of time and effort into a certain project, one that I can’t yet reveal. What I can say is that it’s something that I’ve been working on for a very long time, and I’m really looking forward to introducing it in the near future. Today, however, I’m happy to announce that I’ll be releasing a series of interviews that I hosted from Dragon*Con 2012. I’ve always wanted to expand into video, and this turned out to be a great way to do so. You may recall that I’ve previously mentioned wanting to start a … Read more

What to Do When WordPress Gets Stuck In Maintenance Mode

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As I was working with WordPress today, I happened to stumble into a webmaster’s horror scenario. It all started when I noticed that some of my plugins were out of date. In an effort to correct this, I selected all outdated plugins, and then clicked the handy little “Update plugins” button. Instead of seeing the progress messages, I was greeted by this: It was the timing of the Internal Server error that made me uneasy – did the upgrade process have time to complete? Any interruption could potentially result in database corruption, so I launched another window and tried to see if everything was working normally. Here’s what I saw: Even after a few refreshes, that message remained – which meant … Read more

Subversion: Repository Backup Script

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A few months ago, my Windows installation became corrupt, and despite my best efforts, I had to format the hard drive. I’m the type of guy that makes a whole lot of backups, so I proceeded to format with confidence. I did, of course, make a few last minute exports just in case. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that there was something wrong with one of the most important items on my checklist: my primary Subversion (SVN) repository. To my surprise, the backups only included the revisions that occurred prior to November 2011. While horrifying, I remembered that I at least had the live version of my working directory. Unfortunately, I turns out I didn’t. Something strange happened to that directory – … Read more

Dropbox: Certain Files Won’t Synchronize

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Here’s a very interesting problem I encountered just last week. I was speaking to a colleague over the phone, and she told me that she had placed a particular document in a folder that we both shared on Dropbox. I looked into that folder, but was unable to locate the file that she spoke of. At that point, I realized that the Windows client really had no way of reporting whether it synchronized properly, or not. No matter what I did, the Dropbox client was convinced that everything was synchronized. Since I wasn’t getting much information from the desktop client, I decided to log into the website. Surprisingly, the file was visible from the web interface – but it wasn’t … Read more

How to Pin a Batch File to the Taskbar in Windows 7

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One of my favorite features in Windows 7 is the taskbar, as it combines the convenience of Vista’s Quick Launch, while organizing windows in a more intuitive manner. I’ve grown accustomed to dragging program shortcuts into it, and having them remain there permanently. That is, until this morning. For some reason, I discovered that Windows wouldn’t let me drag a batch file to the taskbar. In DOS, OS/2, and Microsoft Windows, batch file is the name given to a type of script file, a text file containing a series of commands to be executed by the command interpreter. Even when I right-clicked the file, I didn’t see the typical “Pin to Taskbar” shortcut. Seeing as batch scripts can execute programs within themselves, I was … Read more

The Monk and the Gorilla

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It was around the time where I was getting to be too old for Halloween, so I didn’t do the whole candy collection thing. Instead, I served as a candy dispenser for the kids who wandered over to my parent’s place. I decided I would also dress up to entertain the children that passed, but I wasn’t exactly sure of what I would do. All I knew is that I had a mask, and a monk’s robe. The mask was designed to make my head look like a large, sinister skull. Not quite unique, I know, but this one was different – when I first saw it, it struck me as being particularly high in quality. As a result, I … Read more

Thoughts On Cross Browser Testing (And a Tool to Simplify the Process)

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If I were asked to identify one primary annoyance associated with a web development career path, it’d be the abundance of browser inconsistencies. From the consumer’s point of view, the web is an endless source of content, and they are given the ability explore that world. Browsers permit such exploration, but the resulting experience depends on a multitude of factors, most of them transparent to the consumer. There’s an organization known as the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), and their entire goal in life is to ensure the long term growth of the Internet. In accordance with this objective, the W3C took the time to define standards for the core technologies they created, such as HTML and CSS. Yet, the reality … Read more

Montreal Comiccon 2011: Top 10 Costumes

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After my second consecutive visit to Atlanta’s Dragon*Con, I decided it was time to give my hometown a chance. In Montreal, the closest we have to Dragon*Con is Montreal Comiccon, which was first held in 2006. Dragon*Con is a much older convention – it dates back in 1987, and comprises of multiple large hotels (lobbies, conference rooms, ball rooms), whereas Montreal Comiccon’s primary space is one large convention hall. As a result, the scale of Dragon*Con is far from being matched by Montreal – which means the celebrity guest list is also a bit disappointing, in comparison. Despite the differences, I attended Montreal Comiccon this year – and in my opinion, it’s worth doing so at least for the costumes. After all, it is still … Read more