Know Thyself

It is one thing to know who we are. It is quite another to truly understand what informs who we are.

Perseverance or Futility?

Sometimes the true test of character isn't whether you have the will to keep holding on, but whether you have the strength to let go.

The Grand Flop

Dan Savage:      1
Jeff Summers: 0

Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.

--Bertrand Russell

Code Red

Fear is not in the habit of speaking truth; when perfect sincerity is expected, perfect freedom must be allowed; nor has anyone who is apt to be angry when he hears the truth any cause to wonder that he does not hear it.

--Publius Cornelius Tacitus

The Unwelcome Guest

When we can't seem to find clarity no matter what we do, there is likely a fundamental truth we have been unwilling to examine honestly. Accepting and embracing things as they are is the only path to true clarity.

Truth, Halved

Ignoring a compelling part of a complex situation adds confusion and impedes one's ability to arrive at the right decision.

The Quiet Helpers

Emotions are almost always seen as bad, as things that need to be set aside in favor of reason. Yet there is something objective behind every emotion; a perspective that needs to be considered, a story that begs to be heard, a need that is fighting for air, a fear that needs to be overcome. Rather than striking down our emotions with reason, we should use our faculties to examine our emotions and listen to what they're trying to tell us.

By Definition

In the absence of all meaningful expression, love is meaningless.

Relationships are monuments built on lies.
-- Dan Savage

It Bears Repeating

You gotta stop dancin' with your head.

Tutorial: How to Change the Charging Battery Icon on a Jailbreak iPhone with Winterboard

Here's how to make a custom icon to replace the big green battery that displays on the lock screen when your iPhone is charging. This tutorial assumes that you have Jailbreaked your phone and have installed OpenSSH and WinterBoard on your phone (via the Cydia app) and have an SSH client installed on your PC/Mac (such as WinSPC for Windows or Terminal for Mac/Linux).

Step 1 - Create the Theme Directory

1. Open an SSH connection from your PC to your iPhone and navigate to the root directory


2. Navigate to Library/Themes. Note that the Themes folder is actually a shortcut, and will take you to the following physical directory: /private/var/stash/Themes.XXXXXX (XXXXXX is a series of letters and numbers that differs on each phone).


3. Within the /private/var/stash/Themes.XXXXXX folder, create a new folder and name it whatever you want your theme name to be, ending with .theme, for example My Custom Battery.theme


4. Click into the folder you just created and create a folder named Bundles


5. Click into the Bundles folder and create a folder named com.apple.springboard

Step 2 - Create Images

The charging battery icon is actually a series of 17 .png files. As the phone charges, the phone displays the proper image.

1. Find or create a series of 17 images. If they are not already in .png format, save them as such using your favorite image editor such as Photoshop, GIMP (free), or Aviary (free).


2. The image size of the files should be 264 pixels wide by 129 pixels high. This will ensure that the icon is properly centered and sized on the screen.


3. The files must be named in series, from BatteryBG_1.png to BatteryBG_17.png


4. If you do not want a reflection of your icon to show up underneath it on the lock screen, create a fully-black .png file that is 1 pixel wide by 129 pixels high and name it BatteryReflectionMask.png

Step 3 - Move File and Use Your Theme

1. Using your SSH client, copy all of the .png files into the
   /private/var/stash/Themes.XXXXXX/>My Custom Battery.theme/Bundles/com.apple.springboard directory you created in step 1.


2. Open the WinterBoard app on your iPhone, and go to the Select Themes section. You should see your new theme at the top of the list.


3. Select the theme and close WinterBoard. This will cause your phone to respring. After it does, your new theme is in use.


4. Plug your charging cable into your phone and you'll see your new battery indicator.


5. Enjoy

Client-Side Validation: How to Validate Controls in Each Pane of an AjaxControlToolkit Accordion

I'm using the AjaxControlToolKit Accordion, and I needed to validate the controls in each pane before allowing one to navigate to the other panes. I wanted everything to be client-side, because I don't want any post-backs until the whole form is validated. Since I didn't have any luck finding any good examples, here's one I put together. It uses the RequiredFieldValidator control as well as the ValidatorCalloutExtender. If you don't like the fly-out validation, just remove the ValidatorCalloutExtender controls as well as the Display="Hidden" attribute in the RequiredFieldValidators.

Sorry about the funky formatting. A copy/paste into a new aspx file should work with no modifications. I also have a downloadable self-contained aspx file. Enjoy.

<%@ Page Language="C#" %>

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<%@ Register Assembly="AjaxControlToolkit" Namespace="AjaxControlToolkit" TagPrefix="ajaxToolkit" %>

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head id="Head1" runat="server">
<title>Accordion</title>
<style type="text/css">
.accordionHeader
{
border: 1px solid #2F4F4F;
color: white;
background-color: #2E4d7B;
font-family: Arial, Sans-Serif;
font-size: 12px;
font-weight: bold;
padding: 5px;
margin-top: 5px;
cursor: pointer;
}

.accordionHeader button
{
cursor: pointer;
}

.accordionContent
{
background-color: #D3DEEF;
border: 1px dashed #2F4F4F;
border-top: none;
padding: 5px;
padding-top: 10px;
}

.accordionLink
{
background-color: #D3DEEF;
color: #ffffff:
}

.invalidField
{
background-color:#fffacd; /* same color as the background of the validation popup */
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript">
var acc;
var header;

function pageLoad() {
// get a reference to the accordion
acc = $find("MyAccordion_AccordionExtender");

/* for each of the panes, remove its click handler, and add our own;
using different methods for each pane would be unnecessary in our example
if we could include parameters in the method name, for example:
$addHandler(header, "click", navigateToPane(0));

we can't do that, so we set up a method name for each one; */
var index = 0;
header = acc.get_Pane(index).header;
$removeHandler(header, "click", acc._headerClickHandler);
$addHandler(header, "click", navigateToNamePane);

index = 1;
header = acc.get_Pane(index).header;
$removeHandler(header, "click", acc._headerClickHandler);
$addHandler(header, "click", navigateToContactPane);

index = 2;
header = acc.get_Pane(index).header;
$removeHandler(header, "click", acc._headerClickHandler);
$addHandler(header, "click", navigateToDemographicsPane);
}

// this function has to be here or there will be an error when leaving the page
function pageUnload() {
$addHandler(header, "click", acc._headerClickHandler);
}

function navigateToPane(paneIndex) {
// get a reference to the accordion
var pane = $find('MyAccordion_AccordionExtender');

// validate the controls in the current pane, using the ValidationGroup
// of the pane, e.g. "grp0" or "grp1", etc; if it's valid, navigate to
// the pane that corresponds to the index passed in
if (Page_ClientValidate('grp' + pane.get_SelectedIndex()))
pane.set_SelectedIndex(paneIndex);
}

function navigateToNamePane() {
navigateToPane(0);
}

function navigateToContactPane() {
navigateToPane(1);
}

function navigateToDemographicsPane() {
navigateToPane(2);
}
</script>

<form id="form1" runat="server">
<ajaxToolkit:ToolkitScriptManager runat="server" ID="ScriptManager1" />

<ajaxToolkit:Accordion ID="MyAccordion" runat="server" HeaderCssClass="accordionHeader"
ContentCssClass="accordionContent" FramesPerSecond="40" TransitionDuration="250"
AutoSize="None" SelectedIndex="0" RequireOpenedPane="false" SuppressHeaderPostbacks="false">
<Panes>
<ajaxToolkit:AccordionPane ID="AccordionPane0" runat="server">
<Header>Name</Header>
<Content>
Last Name: <asp:TextBox ID="txtLastName" runat="server" />
<asp:RequiredFieldValidator ID="reqLastname" runat="server" ValidationGroup="grp0" ControlToValidate="txtLastName" Text="" ErrorMessage="Last Name is required" Display="None" />
<ajaxToolkit:ValidatorCalloutExtender runat="Server" id="vceLastName" TargetControlID="reqLastName" HighlightCssClass="invalidField" />
<br />
First Name: <asp:TextBox ID="txtFirstName" runat="server" />
<asp:RequiredFieldValidator ID="reqFirstName" runat="server" ValidationGroup="grp0" ControlToValidate="txtFirstName" Text="" ErrorMessage="First Name is required" Display="None" />
<ajaxToolkit:ValidatorCalloutExtender runat="Server" id="vceFirstName" TargetControlID="reqFirstName" HighlightCssClass="invalidField" />
<br />

<!-- the "Continue" button isn't necessary; it's just an added item to make navigation a bit more intuitive -->
<button onclick="navigateToPane(1);" style="float:right;" title="Continue to Contact Info">Continue</button>
</Content>
</ajaxToolkit:AccordionPane>
<ajaxToolkit:AccordionPane ID="AccordionPane2" runat="server">
<Header>Contact Info</Header>
<Content>
Phone: <asp:TextBox ID="txtPhone" runat="server"></asp:TextBox>
<asp:RequiredFieldValidator ID="reqPhone" runat="server" ValidationGroup="grp1" ControlToValidate="txtPhone" Text="" ErrorMessage="Phone is required" Display="None" />
<ajaxToolkit:ValidatorCalloutExtender runat="Server" id="vcePhone" TargetControlID="reqPhone" HighlightCssClass="invalidField" />
<br />
Email: <asp:TextBox ID="txtEmail" runat="server"></asp:TextBox>
<asp:RequiredFieldValidator ID="reqEmail" runat="server" ValidationGroup="grp1" ControlToValidate="txtEmail" Text="" ErrorMessage="Eamil is required" Display="None" />
<ajaxToolkit:ValidatorCalloutExtender runat="Server" id="vceEmail" TargetControlID="reqEmail" HighlightCssClass="invalidField" />
<br />

<!-- the "Continue" button isn't necessary; it's just an added item to make navigation a bit more intuitive -->
<button onclick="navigateToPane(2);" style="float:right;" title="Continue to Demographics">Continue</button>
</Content>
</ajaxToolkit:AccordionPane>
<ajaxToolkit:AccordionPane ID="AccordionPane3" runat="server">
<Header>Demographics</Header>
<Content>
Age: <asp:TextBox ID="txtAge" runat="server"></asp:TextBox>
<asp:RequiredFieldValidator ID="reqAge" runat="server" ValidationGroup="grp2" ControlToValidate="txtAge" Text="" ErrorMessage="Age is required" Display="None" />
<ajaxToolkit:ValidatorCalloutExtender runat="Server" id="vce" TargetControlID="reqAge" HighlightCssClass="invalidField" />
<br />
Salary: <asp:TextBox ID="txtSalary" runat="server"></asp:TextBox>
<asp:RequiredFieldValidator ID="reqSalary" runat="server" ValidationGroup="grp2" ControlToValidate="txtSalary" Text="" ErrorMessage="Salary is required" Display="None" />
<ajaxToolkit:ValidatorCalloutExtender runat="Server" id="vceSalary" TargetControlID="reqSalary" HighlightCssClass="invalidField" />
</Content>
</ajaxToolkit:AccordionPane>
</Panes>
</ajaxToolkit:Accordion>
</form>
</body>
</html>

Christian Hero Quote of the Day

Burn down their synagogues, forbid all that I enumerated earlier, force them to work, and deal harshly with them, as Moses did... If this does not help we must drive them out like mad dogs. - Martin Luther, in his book On the Jews and Their Lies

Random Thought of the Day

Don't fret precious, I'm here. Step away from the window and go back to sleep.

Random Thought of the Day

I work like I drink. Alone. Or with a monkey watching.

The Rabbit Boiler Strikes Again

Nothing more need be said.

No, I Actually Don't Have Anything Better to Do

Started a new effort today: The Randwagon. Check it out at:

http://randwagon.blogspot.com/
http://www.twitter.com/randwagon
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Randwagon/224714021078

Thought I Forgot About You? Not a Chance.

Tor and similar onion routers. Untrackable? That's what you were told, right? Better get some more savvy tech advice next time.

The Hunter Becomes the Hunted

So exactly how much does it cost to hire a Ukrainian hacker to bust into someone's GMail account? Apparently not very much. If you ever feel the need to hire one, make sure you spend enough money to get one who knows how (and has the gumption) to cover his tracks.

Random Thought of the Day

You gotta stop dancing with your head.

That's Why They're Called Morons

You would think people would learn, after being tracked down for hacking once, to leave well enough alone. As though they won't get caught this time. But then, nobody ever accused them of being geniuses.

Random Thought of the Day

Always be closing if you want the knife set.

Random Thought of the Day

Wrongheadedness knows no color, which is why my shortie robes only come in topaz.

Random Thought of the Day

I don't need an adviser to know that Bud don't make me wiser.

Random Thought of the Day

I'm much too young to feel this damn old.

Random Thought of the Day

The fundamental defect of most religious ethics consists of the fact that they label certain classes of acts 'sins' and others 'virtue' on grounds that have nothing to do with their social consequences.

Random Thougth of the Day

What is twisting your giblets?

Random Thought of the Day

For error is manifold, truth but one.

Random Thought of the Day

Some people are more than happy to look at the world through a stir stick.

Random Thought of the Day

Fall in love with reality.