Hijinks Inc.

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  • Adding a CNAME Entry for a Domain (1&1 Hosting)

    I recently needed to add a CNAME entry for a Zenfolio gallery to one of my clients domains (http://nikkimoorephotography.com) and it took me a bit of time to figure out just how to add a CNAME entry for the subdomain I was creating. It actually turns out to by pretty straight forward, my mistake was trying to find instructions on 1&1’s help site.

    Here’s the breakdown…

    • First, log in to your account at https://admin.1and1.com
    • Click the Administration tab.
    • Click Domains. This will take you to the Domain Overview page.
    • From the New drop-down menu, click Create Subdomain. (If you already have a subdomain created, skip to the next step).
    • Create your desired subdomain, and click OK. For example, gallery.yourdomain.com
    • Click the checkbox next to the subdomain you just created.
    • Select the DNS menu, click Edit DNS Settings.
    • Select the radio button next to CNAME.
    • Enter your desired domain in the Alias field. In my case, I used zenfolio.com
    • Click OK.

    That’s it! Now you just have to wait for your changes to propagate fully.

  • Hijinks Movie Reviews: Kick-Ass

    As I sit down to write this review, I realize that I don’t seem to know much about these movies before I sit down to watch them… it’s really been a recurring theme in all my reviews. Hopefully my New In Theaters section of Saturday Shenanigans will help me to better understand what these movies are about on a week to week basis!

    The only thing I really knew about Kick-Ass was that it was about a kid that dresses up like a superhero and fights crime, it was based on a graphic novel, and that it received pretty good reviews. I didn’t even realize Nicolas Cage was in this movie, that alone is typically a deal breaker (as was the case with , Knowing, Bangkok Dangerous, Next, I could go on but is that really necessary?) unless there’s something else that really draws me to the movie, like National Treasure 2 (I enjoyed the 1st one) or Eva Mendes in Ghost Rider. That’s another terrible movie and I can’t stand Nic Cage in it, but Mendes just looks so good in that movie…

    *Clearing my throat* Wow, sorry for that rabbit trail there. We’re here to talk about Kick-Ass, not Nic Cage (but I have to say, he wasn’t too bad in this movie!) Released on April 16, 2010 and on DVD and Blu-Ray on August 3, 2010, Kick-Ass is based on the comic book of the same name by Mark Millar and the film was directed by Matthew Vaughn. I’ll get into my reason for listing these details after the break. (more…)

  • Live Coverage of Google’s “Search On” Event

    Google’s press event will be kicking off shortly, and we’ll be providing some shiny live coverage. So stay tuned!

    I believe you’ll also be able to stream the event on Google’s YouTube channel, but I could be wrong.

    [ Google’s YouTube Channel | Opt-in to Google Instant ]

    9:30 PST: Google is playing some eerie new age music to intro the event…

    9:32 PST: Really Google? Eerie music is still playing.

    9:34 PST: Still nothing but music, but here’s an interesting page on Google’s site for Google Instant.

    9:36 PST: Gabriel Stricker is on the stage now! Explaining how to connect to the WiFI.

    9:37 PST: Now he’s explaining why they do these events.

    9:39: PST: Marissa Mayer is on stage.

    9:40 PST: 1 billion users visit Google search per week.

    9:41 PST: Google rolls out 100s of new features every year, 500 so far this year.

    9:48 PST: Talking about information gathering over the years, how it has evolved from taking weeks to find information, to days, to hours, and now to just seconds.

    9:50 PST: Average search takes 25 seconds. Even with autocomplete.

    9:51 PST: Search time is limited by the “speed of thinking”. Google Instant is in fact the new product.

    9:52 PST: She’s demoing Google Instant.

    9:53 PST: She’s searching for the name of a Matissa painting, and results show up in real time, before she even presses Enter. Name of the of painting is “Femme Au Chapeau”.

    9:54 PST: Says that Google Instant isn’t search as you type, it’s search before you type. She says there’s almost a physic element to it, predicting what you’re likely to search for.

    9:55 PST: Demoing more searches.

    9:56 PST: She says “We’re really ultimately excited about this”. Uh, ok…

    9:57 PST: Google Instant launches today for Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer 8.

    9:58 PST: Roll out starts for the US, with international support later on.

    9:59 PST: Google Instant will save you 2-5 seconds per query.

    10 PST: Johanna Wright and Othar Hansson are on stage.

    10:01 PST: They’re going to demo three primary features.

    10:02 PST: First gear, instant results, second is predictions, the third is “scroll to search”.

    10:03 PST: Othar says “It’s not quite physic, but it’s very clever”.

    10:06 PST: Eric Zeman makes a good point on Twitter. “With Chrome, I do all my google searching in the address bar. No Google Instant there. Have to use Google.com? That’s already too much work”

    Guessing it’ll be added to Chrome down the road.

    10:07 PST: Othar explains that he recently bought a new bike, and test-drove it by riding up a hill. It went twice as fast as his old bike because it was a newer, lighter  bike. “That’s what we’re shooting for with Google Instant.”

    10:11 PST: Giving a sneak peak of Google Instant for Mobile. Demoing it on Android, of course.

    Sorry our connection flaked out on us.

    10:25 PST: Lots of technical details explaining various research they did to refine Google Instant.

    10:26 PST: “We work on search because it’s an absolutely fascinating problem…and because we’re engineers…”

    10:27 PST: “Most importantly, we work on search because we believe it matters to people. It matters to us.”

    “We’re constantly working to improve search.”

    10:29 PST: Marissa is back on stage.

    “We feel that Google Instant is a quantum leap into the future:”

    10:31 PST: In 1965, Bob Dylan went electric, that inspired Google’s engineers. Showing a Bob Dylan / Google Mashup video.

    10:33 PST: Q&A session is starting.

    Q: Robert Scoble asks when this will hit browsers, like Chrome.
    A: They’re working on it. Later this year hopefully.

    Q: How will this impact ads / impressions.
    A: No real change, but they’ve added a 3 second pause which counts as an impression.

    Q: How will this interact with Google Search History?
    A: Searches where you clicked or paused for three seconds will show up in Search History.

    Q: Is there a blacklist? Irina Slutsky’s name doesn’t autocomplete.
    A: Google cares about family safety, so they do censor results at least until you press Enter.

    Q: How much personal information is required for this to work?
    A: No change, weather is tied to your IP location. Which is information they already record.

    Q&A is still going on, but we’re headed out. You can follow the rest on Google’s YouTube channel.

  • Hijinks Movie Reviews: Date Night

    I honestly never really knew anything about Date Night prior to watching it, the only thing I knew was Steve Carell and Tina Fey were starring in a movie together, that alone was enough to make me want to see it. I was of the impression that the movie was about two single people going on the worst date ever, that’s not at all what the movie is about.

    Date Night was released in theaters on April 9, 2010 and on DVD and Blu-ray August 10, 2010. While it definitely isn’t anything you haven’t seen before, I think it’s the quality of the actors in the movie helped to make it a fun ride, from the 2 stars down to appearances by Mark Wahlberg and James Franco in a couple of hilarious scenes, Date Night does a good job of delivering the laughs. We’ll get into the movie a bit more after the jump. (more…)

  • What I’m Playing (and doing)

    What I’m Playing (and doing)

    It couldn’t last forever. After almost three months of weekly posts, I’ve gone AWOL for the past two weeks. This happens to coincide with a new role I’ve taken on at work, which involves me learning a completely new set of skills and working a lot of long hours.

    That’s not my excuse mind you. My excuse is Starcraft freakin’ 2. That game has taken over what free time I have left and consumed it within its addictive goodness. Which brings me to this:

    What Fred is Playing: Starcraft 2 Edition

    I bet you knew that Starcraft 2 was a thing, but did you know that there were even cooler things within that thing? I just blew your mind, I know. In Starcraft and Warcraft 3 there were these things called Custom games; user created maps that used gameplay derived but usually very different from the core campaign.

    The most popular was a Warcraft 3 map was called Defense of the Ancients, or DotA for short. One guy (the monosyllabic ‘Eul’) created the map, little knowing he was creating a new genre of games. Several standalone games have been developed based on this core concept, such as League of Legends, Demigod, and the more recent XBLA release of Monday Night Combat.

    Naturally Starcraft 2 had to have its DotA, and it does. They called it Storm of the Imperial Sanctum, or SotIS for short. Its not quite as polished as DotA was (and still is), but the developers are making great strides toward achieving their forerunners success.

    I’ve been playing a couple games every night, along with a couple marathon sessions on my weekends off with some friends. At some point in the future I’m going to write up a couple item builds for my favorite heroes and post them (ya know, so I can say I’m “researching for an article” when my girlfriend asks me what I’m doing).

    I’m hoping to get another promotion in the near future that offers some better hours, but until then, blogging might be a little hit or miss. Til next time!