Learn Something New Every Day

Every day, people learn something new that adds some kind of value to their lives. I am going to try to post at least one thing that I learn every day. I’m in law school, do some IT work, and just generally get around (who doesn’t?) so this shouldn’t be too difficult to do, right? We’ll see…
January 24

Sell Items With Free Shipping on eBay

  1. Select shipping rate as “Flat”
  2. Select “Free Shipping” next to shipping option.
(via http://pages.ebay.com/help/pay/questions/free-shipping.html)

January 16

To Install Flash in Firefox Portable

Surprisingly simple, and no install required…

  1. Download the extension http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/xpi/current/flashplayer-win.xpi by right clicking and selecting “Save Link As”
  2. After this open the file using either WinRar/WinZip and extract the
    lashplayer.xpt, NPSWF32.dll files to Mozilla Firefox\plugins\

via http://www.acidlabs.org/2006/09/05/installing-flash-in-portable-firefox-with-no-installer/, January 9, 2009 comment

May 23
FAIL: When booking tickets on Broadway.com, the site does not know if the seats you are booking are filled.  The service allows you to book any seat, regardless of whether it is filled or not.  The service pings the box office, after submission, and then determines if the seats are available.  If not available, you get an email.  When you call to re-book, they tell you that they do not know when a specific section is available and that you have to basically keep trying to find availability without ever knowing, until you get a later email, if the seats are available.  VERY BROKEN.  Get up on your technology Broadway.com, it’s called pinging on-the-fly — think about the customer. Learned something new today — don’t ever use broadway.com

FAIL: When booking tickets on Broadway.com, the site does not know if the seats you are booking are filled.  The service allows you to book any seat, regardless of whether it is filled or not.  The service pings the box office, after submission, and then determines if the seats are available.  If not available, you get an email. 

When you call to re-book, they tell you that they do not know when a specific section is available and that you have to basically keep trying to find availability without ever knowing, until you get a later email, if the seats are available.  VERY BROKEN.  Get up on your technology Broadway.com, it’s called pinging on-the-fly — think about the customer.

Learned something new today — don’t ever use broadway.com

May 5

Prison for Three Years is Grounds for Divorce

In New York, if a spouse is in prison for at least three years, then the non-imprisoned spouse has five years from the date of the imprisoned spouse’s release to bring a divorce action, claiming “prison” as the divorcee’s fault for the divorce.

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Constructive Abandonment

A spouse is deemed to have abandoned their significant other when the married individual refuses to have sex with their spouse.  There is no need to physically leave the marital home to abandon the spouse.  Refusal to have sex constitutes a “constructive abandonment” in New York and is grounds for a divorce.

May 1
Klean Kanteen - Stainless Steel Water Bottles

Why stainless steel?  Stainless steel is an iron-containing alloy made from some of the basic elements found on earth: iron ore, chromium, silicon, nickel, carbon, nitrogen, and manganese. Properties of the final alloy are tailored by varying amounts of these elements. There are more than 57 stainless steels recognized as standard alloys on the market. Klean Kanteens are constructed from high quality sanitary grade 304 stainless steel which has a low nickel content. Stainless steel has excellent resistance to stain or rust due to its chromium content making it a material of choice among the food processing, dairy and brewery industries. Stainless steel is easy to clean, durable, inert and sanitary.

Why is stainless steel better than aluminum?  Aluminum although light weight has to be lined with something to make sure the contents are safe for drinking.  Usually it is lined with baked on epoxy (toxic) or ceramic (can crack).

March 3
That brown water filter you are looking at used to be stark white.  After nine months of use, it turned that color.  Imagine drinking all that crap that the filter caught. Remember to change your ACE water filter at least every 6 months.

That brown water filter you are looking at used to be stark white.  After nine months of use, it turned that color.  Imagine drinking all that crap that the filter caught.

Remember to change your ACE water filter at least every 6 months.

January 29
Michael Caruso .net

I setup a personal site for myself.  I figured it was time and would only help when Googling my name.  Hopefully, I can surpass the former Men’s Journal editor so that I don’t look like a complete ass when someone googles me.
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PHP5 Class Constructor Overloading

There is no explicit class constructor overloading in PHP5 to my knowledge.  HOWEVER, you can explicitly supply defined arguments to a constructor class.

So, in Java, you could have a class like User(username, password) and User(username) in the same class.  In PHP, you would do __construct(username, password=”“), so that if a password is not supplied, then it assumes “” as the password.  You have to do a bit more variable handling within the constructor in PHP, but it still works!

January 28

How to Move Your "My Documents" folder

If you want to put your “My Documents” folder on a network share, for example, it’s actually pretty simple:

Right click on “My Documents” either in the Start Menu or the original (non-Shortcut) icon on the desktop.  Select “Properties.”  Select the “Target” tab at the top of the window that has opened.  Change the location in the input box to where you want the folder stored.  Click the “Move…” button below the input box.  You’re done!