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Ad Blockers can Ruin Your Legitimate Web App that Isn’t Even Serving Ads

November 21st, 2007 tony 2 comments

Since rebranding some of our old classifieds sites and relaunching the system as OhSoHandy.com in a newly built Ruby on Rails app we’ve received a handful of emails complaining about strange behavior that always involved links not appearing for the user.

How do you read the rest of the postings or see any pictures that were uploaded?!?! There are no links on the classifieds to keep reading them. Please help since I am new to the website.

At first I discounted this as user error. “These fools don’t know how to use the internets!” DELETE.
Read more…

Categories: Code, Ruby on Rails Tags:

Ah the Power of Mass Link Buying

October 26th, 2007 tony No comments

Enjoy ranking for one of the biggest money keywords in search but you screwed up your CMS and left a crappy title tag on your homepage?

No problem! You’ve bought links!

online poker mess

Categories: Backlinks Tags:

Is Raleigh Dumping our Recycling in the Landfill?

October 25th, 2007 tony 2 comments

Man I hope not but I happened to be looking out the window this morning to see all my recyclables being tossed into the back of a normal garbage truck rather than the usual sort-it-on-the-street truck. Maybe there is a good explanation.

I shot this video before the truck rolled out of site:

Categories: Uncategorized Tags:

Ruby’s try{ catch } block

October 16th, 2007 tony 5 comments

As are many posts on this blog, this one is just a reminder for myself and anyone else who can’t remember the ruby equivalent of a try/catch block and has had to Google it several times because their memory sucks Read more…

Categories: Ruby Tags:

This Plant Will Kill Your Dog (and maybe your kids)

October 3rd, 2007 tony 176 comments

We were letting our dog play outside all day Sunday and upon checking on him found that he had yanked a small houseplant off of the deck and was chewing on the root of it. He chews on all kinds of plants in the yard and I thought of tossing it over the fence but figured he would just try to dig under to get it so unfortunately I let him keep it.

A couple hours later we let him in the house and he’s foaming yellow froth, drooling, and shaking. 20 minutes later we are in the emergency vet and are told the prognosis is not good and he’ll likely die.

The plant is called a Sago Palm and its highly poisonous to both pets and humans. A chemical in the plant called cycasin is toxic and often causes permanent liver damage as well as neurological damage if enough of the poison is absorbed by the body. The seeds are the most poisonous part of the plant and the effects on humans are seizures, coma and death.

Of course you and I wouldn’t just yank off a chunk of this plant and gnaw on it but the seeds are colorful so if you have kids and Sago palm in your yard educate them on the danger or get rid of the plant.

Fortunately our dog was one of the lucky ones. I later discovered that our dog vomited the plant in the yard soon after swallowing it, and after 2 days in the vet on IV, and having a ball of charcoal inserted in his stomach, a test revealed that his liver was recovering and he came home. Sadly few people are aware of how dangerous this plant, many have lost their dogs, and even many veterinarians are unaware. This plant doesn’t carry a warning label and is becoming popular in Walmart, Lowes, and Home Depot so spread the word.

Best advice I’ve read: Don’t let your animal chew on any plants.

Categories: Uncategorized Tags: