LegRoom.net Kick back and relax

I just posted a small update to my Modify Path Inno Setup script. It fixes an issue I just discovered in the previous version that prevents it from being used in the same package with CLI Help. This is a bugfix release only; no other changes are included.

The new version can be downloaded from the script's home page:
Modify Path

There hasn't been much news posted here lately, so I wanted to give everyone an update on what's going on in regards to the website and various projects hosted here.

Website Spam
As anyone viewing the forum or old posts has undoubtedly noticed, this site has been overrun with spam. Since moving to Drupal 6 a couple years ago, the anti-spam module I used never worked quite right, resulting in a lot of extra work on my part to keep things tidy. After a while I got tired of dealing with the spam, and have simply neglected it since then. This is not good for several reasons, not the least of which is that legitimate posts got drowned out by the noise and never received any attention.

I spent just spent a couple hours deleting all of the spam I could find, so all that should be left on this site are legitimate posts. Unfortunately, at this time I have no good way to keep it that way, which leads into my next topic...

Forum, Comments, and User Accounts
Effectively immediately, the forum and news posts have been switched to read-only mode, and the ability to create new user accounts has been disabled. The end result is that no one can post new comments or topics to either the forum or website, and no one that doesn't already have an account can (automatically) create a new one. I was hoping I'd never have to resort to this, but until I get the time to upgrade my site again and implement an entirely new anti-spam system, I simply have no other way to keep the site clean.

Continuing on the topic of users, I'm also working on cleaning up all of the accounts. Some quick math showed I have about 6500 registered accounts when I started working on this, and I can guarantee that over 6400 of those are simply for spam. As I have no great way to distinguish the difference between legitimate and non-legitimate accounts when dealing in this volume, I'm taking the following approach. Any accounts meeting the following criteria will be deleted:

• Have never logged in
• Have not logged in for more than one year
• Has a last access time within one week of their account creation
• Has a suspicious looking username

I have no doubt this will include some innocent and legitimate users in the mix, and for that I apologize. As noted above, though, I don't have a better way of dealing with all the spam right now, and drastic actions are needed to get things back in order.

If you have a legitimate need to access the site, e-mail me. I can still create accounts manually. If you want to use the forum to post a question about Universal Extractor, I recommend posting to the MSFN forum instead. A bunch of great people frequent those forums, and you're more likely to get a timely response from them then from me for the foreseeable future. For anything else, e-mail me. My address isn't that hard to find if you really need it.

Software Projects
This really isn't anything new, but just to formally announce it: for now, all Legroom.net software projects are on hiatus. This does not mean that I've abandoned them or no longer plan on working on them, just that I don't have the time and/or desire to do so right now. As I said, this isn't anything new - most of this site in general has been on hiatus for a couple of years, so not much will change. When I resume development, don't worry, I'll be sure to post an update. :-)

The SSL certificates used by this website and other related Legroom.net services are expiring soon. As a result, I'm taking this opportunity to revamp the process I use for generating and managing my certificates. The end result will (at least I hope... ) be more flexible and easier to maintain system for me, with less interruptions necessary for my visitors going forward.

Unfortunately, this change also means that all existing Legroom.net certificates are no longer valid (if you received an error when viewing the page through an "https" link today, this is the reason). If you use the SSL version of this site or Legroom.net e-mail, you will need to update your copy of the Legroom.net certificate. In order to do so, please refer to the new Legroom.net SSL Certificates page I created. It's also available through a handy link in the Navigation menu on the left side of the site.

This page covers why I use self-signed certificates on this website, what that means to you, how Legroom.net certificates work, and how to install the Legroom.net CA certificate in a few common browsers and mail clients.

Please let me know if you encounter any problems.

Since the near-record height and flooding of the Mississippi River is all the news these days, I figured some people might be interested in seeing some pictures. I put up a small, very basic gallery of a few photos I took of the event, along with some added commentary. These are of the river itself, from up on the Chickasaw Bluff in downtown Memphis. These were taken about four days before, and three feet below, the projected crest of the river, so I'll probably take a few more and throw them up later this week.

Feel free to view the gallery if interested.

I updated my two Inno Setup support scripts. This update changes the licensing under which the scripts are available to the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL), version 3 (some discussion regarding this change can be found in my Legroom.net Copyright and Licensing post). There are also some bug fixes and enhancements included as well, which are documented in the changelogs. Upgrading is recommended.

The new versions can be downloaded from each script's home page:
Modify Path
CLI Help

I've just been notified that the download links for Universal Extractor have not been functional, returning a 404 Not Found. This was the result of an inappropriate and inexcusable action taken by the shitty webhost currently hosting these files. I will consequently likely be moving the files soon to another host. In the meantime, the download links are working again. If you notice any similar problems in the future, please e-mail me ASAP.

Mess of cables

I'm going to be changing up my home theater setup for the first time since moving to my house. I'm still using all of the same components, but they'll be interconnected differently, with several components now routed through a video switch, which will (finally!) let me hook up all of my various components and game systems at the same time and easily switch between them as desired. This will be a nice improvement over my current setup, where only my most commonly used components are hooked up, and even switching between them can involved changing inputs on multiple devices. I'm very much looking forward to making this change.

Unfortunately, this means pretty much rewiring my entire setup, and I'm not going to lie; I have a crap ton of cables. After disconnecting everything and piling up all the cables, I was so impressed I felt the need to take a picture for posterity. Shown here are (almost) all of the cables that were piled up behind my TV. This excludes a few cables that I couldn't easily remove (like speaker cables and power cords), but otherwise... yeah, that's a lot of cables. You'll want to click on the thumbnail to view the large image for the full effect.

Now, the fun will really begin this weekend when I need to put everything back together, along with the new switch and the 6 additional sets of cables I ordered for the new interconnects. Yay!