Peter's Useful Crap

Here’s a simple script that I originally wrote for a silly intramural league. It has since evolved a bit.

The first version was publicly released on January 28, 2007, and the latest version was released on May 6, 2009.

It provides a display of league standings and an administration interface to manage the seasons, conferences, divisions, teams and scores. You can also create multiple users to manage your league with fine-grained permission control.

Technically you could tweak the code to apply it to all sorts of leagues. We had an intramurals league where every week was a different sport: rugby basketball, ultimate frisbee, california kickball, indoor baseball, some chicken game, indoor soccer, roller tennis… OK, I’m kidding on the roller tennis part.

Requirements:
1) PHP (let’s say PHP 4?)
2) MySQL (let’s say MySQL 3?)

Upgrading:
From version 1.x to version 1.3 — see forum thread
From version 1.x to version 1.2 — see forum thread
From version 1.0 to version 1.1 — see forum thread

Fresh install instructions:
1) Download and unzip standings.zip to your server
2) Open settings.php and set the appropriate username, password, and database name, as well as many other options (which columns to show, the password to access the administration interface, etc.).
3) Run the SQL commands in standingssql.sql to insert the appropriate database tables
4) Access update.php for the administration interface! The default username is “admin” and the default password is “theblog”.

Note: I originally wrote it to be integrated into WordPress, so I’ve stolen a bit of the CSS from that.

There are no plans for ongoing development anymore. Be sure to check the forums for troubleshooting and tips on extending the script.

February 14th update:

Well, looks like CompuSmart Vancouver has officially closed. Not cool how they prematurely removed the contact info from the website, but I guess now it doesn’t matter. So any support matters will have to be taken to Victoria or Terrace? I don’t know, but keep me updated! Perhaps I can use this post as a forum for CompuSmart Vancouver refugees.

Here’s a reply from CompuSmart to a fellow Vancouverite inquiry about his iMac:

In response to your inquiry, the decision regarding the closure of the
Vancouver Store was a corporate decision taken, there is no plans to
reopen a store in Vancouver anytime soon. We do apologize for the
trouble you are having with your iMac, we do have two store in the
British Columbia area one in Victoria and the other in Terrace. If you
would like I can provide you with both number and the Smart plan
Warranty service number, please let us know by e-mail.

I hope that this information will help and please feel free to contact
us again should you require any further information.

Please come back and visit us soon again at CompuSmart.com

—————————–

For some reason, the CompuSmart webpage shows only two stores in BC, omitting the one in downtown Vancouver. Is this a temporary thing? I dunno — but for the time being, here’s the info in case anybody is looking for it. Yeah, you could probably use the yellow pages, but if you are one of those people who uses Google for everything, maybe you’ll find this post.

When selling / giving away / parting with your computer or hard drive, you might have sensitive data that you don’t want people to be able to access. This could take the form of documents with trade secrets, passwords, and whatnot.

You could “delete” the files, but this just deletes the record of the file — the data still sits on the hard drive. Formatting your hard drive is a much better solution, although 1) this wipes out the operating system and all installed applications (although I guess you could defragment, then partition your drive first, in order to keep the OS) and 2) I’ve read that even in this case, only the address tables are wiped — the data is… still there.

Well, when we say that the data is on the hard drive, it is on the hard drive until it is overwritten. So, why not… fill your hard drive with useless crap (overwriting all your deleted-but-still-there sensitive data), then delete the useless crap. Thus if anybody recovers the data, they are recovering crap. If you have a DVD movie, just make several copies of it on your computer until your hard drive is full. Then delete the movie files.

Or, you could use this program that I found for Windows that generates empty files. It’s called superleech ratio buster, but make sure you are careful in using it, as its interface is a bit clunky. Download superleech ratio buster.

If you have 10gb to fill, enter something like “10 1″ for the ratio, then “1024 mb” for the download file. If you use those settings and accidentally enter “100 1″ for the ratio, the program will start generating a 100gb file. Generate some small files first (use a ratio of “1 1″ and “1 mb” download file size) so that you know what you’re doing…

I recently switched from Rogers Wireless Pay As You Go to 7-Eleven Speak Out Wireless. So far I’ve loved the 7-Eleven service, although I can’t say I’ll be loyal to them if an even better deal comes along.

At any rate, most cell phones have a timer to record the length of calls:

On my phone, the timer starts when the person on the other end picks up the phone. Recently I had a call that clocked in at 2:59 and 7-Eleven charged me for three minutes. This is great! After all, anything between 2:01 and 3:00 should be charged as a three-minute call.

However, I was using the same phone with my Rogers plan last year, and I know for sure that calls that came in at the 52-second, 54-second, 59-second marks were routinely being charged for the next minute as well. In other words, a 2:59 call would have been charged for four minutes. This leads me to believe that Rogers either has a wrongly-calibrated timer, or that it charges for ringing time.

Oh chapstick… how ChapStick managed to achieve a Xerox-like genericized trademark is a feat in itself. But that’s not what this post is about…

I’ve always had chapped lips (well, dry skin in general) but was only convinced to start using chapstick a few years ago. I’ve always used Blistex Complete Moisture (or whatever it’s called) and it certainly helps my lips out. However, it costs a good $2.99, so being the cheapskate that I am, I was curious to see if there’s a cheaper product that might work as well. After all, I find no difference between Life brand and Listerine mouthwash, or between no-name cereal and that of the Kellogg’s or Post variety. I don’t want to pay extra if the money just goes to fund advertising initiatives.

So I purchased this chapstick called Lypsyl from Mac’s just a while ago for the wonderful price of $1.79. How I went through a week with that stuff is a feat in itself. Lypsyl might have made my lips worse. It actually feels a bit rough on application. I quickly came crying back to Blistex.

Is this an isolated Lypsyl incident? Is there something cheaper than but just as good as Blistex?