The bug affected how the blog displayed in IE vs. Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox.

In IE, the "Read the rest of the entry" expandable section function worked properly.

In the other browsers, rather than displaying the above as a link which "expanded" the rest of the entry in-place, I had a "Posted by <author> at <date>" where the <author> had a mailto: link and the <date> had a link to the full entry.

This, by the way, is the default for the Movable Type default entry template.

I had always assumed that Netscape et.al. did not display correctly due to a difference in the way they handled the javascript and HTML.

Turns out, it was a bug in my code!

I always endeavor to comment my code well. I also typically retain old HTML - just in case - and deactivate it by bracketing the old code with the HTML begin <!-- and end --> comment markers

I also use this format to identify functional sections, for example:

<!-- Start section which does whatever -->

Code which does whatever

<!-- End section which does whatever -->

<!-- Start section which does something else -->

Code which does something else

<!-- End section which does something else -->

Unfortunately, it turns out that I neglected the --> for one of my start section comments. Since I had a "start" immediately following and "end" comment, I guess IE just saw the two as one long comment, but Netscape et. al. acted very differently.

Amazing how adding three characters can have such a profound impact.

Guess that's why I didn't make it long term as a programmer.

PS. This entry was written in SharpMT. It only seemed fitting given this all revolved around Extended Entries, and WLW doesn't support them (yet).

While I am talking about SharpMT, I should also mention one negative I've found with WLW - the HTML it generates for each entry is quite bloated compared to that which is generated by SharpMT. Guess it is analogous to the difference between a file generated by a text editor and a word processor.

FlightAware, which I have added to my Flight Tracking Links on Witsdom.

One of my favorite features on FlightAware is the animated twenty four hour flight analysis loop (note: you must have QuickTime installed to use this feature). It is so cool to watch the ebb and flow of the traffic over the course of the day.

I guess I'm not the only one impressed with this site, as some of the major broadcast networks have also starting using it, either alone, in in a mashup with Google Earth which you can access via this link (note: you must have Google Earth installed to use this feature).

And speaking of interesting mashups, if you go to the fboweb Aeroseek tracker, after you enter the flight information, on the results page, you are offered a button which will allow you to display the flight as a real time updated overlay on Google Earth.

And speaking of interesting mashups, if you go to the fboweb Aeroseek tracker, after you enter the flight information, on the results page, you are offered a button which will allow you to display the flight as a real time updated overlay on Google Earth.

On a related theme, this entry in the Google Earth Blog has a number of links which allow you to get all of the traffic for a number of major US airports overlayed on Google Earth.

Way Cool!

Live365 has just about every musical genre you can think of, and it is free - if you clicked on the link above, just click on the 5 day trial, then click on the Live365.com icon on the top right of the page, or the home link at the bottom, which will take you to the free version.

Other sources for barbershop include:

a-cappella.com and the Public Radio Music Source 800-75-MUSIC

Happy listening!

It felt good to get back up in the air, and I couldn't have asked for a prettier day to fly.

I ended up flying with the CAP squadron commander, which made Jeanie more comfortable than had I flown alone.

Turns out he had reserved the plane for the time right before I had, and he called me to let me know he might be a few minutes late getting back. When he called, he mentioned that he was going up to take some pictures, so I offered to fly, so he could concentrate on the photography.

After we did the photography thing, which was good practice for me - sort of like flying a real photography mission, I headed out northwest to do some slow flight, stalls, steep turns, etc. Paul even taught me how to fly a creeping line search, which is a skill I'll need when I get serious about becoming a mission pilot. It was also good to have another pilot there to provide feedback on my practice. After returning from the practice area and doing a few touch and goes, Paul and I switched seats and I rode shotgun while he shot a few approaches.

The good news is that my arm/hand was fine as far as the flying is concerned.

The bad news is that there's still some numbness in a part of the thumb, and a strange sensation in the palm and heel of the hand. It doesn't affect my ability to do things with the hand, it just bugs me.

The other bad news is that I'm starting to feel angry that my hand surgeon didn't refer me to a peripheral nerve surgeon. I don't know that having a peripheral nerve surgeon do the surgery would have yielded any better results, but the wondering is gnawing at me. And unfortunately, the Internet isn't helping me. I am still really confused about why, if it is a schwannoma, there was any impact to the feeling in my hand since everything I read seems to indicate that there shouldn't have been, which makes me think it is a neurofibroma, which would explain the impact, but then makes me question the diagnosis. And, if it is a schwannoma, everything I read seems to imply that it should have been able to have been safely removed, or at least significantly reduced. If anything, the lump in my arm is larger than when I started this whole mess, which, quite honestly, at this point, I wish I'd never started. All it did was take a lot of time, cost a lot of money, cause a significant amount of worry, cause pain for the actual surgery, and end up with things worse than they were before.

Yes, I am grateful that the tumor wasn't malignant. Yes, I'm grateful there weren't major complications like infection or severe nerve damage / loss of function. But, to be brutally honest, at the moment, I am feeling an itsy bit sorry for myself, which makes me feel like a turd, when I think about the really bad stuff so many people bravely endure.

I think I'll ponder that, and get my attitude straightened out, since the reality is that most of the world's population would gladly kill to switch places with me.

and the number of new comment spams actually posted in the last two days?

ZERO!

And the processor utilization?

Down from averaging in the eighties to in the thirties, and sometimes down into single digits - TOP and SAR are such wonderful tools!

I've even started approaching the management of the .htaccess file a little more systematically.

Once a day, I create a file containing the last 500 entries from the access_log file by executing tail -500 access_log > access_log.txt. I then take the access_log.txt and import it into an Excel worksheet in which I've created a pivot table. A quick refresh of the pivot data and resort, and I can see who the top accessors of the blog are. Typically, these are the big spammers. The one thing I do double check is what the typical action of these accessors is - I want to block the spammers, but not the search engine robots. Interestingly, while there are lots of addresses who will show one, two, maybe ten hits, there are only a few which show tens or hundreds of hits. Those are the ones which get added to the .htaccess.

At some point, I may even start paring down the MT-Blacklist blacklist, which I believe would speed up the comment processing and reduce the server load.

Of course the better solution would be to just bite the bullet and upgrade to MovableType 3.2, but that would be a pretty big learning curve, and I'd have to actually pay for it in order to manage all of the blogs I host. Yeah, guess I'll stick with what I have for now. Maybe I'll upgrade if I ever really get serious about blogging.

I learned that there are peripheral nerve surgeons!

Like neurosurgery isn't specialized enough?

Of course, now my question is, if there are such highly specialized doctors as peripheral nerve surgeons, and my hand surgeon had a high degree of confidence that my problem was a tumor of a nerve in my arm, why didn't he refer me to a peripheral nerve surgeon for a second opinion, and for the performance of the exploratory surgery / biopsy?

Rather than who knows how many dollars spent for still having the tumor, having more pain than I did pre-surgery and a loss of feeling in my thumb, had I been referred to the peripheral nerve surgeon, would I now have no tumor, no pain and no loss of sensation?

The incision from the surgery is healing nicely, so the doctor removed the bandages and sutures. I now just have a removable splint that I wear simply to provide some protection to the incision area for another week or two. The doctor said I have no restrictions on the use of my left hand, within the realms of common sense, as long as I don't try to push too far too fast.

Turns out that I have a benign schwannoma (also called a neurilemoma or schwannoglioma), which is a tumor of the nerve sheath. Since the tumor is extensively integrated into the medial nerve, the recommendation is that we just leave it, and keep an eye on it over time through annual MRIs and physical examination.

I am a bit confused about the diagnosis, because from what I've been able to find on the net, it would seem that by definition, a schwannoma does not involve the nerve itself, and as such, should be fully removable. So, either it is a schwannoma, in which case, why isn't it sitting in a jar of formalin somewhere, or if it has infiltrated the nerve fibers, is it not really instead a neurofibroma? I guess I'll ask the doctor when I see him in a month for my follow up.

If you want to see what a medial nerve schwannoma looks like (a much smaller, not mine version) look here, but be forewarned, these are medical photographs and not for the squeamish. Here's another, although as you can see, this is less than 2cm, whereas mine is ~5cm. One more, not a medial nerve, but good pics nonetheless.

The pain is tolerable, even without medication, and I've regained sensation in all but just a small portion of my thumb, so overall, life is good.

I first tried using MT's IP blocking, but it doesn't appear to work too well, so, I decided to go right to the server...

My approach was to use an .htaccess file to block specific IP addresses. I know that IPs change all the time, but at least I can stop some of the systems which are absolutely hammering my server right now.

Not only did I end up having to place the .htaccess files in the root directory of the virtual server, but also in the cgi directory.

At first, that alone didn't work.

Turns out I also had to modify the Directory sections of httpd.conf to change from AllowOverride None to AllowOverride Limit.

Those changes, and a restart of the httpd process seem to be helping.

The specifics of .htaccess?

<Limit GET POST>
Order Allow,Deny
Allow from all
Deny from aa.bb.cc.0/24
</Limit>

The aa.bb.cc is replaced with the first three stanzas of the offending segment - in this case, there were a number of servers all hitting me from this segment, so I blocked the entire thing. Note, that's a zero after the cc. not the letter O, to limit a specific IP address, you would add another line Deny from ee.ff.gg.hh

Note the Order statement seems counterintuitive to me, but here's a good explanation: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/1.3/mod/mod_access.html#order

If you noticed I've been off the air for a while, it was due initially to work and then to surgery.

Work has been busy as we've approached deadline for submission of the proposal for the engagement I'm on.

And if that we're enough of an impediment, last week, I had surgery on my left forearm. The surgery was a combination exploratory / biopsy thing.

I've had a lump just above my wrist on the inside of my forearm for as long as I can remember. Every doctor I've ever asked about it told me it was a ganglion cyst. It has grown over the years to the point where it was becomming a bother and causing some pain. So, a few months ago, when I lacerated my thumb, I decided to go see a hand surgeon. The primary motivation was the thumb, but while I was there, I did one of those "oh by the way" things that people do to doctors. Well, that led to an MRI, which led to another MRI (with contrast) which led to the surgery.

Seems it isn't - and never was - a ganglion cyst.

While I won't know for sure until Monday, odds are, it is a plexiform neurofibroma. Most likely, it is benign, and I already know that it can not be removed surgically. For those of you not up to speed on your 'oma's, it is basically a tumor of the nerve sheath. In my case, of the median nerve. The tumor is quite nicely intertwined with the nerve and blood vessels. Thus the plexiform, or "bag of worms" descriptor. Removal of the tumor would result in the loss of use of my left thumb, index and middle fingers.

I had expected that the surgery would be performed under "twilight" anesthesia, but it ended up being done under general, which knocked me out. Sorry, couldn't resist.

I had also expected to have a little bandaid over the incision, but instead awoke to find an immobilizing bandage 2/3 of the way to my elbow. There must be splints or something in there, because for all practical purposes, it is like my hand/wrist/forearm is in a cast.

Thus, the one handed typing.