Eli's Refrigerator Box

Today, we start anew

Eli Gundry — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:36:43 +0000

While sitting in the Taco Bell parking lot this evening, while eating my chalupa, I realized that I hated the look of my web site. It’s dated and ugly. I want something new, bold, and awesome. And then I realized that was what I was going to do. I also realized that I got chalupas confused with goreditas, and that chalupas suck.

Back to the issue at hand. Starting today, I will begin working on the second version of eligundry.com. This post is less about you, the reader, but more of a mission statement for myself, to remind myself what it is that I am going to do. I will try to blog this whole process, but as the past has shown me, don’t count on it, as I get easily distracted.

My goals for the new site are:

To be written in valid HTML 5
To use some CSS3
Make use of jQuery and more advanced Javascript
Integrate my Last.fm, Twitter, and blog into the site dynamically
Be fully compatible with Internet Explorer
A complete redesign of the blog to match the website
More advanced uses of PHP

I know that these are lofty goals, but I feel that they are attainable ones. The biggest issue will be finding time to do this as well as my college work and work at Radio Shack. Hopefully, I can get this done fast, but I won’t be supervised if this takes til next year to fully launch.

So, there you have it. This redesign may take time, but then I remind myself that I can get this site out of beta faster than Gmail.

To all the spammers

Eli Gundry — Thu, 21 May 2009 22:31:30 +0000

Fuckers....

Recently, I posted a small ad on Craigslist offering up my web design skills for free. This is an extremely generous offer, conisidering my jobless situation. My generousity aside, I’ve gotten a couple of spam emails instead of offers. And for each spam email, I have responded politely and professionaly. But today, the camel’s back broke and I decided to take my revenge.

It all started with this email from “M.Falsetta984@gmail.com” (feel free to spam him, he deserves it).

Hey.

I saw your ad in the services section. Noticed you put a phone number. I highly recommend using a professional phone system that will have a call in greeting (with a nice voice over). The system I use allows for ringing to my computer, cell phone, land line, or multiple people. It has voicemail boxes, 800 numbers and much more, it is basically a must for anyone taking phone calls. They have got a free trial you can use to try it out. If you do not already use something like this definitely give it a shot.

Try RingCentral Online FREE for 30 days

I also have a friend who is a radio DJ and does voiceover stuff for phone on hold and greeting intros.

It is nice because no matter how small your business is it screams professionalism to the caller which makes them more confident in dealing with you.

If you need a voice over done let me know, and let me know what you think of the service. I have been using it for quite some time for my web design business and it makes a world of difference.

Thanks

You’ll note that I broke the link. This is because my hosts file flagged it, for whatever reason, so I feel that it is in my best interest to protect my readers from it. So let’s see my response.

Hey.

I noticed your email in my inbox. I noticed you put a link. I highly recommend using working links when sending spam. Or maybe it’s my modified hosts file protecting me from obnoxious ads. Whatever the case, it’s obvious you need help with the internet. That’s where I come in. I can provide affordable web designs at a rapid pace.

Just for you Miguel, I’ll give you a special a special offer that I rarely make.

For the next 30 days you can take one step back and FUCK YOUR OWN FACE!!!

Miguel, you are scum, so I doubt that you have a friend that is a DJ, or that you have any friends at all.

And don’t talk to me about professionalism. I eat professionalism for breakfast and piss excelence.

If you ever need someone to hold a gun to your head while you dig your own grave, let me know, because I’d be more than happy to do it. I’m sure everyone would be much happier if you were dead.

Thanks

I know that I’m supposed to put up a front and just move it to my spam folder, but sometimes you just need to unwind. Maybe next time Miguel Falsetta will think twice when he reads that little block of text at the bottom of Craigslist that says:

It’s NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

Or else you will get this:

Eli Explains: Search Engine Optimization

Eli Gundry — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 03:38:51 +0000

Now that is just awesome.

While I do not claim to be an expert in the field of web design or search engine optimization, I do have a fairly neat looking web site showing up on the top of Google. Mind you, this web site has only been up for a couple of weeks and my name is fairly obscure, the tips that I think I can give you can apply to most anyone trying to promote themselves.

1. Meta Tags Are Your Bestest Friend

I am the number one Eli Gundry on Google!

The concept of meta tags are quite simple: give web crawlers a quick way to index web pages with little tidbits of information. These include things like titles, tags, and descriptions. For a more in-depth view on meta tags and all that they are capable of, check out this article at Search Engine Watch. Meta tags go in the head section of your web page.

The main meta tags you want to focus on are the meta elements called keywords, description and title. Your title is the name of your web page that you want Google or any other search engine to show in the link. This title should give users a general idea of what the web page is about and what they will get by clicking on it. Make sure it makes sense, is short and concise, and accurately describes the web page.

Keywords are tags for crawlers to index. If a user types a word matching one or more of your tags, your results will appear higher up in the search results. A word to the wise though, do not go overboard in your keywords, as if you have too many, your results will actually hurt your chances of placing higher in the results.

And the description tag will summarize the content of your web page and will show up below the link in the search results. Like all other meta tags, they should be accurate and short. Most search engines have a limit of 160 characters in the description tag, so make every word count.

Below is a sample of the meta tag in action.



Title of Web Page

Maintaining meta information can be a bit tricky when using a blog, like Wordpress. Luckily for us, the is a plugin for Wordpress called All In One SEO Pack, which is fantastic for tagging all your posts easily.

2. Build An XML-Sitemap

This is where you tell Google to find your sitemap.

When people see “XML”, they tend to freak out just a little. I am here to tell you to calm down and embrace it. An XML-Sitemap is submitted to a search engine, like Google or Yahoo, and each page is then indexed, making it much easier to find. And all you need to do this is an XML-Sitemap and a Google Webmaster Tools Account.

You can write your own sitemap, but why should you bother when great sites like xml-sitemaps.com exist? All you have to do is put in your address and it will index the site for you and spit out a crisp XML-Sitemap.

This is where you make a sitemap.

This site is great for static HTML and PHP pages, but what about Wordpress blogs? You see, sitemaps need to be updated after each post manually, which is a time consuming and unnecessary. Enter the Wordpress plugin Google XML Sitemaps. Install it to Wordpress, point Google to it, and leave it be. It will automatically update after each new post and submit the updated sitemap to all the major search engines.

3. Link It Up

I created this just to improve my SEO.

The way Google determines the order of links is based of a mixture of page visits, relevancy, links go to and from your site. For this tip, we will focus on that last one. All you have to do is make as many pages link to your site as possible, and in the age of social networks, this is easier than ever.

Have a Facebook? Link it to up. Go to forums and use a signature? Link it up. Heck, go out of your way and create profiles on social networks just to point to your site (i.e. Google profiles). The bigger the site you link it to the better, as your are basically piggy-backing off of their SEO-goodness.

4. Make A Decent Site

"If you make it, they will come..."

If the best SEO in the world can’t save you if your web site has nothing of value on it. Sure, those meta tags are nice, but the web site is unreadable and full of blinking text. Poor web design is inexcusable, no matter what the situation, and don’t count on Google to pick up the slack for you. SEO is just here to help people see your informative and elegant web site.

Eli Explains: How to rip DVD’s with Handbrake

Eli Gundry — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 00:55:36 +0000

“Eli, how do I rip DVD’s?”

This the question I get asked most at school. And often, I will try to explain, but as I do, I can tell they just get lost. Maybe I’m just no good at talking. Maybe these people need me to hold their hands and just show them how to do it. Wait. That sounds pretty good. Lets do that.

This tutorial assumes that you have Windows, but you can still kind of follow this on a Mac, as they use the same program. What you need is:

Step 1: Choose DVD

This is Sin City. It is amazing.

I chose Frank Miller’s “Sin City”. I do dig film noir movies.

Step 2: Insert DVD

Do I even need this picture?

I mean, this is pretty self-explanatory, but you’d be surprised what I see.

Step 3: Fire up DVD Decrypter and copy the disk

It may be old, but it is awesome!

DVD Decrypter strips the CSS copy protection from your DVD movie and copies it to your hard drive. At this point, the movie is technically “ripped”, but note, at this point the ripped movie is about 8 gigabytes and broken up into tiny pieces. The next step will fix that.

Step 4: Use Handbrake to make your movie awesome

Handbrake is my best friend. It will soon be yours, also.

Open Handbrake and click on the “Source” button and then click on the VIDEO_TS option. You will then navigate Handbrake to where DVD Decrypter placed your DVD. This will usually be in the main part of your C drive, so finding it should be simple.

Handbrake will then analyze your file and then you need to choose a place to save your file in the “Destination” box. I save to my desktop for easy access.

Step 5: Handbrake and it’s limitless options

Your video size is pretty important....If size matters to you.

Handbrake is just a GUI frontend of the open source FFmpeg project. If that flew over your head, don’t worry about it. Simply put, FFmpeg is a very complex command line beast, one that not even it’s creator fully understand (alright, I made that last part up). Handbrake just puts a face on that command line, making it easy for you and I to use.

That said, Handbrake is still pretty complex. Luckly for us, there is a wide ranging amount of built in presets for common devices. So if all you want to watch your movie on is a PS3, just click on the PS3 preset and hit encode and consider yourself done. For me though, I’m a little more picky.

In the picture settings tab, I make my video a little smaller. In the video tab, I make a target file size 1000 megabytes. In the audio tab, I leave the audio as ACC, so that I can get 5.1 channels of audio. I mean, there are limitless options, so feel free to experiment or read the Handbrake wiki for more info.

After you do this, click the Start button at the top.

Step 6: And now we play the waiting game…

You will learn to hate this sight.

Now a window that looks like this will pop up. This window means that the video is rendering. This step will put a lot of strain on your computer, using up much of it’s resources. I can’t recommend using your computer during this time, either, as it will make the video skip, and you don’t want that, do you?

This also takes a very long time. On my computer, which has 2 gigs of memory and a decent dual core processer, it took Handbrake and hour and a half to two hours to encode a movie. Your time will vary depending on how good your computer is.

Step 7: Enjoy that movie!

It's a very intense movie, I must say.

Your movie is now in a nice viewable state. I use VLC media player to watch my movies, but depending on your settings, it really doesn’t matter. Go ahead and watch that movie anytime, anywhere, and on anything. Also, you can now delete that huge 8 gig copy of that DVD on your hard drive.

Notes:

If you want to rip a bunch of movies overnight, copy them all at once with DVD Decrypter and then follow the steps in Handbrake. When it comes time to start the encoding, hit “Add to Queue” and then add and configure your next movie. After that, in the Queue viewer, hit the start button.

This is the window of champions or aXXo. Same thing really.

If you are on a Mac, you can still use Handbrake. In fact, if you have VLC media player installed, you can skip copying the DVD part with DVD Decrypter. Handbrake will use VLC’s DVD decrypting technology, so it will rip it right off the disk.
While this is kind of illegal, it’s a moral gray area. The way I see it, it is no different then ripping a CD I own or borrowed from a friend/library. Do what you think is right and don’t tell me how to think.

Question? Comments? Leave me a comment and we’ll talk it out.

Daily Musing: Somewhat Embrassing Material

Eli Gundry — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 18:06:44 +0000

Just look at the pics after the break. I don’t even really wanna talk about it right now. Or ever.

Daily Musings: YOUUU!

Eli Gundry — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 02:32:22 +0000

Today, I was reflecting on one of my favorite Office Space scenes that invovled a pet rock and a horrible idea. More specifically, I was having these thoughts while listening to Soulja Boy (don’t ask, just don’t) and it got me to thinking. If the definition of success is making a million dollars, then Mr. Boy must be very successful, despite the fact his music sucks ass. I mean he wanted to become a Flash Programmer. That in itself is a failure, as Actionscript would be more accurately described as Actionshit.

Alas, what does it matter? Not much I guess. All I can pray for is that I have to never hear Crank Dat when driving ever again. Video after the break.

Confessions of an iTunes Virgin: Something bad creeps this way

Eli Gundry — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 17:54:57 +0000

I have something of a confession to make: I’ve never really used iTunes. I mean sure, I’ve installed it and used it for a day or two, but then promptly uninstalled it cause it was too slow. And I do own an iPod, but that has always had Rockbox on it, so I just dragged and dropped. I usually use Foobar2000 for listening to music, that is, until today.

As I am something of an iTunes virgin, I’ve decided to give it a fair shot for a week. That means I will use it for a whole week for all of my music needs and report back here in a week to describe my experiences. If I’m feeling really saucy, I might just format my iPod also to try the orginal firmware for once.

So far, I just have it installed, my libary has been indexed (which took a hella long time, if you ask me), and now I’m just waiting for Genius to get done so I can try dynamic playlist goodness. All is smoothe right now, except that I notice my computer running slower at times, but the true test will be when I restart and see how long it takes to boot up. A little suprised that it’s installer is 64 bit, but the program is not.

Wish me luck!

The Importance of The Hood Internet, Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Hip-Hop

Eli Gundry — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 17:18:35 +0000

In my previous blog, I talked about my love for The Hood Internet. For those unaware, The Hood Internet is a remix duo based out of Chicago the remixes the a capella versions of rap songs with other indie, electronic, and rock songs as back beats. This usually leads to some pretty funky song combinations, such as Drippy I-N-D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-T, featuring Webbie and Black Moth Super Rainbow, or Tambourine Reckoning, featuring Eve and Radiohead. I could go on and on, as they have hundreds of songs all available for free.

The reason I find The Hood so listenable is that they introduce and element of familarity to their songs that I find very enjoyable. For example, I might not have known UNK, but I sure as hell knew LCD Soundsystem. Their music makes everything more enjoyable.

And best of all, their music introduced me to music I wouldn’t have heard otherwise. Without the Tobacco Vs. Aesop Rock Mixtape, I would have never heard of Black Moth Super Rainbow. They are my new favorite band (and they have a new album dropping on May 26, so check it out).

I can’t wait to see what The Hood Internet does next. I can only hope that they drop a mixtape with nothing but Black Moth Super Rainbow, but that probably won’t happen. Don’t stop guys!

The Hood Internet Homepage
The Hood Internet ieem page

Website Status

Eli Gundry — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 18:55:17 +0000

I’m sorry that I haven’t posted in a very long while (almost a month), but this is purely due to the fact that I’ve been working so hard on my website. I set up the subdomain test.eligundry.com so that curious eyes may be able to see the current status of my website. As you can see, thus far I only have the basic outline of the website. This is only after a month of solid work (two and a half hours each day). I consider my progress to be extremely disappointing, because I know that I can do much better with my time management. That said, this is the first website in which that I am actually happy with the design of. And a lot of that time was spent learning the ins and outs of CSS (which I found to be really easy to learn and use) and now I feel extremly comfortable using it.

Also, in that time, I finally figured out how to design a Wordpress theme. I found a great blank theme at refueled.net in which I used to fancy up this blog. My newly found knowledge of CSS help the designing of this Wordpress theme to be extremely easy. I just ask that you report any problems that you have with this theme to me in the comments.

All thats left for me to do on the website is:

~Finish the layout of the website. I have a general idea of what it will look like, but coding it has proven to be a little difficult, but I’ll get the idea soon enough.

~Figure out what I’ going to put in the gallery. I have no idea what to there yet. Maybe make some sample websites, I dunno.

~Make more blog posts and random quotes for the bottom of the page. In case you hadn’t noticed, the bottom of the page displays random and sometimes funny quotes. Check out this page to learn how to use javascript to make these quotes happen.

I plan to have this website finished within the next month or so, but that is always subject to change.

Operation Blank Keyboard

Eli Gundry — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:05:20 +0000

I have always wanted to learn to touch type. Maybe it was all the tech movies I saw, when the hackers could just type hundreds of lines of code without looking at the keyboard at all. Or maybe it was that typing class I took freshman year in high school that I failed cause I chicken pecked the keyboard. And I could never get the concept of home keys at all. This would make my desire of learning to touch type rather difficult. That is, until I saw this article.

While this article is mainly about painting your keyboard (which I discovered doesn’t work as well as it should, but that is another story), the author touches on the fact that if you have a black keyboard, sanding the letters off the keys is possible. This got me thinking, which got me to acting, finally ending with me and a completely blank keyboard making sweet, touch typing love. And, while I can’t type that fast (about 20-30 words per minute) or that accurately, I can now type without looking at the keyboard while chicken pecking.

I can’t have it all when it comes to touch typing, but I can come close. But, if I had a Das Keyboard, maybe then I could have it all.