The end of an era.

Hello World.

Faithful readers of Da Patch have followed its changes across the years – from the original blogspot iteration right through dozens of theme changes and format changes to the WordPress version you are reading now. To the casual observer, these may have seemed large and major changes, and it is true that the current “Patch” bears very little resemblance to the original started nearly two-and-a-half years ago. But none of those hold a candle to the landmark shift that is happening today.

I point you all to www.patchofcabbages.com!

That is the new portal to the world of The Cabbage Patch. Bookmark it, send it to your friends, shout it from the rooftops!

At the moment, you can use that page to access the new blog (blog.patchofcabbages.com), the new forums (forums.patchofcabbages.com) and anything else that I may add in the future. You may, of course, use the seperate adresses and access the various parts of the site on their own, however if you enter through the portal page you will be able to see all of the available sections and be kept up to date on new sections that are added.

All of the posts and comments that are here are now also over there, so there is almost no need for this site any longer. I will, however, leave it here as I did the last version so that any out-dated links will still work. It will definately be better, however, to update all of your bookmarks and focus all your attention on the new site.

Four desktops are better than one.

Hello World.

Here’s a little download-able utility I’ve been using for a little while – Microsoft Virtual Desktop Manager (MSVDM).

As I have mentioned before, I have made a few little forays into the world of Linux in the past few months, and there have been a few things I have seen in that strange world that I never knew I was missing in Windowsland. One of those things is the concept of Virtual Desktops.

“Virtual Desktops” are (usually three) extra desktops which run in parallel to the primary one and act much like a second (and third, and fourth) monitor attached to the computer. They can be extremely useful when using a computer with only one monitor, or a particularly small monitor (such as, say a laptop). I often find myself dreading having to make a trip down to the desktop by minimising the multitude of windows I have open at any one time (or worse, having to restore all of the windows again after minimising to try to find where I was before). With virtual desktops, I can keep a couple of programs open full screen at the same time, and keep a clean desktop for those times I might need it, and simply switch instantly between them.

Microsoft Virtual Desktop Manager provides Windows XP with this missing functionality for free. It allows you to switch between the desktops, or look at all of them side by side. The program is part of the Microsoft Windows XP Powertoys collection, which can be found here. Once installed, you will need to right-click on the task-bar at the bottom of the screen and select Toolbars>Desktop Manager. You can customise each desktop background by right-clicking on any of the MSVDM buttons and selecting Configure Desktop Images. Also in this right-click menu you may toggle the Shared Desktop option. This allows you to either see all open windows on all desktops (on) or windows unique to each desktop (off).

Chad Vader – Day Shift Manager.

Hello World.

Ever wondered what happened to Darth Vader’s “less-talented, less-charismatic younger brother”? Well, wonder no more.

More accurate than the Mussolini Meter.

Hello World.

Here is a clip from The Colbert Report. It’s funny, and it makes you think.

It’s just like the good ol’ days. Only the graphics are worse.

Hello World.

If I am feeling nostalgic for video-games of old, there are certain titles my mind instantly turns to. One of them is Doom. It’s not often, however, that I can actually be bothered to ferret out my old discs and attempt to actually play the game. That’s why I’m very pleased to have found Painnation – a Flash-animated, point-and-click version of Doom.

Being that this is basically a joke, the game itself is quite short. It does, however, satisfy my games-of-yore craving.

Hi. How are you? Come in. I’ve poured you a glass of your favourite wine… obviously.

Hello World.

Any fans of Ricky Gervais’ show The Office (UK version, not the sub-par American spin-off) will have seen, heard, or at least heard of this song/video clip. If you haven’t, then sit back and enjoy the dulcet tones of David Brent’s If You Don’t Know Me By Now:

I’m sure it did.

Hello World.

I just discovered that someone yesterday found this ‘ere website by searching for the term “porn ruined my life”.

Makes you think, doesn’t it?

And that, my friends, is why WordPress is better.

Hello World.

It would seem that the old Cabbage Patch, which remains up solely for archiving and redirection purposes, has come under a spam attack.

From 4:13 to 5:02 today, around 1500 spam comments were left on various posts throughout the site. Here is an example of a particularly badly hit post.

If there was ever any doubt over why I made the switch from Blogger to WordPress, I think this is a fairly good reason. Now I don’t know how WordPress would hold up under a similar attack, and I hope I never have to find out, but this shows a definite weakness in the Blogger software.

Due to that site being essentially dead, I will not likely be cleaning up the spam comments that were posted. If you ever find yourself on the old site (and frankly I don’t know why you would) be wary of the links you find in the comments.

A weekend of semi-nudity and violence. And you thought Bathurst was boring.

Hello World.

Just thought I’d let everyone know the photos from the weekend bash in Bathurst have been up on Flickr for a few days.

A slight face-lift.

Hello World.

I have changed the theme of The Patch (Again? Yes, again.). I have done this for three primary reasons:

1. I am preparing for the eventual shift of The Patch to it’s new home. I don’t know when, but I’m hoping it will happen soon. Until then, there are certain things I want to try out here before I make the switch. This is one of them.
2. I got sick of the fixed-width, small-column layout of the last theme. The main content section was too small to adequately display pictures or movies. It was perfect for text, but not much else. And seeing as this site is not text-focused, a full-width layout seems more appropriate.
3. It looked almost identical to Tom’s new site, Dropped. Whilst imitation is, as they say, the highest form of flattery, it was getting to the point that I couldn’t remember which site I was reading. This should alleviate that.

So there you go. This should only be a temporary deal, I’m hoping to get the new Cabbage Patch – with a brand-new look, a slew of new features and a new address – up and running by the end of the month. That’s not a promise, but I’m trying.

Oh, and if anyone can offer advice on Ubuntu Linux, Apache, MySQL, XAMPP, or servers in general, drop me a line at orrible.cabbage@gmail.com . Any help is much appreciated.