Getting the camera ready to capture in video the eclipse to end all eclipses. Shooting the Samsung HMX-F90 through SHADE No. 10 GERMANY, 25A Red and Polarizer - should suffice. I’ll get back to ya’...

UPDATE: 11-15-2023

Meanwhile, six months later... to the day! - I must be getting better ;)
In case you did not notice, this site has been inaccessible (beyond the front page) since nearly as long as the move to the new server.

In keeping with my vow to keep this site up-to-date, I have been regularly updating the Rocky OS and in so doing broke my install of MySQL database server... (Rocky indeed) It has taken until this very day for me to remove, reinstall, configure and restore MySQL. Maybe it was due to file corruption from an ungraceful shutdown that things went sideways here. It was certainly due to lack of spare time and necessary focus that it took so long to recover. At any rate, I am happy to be able to once again haunt this site and look forward to tinkering around some more with this pet diversion of mine.

So meanwhile, back at the ranch: Tonto, disguised as a pool table, gets his balls racked!

UPDATE: 5-15-2023

Meanwhile, two years later... almost to the day - back with some BIG news this time:
I have finally decided to get this website up-to-date(ish) so am in the process of moving everything over to a new server. Coming from a rock-solid CentOS-6 (in business since 2013) we are now getting nestled-in to a fancy, new RockyLinux8 virtual machine, now running inside my currently reigning Windows 10 Lenovo desktop, courtesy of the freely available VMWare Player 17.

I hope to keep this install updated and current (to the best of my ability and in light of available time.) A whole lot of this site still has unsupported mysql scripting language that need to be rewritten into the newer mysqli code. I figured out the login/registration system but have had to kill many features that were causing failures at page loading.

At least now visiting InfinitelyRemote will motivate me to rethink where we have been and where we want to go. If you have any trouble or are missing a particular feature that you would like to see get priority treatment, please reach out to me via email [webmaster (AT) InfinitelyRemote.com].

The original server is still running (for the time being) and may be accessed via Port: 8888

UPDATE: 5-17-2021

It seems I see more traffic on the gopher site than I do the website these days. Not exactly sure how I feel about that...

Over a year since posting in here can only be a sign that I have been quite busy away from the desk. Little projects such as blogs an phlogs and logs get cast aside when I am not looking to fill the odd available minutes that crop up in the day to day world of the gainfully employed ;) This too shall pass... even now I feel the approaching call of the less than wild calling me back to duty.

UPDATE: 3-5-2020

I&rsquo've been focusing on the Gopher side of life lately. I have created (recreated) an account at sdf.org and have been playing around with the many services they offer their members.

From bulletin boards and user websites to gopher holes and phlogs there is a lot you can do with shell access to those servers. I have installed a phlogging script here at InfinitelyRemote and have started a local phlog that I am pushing out to sdf and have officially joined their "phlogrolls". Not sure I will keep up the effort though - knowing how reluctant I get when it comes to posting news right here in this spot.

In other (somewhat related) news - I have configured a chrooted shell environment here on this server which I will make availabe to registered users - contributor class and above - upon special request. The available services are few but adequate for a productive experience within a bash shell environment. User tilde websites are now available along with sftp access (/member/ websites are still avaiable to all registered users of this website.) Request your shell access today and see what you can do. (obviously ssh client access software is required on your end.)

UPDATE: 2-14-2020

Not a lot new going on here (as you can plainly see.) Lately I have just been trying to keep things going. I need to remember to check in with gopher more often than I do because I often find I have to restart the service (DOH!) - may break down and install UPS (for petesake.)

I did service the comic book readers a while back and think they should be functioning now - let me know if you have trouble with either one.

I have been tweaking the code here and there getting it ready for PHP7. I did this using the skills gained by converting Practical Lightning Arcade to PHP7 compatibility

I am still thinking about a complete rewrite of this place but I really cant do much until I finish Cookie Clicker ;-)

UPDATE: 4-5-2019

After a several months rewrite of the PHP Quick Arcade system, I have replaced the InfinitelyRemote arcade with the latest Practical-Lightning-Arcade [PLA] 1.0 (BETA) and enabled the single sign-in integration with this website. The arcade is only accessible to logged-in users of InfinitelyRemote. You will need to register for an arcade account using the same username you use to access this website, but after that you will be automatically logged-in to the arcade each time you visit. I hope to someday fully integrate registration so registering for InfinitelyRemote registers for the arcade as well.

I am sure you will have noticed when you logged in that you are offered a choice of ’Full Site’ or ’Lite Site’ this is an effort to pare back the great many features that have been added through the years in an effort to speed loading for those less interested in the bells and whistles seeking the meat of the project. This move also signals the intention of rebuilding InfinitelyRemote into an even better place based on the years of development leading up to now. Keep an eye out for the changes...

UPDATE: 2/5/2019

I almost forgot... Last time I was so excited to announce the New Gopher Server I forgot to mention the improvements made to the ever-popular TV Theme Songs Page

While there is still much room for improvement with the Theme Song feature it is now so much faster loading since I broke it up to display the tunes alphabetically based on a letter selection. we hope to add a search function before too long. Check it out if you have not in a while. Many shows still need their title cards but we’ll get there.

Meanwhile back in the gopher hole I have suceeded in getting a guest book working and have made that script-kit available for download (alpha version). Other updates include viewable Gopher Logs, new layout w/ figlet and now including a parsing of BlogDogIt's articles automagically converted into text file format each day.

A special hello to all the gophers joining us here in the InfinitelyRemote - BCn-Ya!

UPDATE: 1/29/2019

Happy New Year! ---
I finally added a gopher server to infinitelyremote.com :w00t: We are already boasting over 25,000 connectors according to floodgap's reckoning. I started out using "GoFish" for a gopher server but found (owing to its reliance on mmap to deliver page contents) it was limited (apparently by memory caching of some sort) on the size of page it could deliver. Switching over to PyGopherd was the right move; thanks to its filtered delivery system, I have not noticed any trouble with long text file truncation or binary file download corruption. GoFish is a nice little server that serves as an adequate introduction to gopher protocol serving but was no match for the InfinitelyRemote vision. I am leaving GoFish operational on port #71 for a while in case you want to see it in action (just expect some broken pages as the PyGopherd site becomes the focus.)

In other news... I edited the ZONE file for the InfinitelyRemote.com domain to point directly to our IP of 99.32.165.173. In spite of the fact this is supposed to be a dynamic IP assignment it has not changed in several years so I think it is safe to forgo dependence on DYNU.net and now encourage everyone to bookmark the infinitelyremote.com domain proper - just keep infinitelyremote.dynu.net in the back of your mind in case of a change in IP. Also remember you can always check http://BlogDogIt.com/ip for our latest assigned IP address.

Resolutions? Nah, just some plans: I hope to continue to building gopher://infinitelyremote.com into a top-notch gopher hole. Also hoping to do more work on the arcade http://DeBurger.com/ARCADE (or see http://DeBurger.com/ARCADEi/ - test site.) Still plugging away on BlogDogIt.com with forrays into The Vestibule. Last but not least - there are several new items coming to The Finding Time inventory, so if you ever thought about supporting your friendly neighborhood nerd why not visit http://TheFindingTime.com and see if there is anything you would like to purchase (sorry only USA shipping available.)

UPDATE: 9-6-2018

Who would have thunk it? --- This website has outlived DarkTech.com - the providers of our dynamic DNS solution. We have switched over to DYNU.net so be sure to adjust all your bookmarks for this site to point to infinitelyremote.dynu.net now.

Did you know you can also enter the address of "BlogDogIt.com/ir" to get here in case of DNS failure? But, we don’t really care how you get here just so long as you get here ;)

UPDATE: 4-4-2018

Good news! --- Well they say no news is good news... It really is getting to be a pattern that I only post something to this feature about once a year. I really have not done anything to this site since the TITO days but I do notice there are some embedded videos that are broken so I guess I should at least get those taken care of. Maybe the time has come to revamp the looks of this place... a lot to think about; more to do.

UPDATE: 3-24-2017

Oh, No... I just noticed it has been OVER a year since I last posted any news here! All the visitors likely assume I am just "another man done gone." No, I’m still kicking and name taking. Been wrapped up in several web related endeavors (see: DeBurger.com) and have made no real additions to this site in quite a while.

I did reset the "tag Board" (so I can try and forget how long it has been since it has seen any action.) To the best of my knowledge Tito is still with us but he is no doubt at that age where actual reality wins-out over the cyberspace version - to Tito I will leave the following: "Bonne chance et je vous souhaite tout le meilleur pour le futur."

UPDATE: 3-1-2016

I was just thinking the other day about how I should really update this "BIG NEWS" and that is what jinxed the whole operation (I’d wager.) - If you were here in the last week of February you would have noticed the Wayback Machine would have taken you back to November 26, 2013. I had to pull the plug on this CentOS server and swap it for the Fedora 10 back-up unit. Allow me to try to make a long story medium...

Lately I have been working on VNC server setups and X session forwarding on the back-side of InfinitelyRemote (to further my education for work related activities.) I have basically been using the CentOS server to supply a Firefox browser to Windows XP machines. I have learned starting in 2017 that XP security will be utterly obsolete, making it nearly useless on the internet - at least in terms of e-commerce. By using a web browser served to the XP machine via VNC Client or X-ming Server I figure we can squeeze a few more miles out of these dinosaur era computers.

I decided to investigate some of the lighter-weight linux browsers to make better use of the available bandwidth so set about installing Midori, Seamonkey and Epiphany so I might compare performance. To my eventual dismay I was unable to get any of these to install on account of dependency issues mostly related to NSSUTIL library conflicts. So I did what any fool-hardy Linux user would do: complete package update. - Big Mistake

Following this maneuver dependencies were more in knots then before. YUM and RPM (the key software for the installation and maintenance of software in CentOS/Fedora) were useless; bringing software install, update and removal/uninstall to a halt. In the process of attempting to get these back on track I lost the ability to connect via ssh and had to clear off the dining room table and go at this via direct terminal. Funny thing is I could not even get an X11 session to fly and came to the realization that this has come down to a re-installation of the operating system. A very depressing outcome and unfortunately not the first time I have found myself in this predicament while entrenched in the wonderful world of Linux.

So here’s what I did: I rounded-up an old 80GB hard-drive and installed it in the box and disconnected the poisoned drive. Using my trusty (although corrupt) CentOS-6 install dvd and did a "Basic Install." Once this bacic system was in place I configured the network and was now able to access via ssh so I moved my butt to the sofa and laptop and spent the evening installing all the packages (via YUM) that are part of my usual builds. Fortunately I maintain a text file listing all key software packages as I install them. After encountering some hiccups getting all the additional repositories going I found myself with a brand-spanking-new CentOS-6.7 install and the thoughts of re-configuring everything now loomed heavily. I knew I had my /etcs backed-up on the disconnected trouble-drive then got the bright idea to simply replace libraries on the old drive with these from the new install. So I connected both drives and booted to the new system where I mounted the old drive and thanks to gnome-commander file manager renamed the old drive’s /lib/ and /usr/lib to "lib-dead" and copied over the virginal versions of these two libraries to hopefully revive the damaged operating system.

Rebooting to the old drive brought immediate joy in that runlevel 5 took me to my familiar desktop. And joy of joys; InfinitelyRemote was back on-line! There have been a few instances where certain dependencies where not registered and some packages needed re-installation but all in all not a bad recovery. I think now the time has come to just "Set It and Forget It."

In other news: I have built a Fedora 23 Desktop machine to become my new primary workstation. This is a cutting edge operating system that is working out nicely for Audio and Video Editing, Image Editing, Drawing, Word Processing and Web Design. So now I need to set my sights on, "how am I going to mess this one up?" :D

UPDATE: 4-15-2015

I refuse to let this item go a full year without an update!

I haven’t done much of anything new to this site since that little navigation gizmo on the left ? there. That does not mean there has not been tinkering in PHP/MySQL... in fact, I have been busy building a Library Management web app in order to catalog materials and manage patrons for a roughly 3500 book library. Once I get it all put together I just might put it up on SourceForge - since when I first undertook this project I checked there and found nothing that did what mine needed to do.

So yeah, I have been continuing to flex my coder muscles and been learning a thing or two in the process. No doubt that snippets of InfinitelyRemote have found their way into the Library Management project and there is no reason to suspect that morsels of that development should not make their way into this here code repository. ;)

In case there was any doubt: I am truly glad you stopped by... please, make yourself at home and...

UPDATE: 6-3-2014

Thanks to Tito's suggestion to make the links to Top-of-Page and Bottom-of-Page available at all times, I have created the "NavBug" over there in the left gutter. It includes Top | Refresh | Bottom links and will try to keep up with you as you scroll the page.

Great suggestion Tito (sorry I could not get this to work in the right gutter that would be perfect.) I will bundle up the code for this little gizmo and make it available via /members/webmaster/. Look for NavBug.zip coming soon.

UPDATE: 5-18-2014

Went around and freshened the "corpoate image" a bit. Created new logo graphics for InfinitelyRemote on BlogDogIt as well as for the index (login) page here. Added a background image to the masthead and went from blue to green on the font there. It was just time for a change. In honor of this refresh, Refresh Buttons have been added to the top and bottom of the page.

I dove back in to the TV Theme Song feature; fixing some broken code in the management utilities, adding some missing title cards for existing tunes and even adding several new theme songs to the collection. An administrators tool has been added that will automatically zip-up the contents of the TV Theme Song collection and update the TV_Themes.zip package. I will be sure to note the version number so you will know if you have the latest.

UPDATE: 5-15-2014

Today I added the Astro Pic of the Day block to the page. It is actually hosted by BlogDogIt but the work to create it is the job of the InfinitelyRemote server. Every night InfinitelyRemote will automatically download the NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day page and extract the url for the daily image. That information is then sent as an "include file" to update the BlogDogIt apod.php page. I have added within it a link to InfinitelyRemote.com and provide the embed code in the hopes that people wishing to keep their visitors up-to-date on NASAs Picture of the Day will think a link to this website a small price to pay. I have also added a gif cookie to the module so that we can track views/loads of the iframe.

Do you know of any other "Picture of the Day" providers? Maybe we can come up with a line of these modules that others might wish to Share and...

UPDATE: 5-2-2014

The day has arived! Top and Bottom anchors have finally been installed in the form of those shiney new up and down arrow graphics (DOWN for "Go To Bottom" and UP for "Go To Top".) - but that’s not all...If you check the bottom of this page you will see the adition of a traffic signal graphic that will show you the status of the InfinitelyRemote FTP Service. "Green Light" for running "Red Light" for stopped. If you would like FTP service activated for your account (Contributor rank and above) please let me know. The FTP Service operates on a schedule so it is not always available. If you need to know the schedule, it can be provided but otherwise check the indicator. FTP is active for two hours at a time.

As part of this configuration enhancement user websites will now be accessible via "tilde" links. Example: http://infinitelyremote.com/~mike. This address will refer to your own "public_html" folder. Feel free to work on your very own personal website (php is on.) Existing member sites located in the /members/ location are unaffected.

UPDATE: 4-19-2014

Just in case the services of DTDNS.net let us down I have implemented my own dynamic IP address tracking system. So now in addition to being able to access this site via:

UPDATE: 4-7-2014

Attention Infinitely Remote Visitors: I have just learned that DYN.com will be discontinuing their free domain name service and since I refuse to pay for something I have always been using for free I am going to let the domain name InfinitelyRemote.DYNDNS.org fade into the luminiferous aether.

"Going forward" please access this site by using the alternative domain name of InfinitelyRemote.DTDNS.net. I have been using DTDNS from the very beginning and only went along with DynDNS since I had a router that had IP tracking by Dyn built-in. If you have any trouble accessing this site please let me know. In the mean time I will be brewing-up some other options to keep this dream alive ;)

Just as we were settling into the newly reconfigured InfinitelyRemote server the motherboard decided to throw in the towel. I had been seeing some random freeze-ups and found the CPU to be overheating shortly after power-up. I was thinking it must be the lack of ventilation in the old IBM Aptiva case. When I opened it to add a case fan I noticed nearly all the CPU caps were bulging/leaking. Yikes!

I was really hoping to have InfinitelyRemote running out of that Aptiva case (since that is where it all began.) but alass I have no replacement motherboards that would fit. I had a donated Tower with a Pentium4 which is actually a bit faster than the AMD Athlon that we were running on. We also now have 1GB ram on board (rather than the 512KB) so all in all this is a good move.

I have been working more on the Gnome Desktop on this box so these improvements will be welcome.

I love how I was able to just unplug the hard drive out of the old box and plug it into the new rig and everything just works. (That is after pulling the Aptiva's power supply to run this P4 - that is why the donated tower was pulled from service it seems.)

So anyway... we're back and better than ever. Sorry for any inconvenience this outage may have caused but it is all part of the hobby - see if I can keep it afloat.

By the way we should be getting our fiber-optics connection tomorrow (fingers crossed) I hope it is as good as they promise.

UPDATE: 10-31-2013

Alright, I’d call this news...
InfinitelyRemote may now be accessed via an encrypted connection. I have created a self-signed security certificate in order to make it possible to encrypt traffic between this web site and your browser.

This is just one of those little "tweaks" I have been putting off for the move to the new server so... voi-la!

UPDATE: 10-27-2013

I am trying something new today with The Big News: Pictures and formatting.

A glimpse of the InfinitelyRemote
Cyber-Empire

I am often asked about my computer system and I like to brag that I utilize a quad-core. Pictured to the left is that system.

Core #1 - InfinitelyRemote
Core #2 - HAL
Core #3 - EVO
Core #4 - PracticalLightning

Also highlighted: A - External Hard Drive Farm, B - Dazzle Fusion Video Input Device, C - Sanyo 4Head-HiFi VCR, D - Removable Media Stacks.

HAL and EVO are running fully patched - up to the minute - Windows XP. InfinitelyRemote is running CentOS 6.4 and PracticalLightning is chugging along with Fedora 10 OS.

While many may scoff at the energy required to run these computers (in order to gain the benefit of such unsurpassed multitasking ability.) I will gladly suggest that these machines are not taking up land-fill space and continue to serve admirably, the chores they were designed and built to do. Total investment: Not very much ;-)

Come on in...

~ InfinitelyRemote has been hosting internet goodness since 2007 ~
It is a hobby site and exist solely for educational purposes.
Must be 13 or older to join. See privacy statement for conditions.

yet another fine, fine product of
MAdmike SOftware DOodles
"The bit is mightier than the sword!"

Welcome to the new server! InfinitelyRemote is in a new home. All-in-all - it is safe to say - this should be over twice as good as the last server. We now have over twice the processor speed, twice the RAM and way more than twice the storage. The old server was running Fedora 10. We are finally running on an up-to-date OS: CentOS 6.4 (YAY!)

It would be nice if I was able to say that the upgrade/migration has gone off without a hitch but - let’s face it - that never happens in this game. There are some issues with incompatible code on the website here and there, but these will be fixed as time allows.

For the time being, the old website is still available on port 8080. If you find something is not behaving properly please mention it in the TagBox or send an email to webmaster@InfinitelyRemote.com. Excuse the mess but such is the price of progress. Thanks for visiting and (as always)...

Hello there! you should have received a welcome message near the top of the screen after logging in here. You were informed that "The SYSOP has been automatically paged." This is all part of the latest modification to the site. Yes when you log-in this website will send a text to my cellphone informing me of your visit. It is also sending an email to my work email address.

Depending on my workload and distance from a computer, I will try to log-in myself just as soon as possible. If I don't get here in short order feel free to leave a shout in the Tag Box. If you are here just to mess around with all the many primo offerings then by all means feel free to ignore the SYSOP - this is a free country - enjoy.

When I first installed the pager it was paging myself plus it would send the message at every refresh of the main page. Today I fixed it to not page me when I log-in and it now will only send one page per customer (at initial log-in.) If you need to pester me by sending multiple messages (as in an emergency) you will need to log out then back in as often as you feel is warranted. Thanks for visiting, come again.

Welcome to the InfinitelyRemote! I bet you are here because of that awesome advertisement that I placed on the BlogDogIt.com web site. No? . . . Well head on over there now and have a look [BlogDogIt: Remember When The Internet Was fun?]. Visit this site first and then see the ad or see the ad and then visit the site; it's all the same to me, I am just happy you decided to stop by. If you are here with limited privileges you should see that ad to get some idea of what you might be missing.

That picture shows all active main page features for someone with the rank of "GrandPoohbah." Of course the only way to achieve that rank is to build your own version of this ultra-hip site. But never fear, it is possible to advance through the ranks pretty easily here. To advance from Guest to User only requires that I notice you have registered. To move from User to Contributor requires you to contribute something to the content of the site (Sign the guestbook, Post to the InfinitelyRemoteBlogdogit - scroll, join the arcade or even simply add a smokeylink.) Trust me you want the contributor rank. What comes after contributor? Slow down... you'll get there.

I suppose by now it should be taken for granted that my first idea to convey is my shame for waiting so long between posts. But I do have a reasonable excuse. I have been devoting most all of my blogging efforts to BlogDogIt.com. Ever since about October I have been dedicated to growing that side and exploring the blogosphere. It is going real well and I am meeting many great folks.

Closer to home... the last few days have seen a flurry of activity here at the InfinitelyRemote website. This is thanks in no small part to the participation of one of our latest members. Welcome to you Tito, glad to have you here. I do mean thank you.

Rare indeed is the active participant in this website. The interaction is invaluable in that I can discover what works and what needs improvement by way of the experience of another human operator. As a result of Tito's willingness to explore functions and offer opinions, this week has seen some major improvements in features to benefit our members.

I have finally found the motivation to port "The File Pile" here from the ~~tracker~~ educational site for use by our contributing members. I have also updated the default index page for the member web pages. The "User Name" displayed in the "Who's On-line" feature now links directly to the member's homepage (long time comming - very handy.) In addition I have instituted a special "cron" job to generate custom member site logs so each member can view their site's activity (updated every 10 minutes.)

For the record: the "doors" have been reconfigured in both triggers and targets. If you ever happen to find one open please remember, the same old disclaimer warnings apply.

...and it has been fun (all in all.) So why so long since last posting some news here? Mainly there are not that many folks here that would miss this if it went away ;-) I do like this feature though as it is here mocking me, nagging me to produce some visable modifications to this site so as not to stagnate.

You may not believe me but this is still one of my favorite spots on the web. That's what you want in a "HomePage" I suppose. It is my other projects that have been keeping me from updating this text, but that excuse is worn out and something has to give.

...so I have this hosting account with FeralHosting.com (for obvious reasons) and part of the package is webspace. I always hoped that some day InfinitelyRemote might escape the bounds of this home DSL connection. I decided to upload lock-stock-and-barrel to the server and after about a week of uploading and debugging code (php4 vs php5 :O), importing databases adding new features I finally had InfinitelyRemote.com running blazing hot pipes out of the Netherlands. :D It was great - for about two months when the drive my virtual server was running on went belly-up. -ohnoooo!- Hard drive failure, big-time. Of course everything was gone in an instant. I received an oopsies message in my email regarding the incident but - since they do not back-up these slots - any restoration work was to be my own chore. I said "forget it!"

I decided it was not worth the effort to rebuild the entire website again out on Feral and have instead installed only the Torrent Tracker and arcade features as they are out-of-the-box solutions whereas this particular area of the InfinitelyRemote empire is a labor of love and I could not bear the thought of focusing that much effort again on an off-site host when my in-house box is doing so admirably.

If you really want to get in on the dirt floor of a torrent tracker site then by all means come join me over on http://masodo.seastar.feralhosting.com/. Barring any intrest in the torrenting aspect of InfinitelyRemote I plan to keep working here for the foreseeable.

As for BlogDogit.com? Of course that will remain my public face of internet offering, leaving this (as always) the place I'll go to put my feet up. I am glad you stopped in as long as you’re here... relax...

Are we having fun yet? I know I sure am! I’ll fill you in soon - busy now ;-)

My how time flies. Spring has sprung and I have gone about as long as I can without posting some news.

While much of my attention has been focused over at BlogDogIt.com (and to a lesser extent at Speed-Bytes.com) I did come up with a brand new feature for the InfinitelyRemote members.

Check out the new "TwinSpin Bosskey" module (added to right column.) This feature allows you to enter two web site urls. When you click "Go!" a page will be created that contains both sites stacked in I-Frames. Surrounding each frame is a border that you click to alternate between sites - thats where you get the Boss-Key effect. It is easier to see in action that to explain so give it a try: For URL1 enter the allowed site (cover) and for URL2 enter the taboo site (contents). You may wish to adjust window size to get both frames in alignment when switching for a more invisable swapping action. You may find this a useful tool for comparing the differences of pages during development. Unfortunately some sites (facebook for one) will not allow you to put them inside of an I-Frame but these are generally the exception. In the future I would like to add the ability to adjust the frame size but for now it does what I need it to do (mostly.)

You may also have noticed the affiliate ad (lower right column.) I know I said this was to remain a hobby site and the advert does not compromize that position. The ad is for the outfit where I rent my seed box. Its a UK site on a French server (OVH) and is a really good deal as far as I can tell. They have an affiliate program so if you click on the ad and procede to get a seedbox product from them they will knock some off my bill. I do recomend them as a TorrentFlux provider and encourage you to visit them today - tell em masodo sent you. If you have any questions about any of this you can always email me.

One more thing before I stop... the CHAT Room is finally working again. Sorry for the delay getting it going again. Oh, and BTW, I did figure out the IRC business so if you need help in that area I will be happy to assist. Thanks again for stopping by. Don't forget to get nosey here and have fun - ENJOY!

Once again I find myself with the task of posting some news to give the impression that something is still happening here.

As usual, the most active visitor besides webmaster has got to be google spider. Still dolling out the TV-Theme Songs almost daily and using this place for my personal image host adds to the traffic in no small way.

Speaking of image hosting I have added a smiley host that you are free to use. Just go to http://www.infinitelyremote.com/smiley to see all available smileys complete with BBS tags that you can copy and paste for use in your BBS code supporting forum posting.

Not real sure what my next project will be around here. I have decided to focus a bit on the up-start Speed-Bytes.com. I will also not be giving up on SeveredBytes.info but for now I have decided to go where the action is - wont you join me? ALSO- i inted to get hip to IRC thru mIRC and will keep yall posted on those developments as success warrents.

Thanks again for stopping by. Don't forget to get nosey here and have fun - ENJOY!

Everything has been rolling right along here at the InfinitelyRemote web site. Low maintenance but plenty of use. I do get here pretty much daily and still get ideas on new things I want to try. As long as the inspiration continues I plan to keep this moving.

As you may or may not have noticed, BlogDogIt has escaped the bonds of InfinitelyRemote.com and has ventured over to its very own domain: www.BlogDogIt.com. I have been having a bit of fun with that set-up. I went with a GeekLog foundation and am enjoying sharing the random bits I pick up here and there about the net. Stop by there if you get the chance. Don't forget though the original InfinitelyRemote BlogDogIt will still be here for your posting pleasure.

A couple of weeks ago I lost a 500GB external drive... OUCH! Fortunately much of what it contained was transferred to a new 1TB drive a month earlier. It took with it all my active torrents though. Fortunately I was mirroring several of them on another server and had back-up DVDs for many of them. I really do not want to spend much time thinking about what was on it that I will never see again but I know there is some stuff. Wake Up People - Back-Up Your S#@!.

I have had to shuffle content around to various network resources during the recovery process; bear with me as I get some of the missing links repaired. Let me know if your favorite is broken and I'll get right on it. Thanks again for stopping by. Don't forget to get nosey here and have fun - ENJOY!

It is almost as though in honor of one year since adding the user configuration utility; this past weekend saw many advancements to the functionality of that tool. Several of this sites modules can now be turned on and off by means of checkboxes. The RSS feed is now controlable by you; pick your favorite feed or turn it off for a faster page load.

The ever-popular Media Center is now password protected. You simply enter the Media Access Code in the space provided and all those goodies are back in the game.

New features include Dark Alley Links, Random Babe and InfinitelyRemote Blogdogit! Dark Alley Links are random links to the seedier side of the internet. Those links are presented for purely educational purposes and you should venture down the dark alley at your own risk. If you have some favorite dark alleys you would like to add to the mix, send them in or post them in SmokeyLinks below. Now as for the Random Babe feature, what can I say... I have amassed a nice little collection - that I have picked up around the net - of scantily clad ladies that are sure to catch your eye. So if you ladies of InfinitelyRemote would like to see a Random Hunk feature I would be happy to accomodate. All you need do is ask (I aint gonna do it otherwise) fair is fair.

Lastly, The InfinitelyRemote Blogdogit! feature is the signature blog of InfinitelyRemote and will become the public face of this website. Starting with the GuestBook framework I have integrated the FCK-Editor (a very nice open-source WYSIWYG editor.) For now it is write enabled to all members of Contributor Rank or above. Of course everyone will still have write access to the GuestBook.

Okay, once again I thank you for visiting and ask that if you see any problems or have suggestions for content, feel free to email me at webmaster@infinitelyremote.com and at the very least... ENJOY!

That’s right, and this one is TWICE as fast. After oh so many years of running on the 400MHz IBM Aptiva 2170 I have moved up to an 800MHz HP Pavilion xt919. This move also takes us out of Fedora Core 6 OS and puts us in the lap of Fedora 10. The move has actually been happening over the course of the last few months as I have not been in any great hurry. Actually I have been so busy trying to keep up with the demands of the day job that getting back to this project has been a nice getaway. But the move has not been without it's hassles.

The biggest problem has been migrating from such an old operating system. A lot of my code (particularly PHP) used depreciated code at the time I wrote it and now some of it simply did not work. So I have fixed some of it and by using lax security settings I have been able to get site working (or so it seems.)

I have successfully transferred the databases so all the user information is intact. In fact, you should notice little in the way of changes other than perhaps the page loading may seem a bit swifter.

The RSS feeds have been a pain, in that I can only get one to display on the page at a time. I am sure it is related to out of date code but for now the solution eludes me. So I have chosen to display the "Essays and Effluvia" feed (my favorite) and I am sure cutting out the rest of the feeds will only serve to speed up the initial page loading for everyone. This has given me the idea now to work on making the rss feed a customizable feature. I'm thinking about having a radio button list of rss feeds so that each user may set their favorite.

Well, keep an eye out for problems on the site and please let me know if you spot any. Thanks for visiting!

I would like to thank the good folks over at SeveredBytes.info for graciously allowing the placement of a banner ad on their links page. I extend a very special "Thank You For Visiting" to those of you that chose to venture here from - my home away from home - SeveredBytes

Up to now, infinitelyremote.com has relied very little in the way of promotion to attract visitors to the site. So in considering the placement of a banner advertisment on a popular destination site I wanted to come up with a pithy way to describe what this place is about. "Its Mostly A Web Site" was chosen because - for one - it seems to hint at the fact that although, Yes its a website, there must be something more. More than just a website.

InfinitelyRemote is more than just a web site in that there is alot to see and do and much to explore. Add to that, the visitor is incouraged to get involved with the site - encouraged to contribute to the content and development of the place. The more involved the user the more enjoyable the website becomes. More doors will be opened to those who take an active role as a member of this humble site.

The purpose or mission of this web site is strictly educational. It exists mainly as a testbed for my experimentation in the web site arts. You are invited to join in the fun in your own educational pursuits or simply amuse yourself with the results of those pursuits of others.

So... Enjoy your visit. Come back often. Make yourself at home. Please be mindful of the Privacy Statement agreement. Navigate the links with care. Remember: this site explores many facets of the internet at large so be prepared for anything. Socialy and morally repugnant content is not welcome, even the InfinitelyRemote has boundries. ;)

Nothing major in the way of development here. Lately the bandwidth has been utilized in the popular sport of torrent ratio juggling. ;-) I have been dividing my time between SeveredBytes.info, TheBox.bz, TVTorrents.com and Demonoid (if it ever comes back online.)

While I will always be fiddling with this site, the results will not always be obvious. I have been fine tuning permissions on the sytem with the goal of allowing more access to our members for ssh shell activities.

BTW- I found out only recently that chat registration was broken since the first of the year. That has been fixed so chat-on people!

As always, if you notice any problems with this website please let me know. Also, If you would like to learn more about file sharing via bittorrents, I will be happy to assist you.

Well, there have been no really major developments here in the last few months. I have done some tweakin’ and tunin’ but mostly just enjoying the role of user rather than webmaster. I figured I better update the news or change it to "Whats not happening here?" :o)

In case you haven’t noticed I have provided you with the ability to edit your account settings and hope to expand and expound on that in the coming months. I’ve been wanting to build-in a facility to recover forgotten passwords via email. I am also pondering a method wherein you could turn the modules (blocks) on or off to suit yourself as well as toying with style choices.

But today is the fisrt day of Spring so I hope to soon find other ways to occupy my time. Activities that involve fresh air sound more appealing than hacking at code. But then again this place won’t build itself (aparently.)

infinitelyremote.com is a clone!
What a royal pain in the butt. The main harddrive for the server went belly-up a few days ago leaving the infinitelyremote.com web site a memory or a ghost if you will. This left me with no choice but to find a different hobby or make the most of this one I have.

Our master drive was a 6GB IBM 5inch Half-Height dinosaur with a born-on date of 1998. A couple of days before it failed it became maxed-out full. I had to delete and relocate many files to the secondary and terciary drives to restore the server at that time. I was going to install a newly acquired 20 gig drive to replace it. In order to perform the system transfer I powered her down and plugged the new (WesternDigital) into the terciary slot. When I powered back up the IBM drive was a flat-liner. Nothing I did could revive it. No I did not freeze it (although perhaps I should have.) I did try DD_rescue and ddr_help and could not recover anything whatsoever after 2 days of trying. I am thankful for the chance to learn about the "dd" utilities and feel like a real geek now for the expeariance.

I had to do a fresh install of Fedora Core 6. I rebuilt the website from multiple backups I have accumulated. I had just finished a major rewrite of the site in order to correct boucoup css flaws - we now look marvelous in FireFox - so the php and html where all right here in Dreamweaver. The configurations however, had not been backed up since May of 2007 but at least that was a start. The databases where lost. I could find no backups (database dumps) for any of them. Now that is so stupid. Few things are as easy as backing up a database but I overlooked it and I'm kicking myself for it now. But a valuable lesson has been learned. They always say that the only way to learn to make back-ups is to loose your stuff - I should have already learned that lesson - now reinforced.

The biggest loss - outside of users info (again, sorry) - was the database for the TV-Themes. Approximately 550 entries tying together the show names with their image file names and song file names represented many many hours of work and the prospect of having to do that all again was depressing indeed. In my transfering of files I came across a file from about 6 months ago named check.html. When I viewed it in the browser it turned out to be a source grab from themesong.php it was a complete compile of the TV Theme page with all data convieniently displayed in the source code. I am saved!! Thanks to the "search and replace" function of my text editor along with "block selection" and "code optimizing" I was able to convert that random source code grab into a complete MySQL source file that completely rebuilt the theme song database in less than one hour. (I really needed that!)

Anyway... The USER database has been reset along with the ARCADE database. We'll look at this as a new beginning. With the lessons learned in this ordeal I will no doubt be a better webmaster for infinitelyremote.com and all those other sites that count on me to keep them going. Thanks to you for sticking around.

New Feature For Contributor Class Users
Those of you that have advanced beyond USER class have been given the ability to upload files to your very own directory on the site. Now you can create your own webpage if you wish. Just look for the feature block called "Member File Upload." You can browse your computer for files to upload.

Each member space comes preinstalled with an index file that will automatically display the contents of your site to visitors.
For example: www.infinitelyremote.com/members/webmaster. will show you the concept. There is no need to be logged in to access the files you store there so you can share if you wish.

Feel free to change your index file to whatever you want. File space is limited but not set in stone (yet.)

It has been over three months since I have updated the news here. Do not take that to mean that nothing has been done around here. There have been some new additions and tweaking. Somewhere along the line I have even messed up the layout of the place. Oh, it looks just fine (mostly) in Internet Explorer but in Mozilla it is a bit skwewey. The content is still accessable though so life goes on. I know it is a misplaced <div> tag but it looks ok to me so I have kinda gone &quo;back-burner&quo; with the fix. (sorry - I know - I hate faulty css too)

I for one have been enjoying the content here and hope you have been doing likewise. Today I gave a feature block to GNOOZE (the G is silent). It is a fun look at the news that I came across while on a visit to blip.tv and was so cool I had to syndicate it here - enjoy! There have been many new user submitted weblinks added (which is always a good thing.) There are also a few web links here that appear to have given up the ghost and may have to be yanked. I will give them a while to see if they come back online.

Waiting in the wings are some new additions to the theme song page and the need to catch-up with Sceptical Inquirer covers and articles. I will be tinkering with the doorways when I can. So many other projects are begging for my time. For instance, there are a few places around the internet that I try to be a regular contributor to. My day job too, is about to ramp-up it seems so I just wanted to jump in here to let you know infinitelyremote is alive and well.

Oh yeah... perhaps the biggest news of all. AT&T has seen fit to turn up my bandwidth while at the same time turning down the bill. (yea-rah-team!) We now are getting around 2400 pounds IN and 435 pounds OUT. Hopefully this will be something you will notice while you are here.

Thank you for being here. Now how about pitching in a little? Just do a blog post or hook us up with a &quo;Smokey Link&quo;. We ain’t askin’ fo’ much!

Join the Action in the ARCADE! I hope you enjoy the latest addition to infinitelyremote.com - The Arcade.

While exploring the World-Wide-Web I discovered an open source (free) arcade portal that fit right in with this server setup, so I installed it. It is called PHP-Quick-Arcade version 3.0 . It is a nice, relatively simple, software package to run a flash game arcade. You must first register as a user so it can keep track of your scores and favorites etc.. When you register for the Arcade, use the same user name that you registered here on infinitelyremote.com and you will be logged in automatically whenever you go there.[ NOTE: if you visit the arcade and you are not automatically logged in, refresh the page (press F5) and you will be.]

I have been selecting games from the thousands offered by http://www.ibpdownloads.com/. Check them out if you want. You can try out the games on their website and if you find one you think we should add here let me know and it will be installed.

UPDATE: 7-19-2008
Those of you who have been around for a while will no doubt recognize some new features here on the infinitelyremote website. One that I am excited about is the "SmokeyLinks" module. This will allow anyone with at least USER rank add a link to the page. Let's try to keep these interesting and unique. When you enter a link the"http://" portion will be added to the link you provide (so just start at "www" or whatever.) Be sure to add a brief (under 100 char.) description of the site. The discription will go to the "title" tag and will show as tooltip on mouseover. If you happen to submit a link and something is wrong with it, go ahead and try it again. I'll clean up the code and remove the bad parts occasionally or sooner if you let me know.

How about those doors up there? The RED door. The BLUE door. The GREEN door. You gotta have a key to open the doors. Each door has its own key and (for now) you can only have one key at a time. The keys are hidden around the site and you can pick one up just by doing something. In other words - certain actions you perform will endow you with a key. The door status is shown on the bottom of the main page but the page will need to be refreshed to update your keys. Click on the "Check Keys" button or any of the "Change Picture" buttons for the refresh. This action will also change all random content on the page. It is always fun to change the page anyway but now you might be rewarded with the ability to open one of the doors. Let me state here - for the record - I am not always in control of what is on the other side of the doors. If you find or suspect content of objectional nature please let me know so I can take care of it.

The available features on the other side of those doors will be subject to change and will be restricted if abused. Please enjoy your visit. Thanks for stopping by!

UPDATE: 6-27-2008
SHEESH! I Finally have a somewhat respectable DSL connection. (At least now I'm getting the speed I'm paying for.) I'm now looking at 1315 DownStream and 330 UpStream.

A tornado blew through here at the first of June and took out several big trees and several powerlines as a result. This turned out to be a 20-some hour power outage for the ol' homestead. The webserver however had a little more trouble getting back online. To make a painfully long story short I will just tell ya I ended up having to replace the DSL modem, the router and the wireless access point. AT&T also had to supply a new "copper pair" (what I was on had voltage and they said it was amazing it ever worked for DSL.)

I hope you find things working a bit smoother now. I have decided to do embedded videos on a randomized rotation to speed up the page load. I feel better about that because I don't have to worry about growing the page by continuing to add more "embededs." Now more than ever - you should find something new each time you visit (and I thank you for doing so.)

UPDATE: 3-18-2008
For some reason DtDNS (my domain name server) has been on the blink lately. That is on top of AT&Ts usual blinkishness. Since infinitelyremote.com is hosted over my DSL, if there is the slightest interuption in service my internet connection is assigned a new (dynamic) public IP address. I have always depended on DtDNS to keep track of those changes. I have even written a script that will check my IP and if it changes it reports the change to DtDNS.

If you go to http://infinitelyremote.dtdns.net you will be redirected to my address de-jour. When you go to www.infinitelyremote.com you are actually going to a GoDaddy server that redirects you to the DtDNS server for the final redirection to HERE. I have been doing a bit of image hosting for MySpace etc. and when this server chain is broken those hosted images go away until the route is back (a bit embarassing - but that's life.)

For your information I also run a backup IP tracker service through dynDNS. If ever you can't get through the primary route you can usually get in via http://infinitelyremote.dyndns.org. Since much of the site has been designed on the DtDNS framework you may find some functionality issues with the dynDNS connection.

I am - of course - very sorry for service interuptions and I am formulating a method to track my ever changing IP address that does not involve those third party solutions. While I am gratefull for the free services of DtDNS and dynDNS I think if I had my own tracker in place any outage would be shorter lived. Anyway, tech support will then be a local call . :)

UPDATE: 2-3-2008 -
     Well, let's try this again. I've disabled the browser detection script and installed a test version of the style sheet. I need now to get around and try some various browsers to see how it's working. If you are looking at a wreck on your browser, I'm sorry, but why not drop me a note and let me know what your using. If you want to see the site without the style sheet click this link.

    I have been working with access permissions and content control. If you cannot access features or pages that you think you should, please let me know. I am trying to debug when I can and when I stumble across errors I try to attack them at that time. I have recently revamped the menu system in the media center and I know there are still some issues with that. I'm really happy with the menu script though (particularlary being able to see file sizes now.)

    For some reason I have not been able to play media files without saving them first. If you are having trouble getting files to play directly try the ol' 'save target as' approach. This may be an issue only for my local network. I will test this too from the outside world when I can. Again- Please let me know of any issues you come across.

UPDATE: 12-10-2007 -
I finally got to check the layout in the Firefox browser on Linux and - as I feared - it all goes to crap. The Magic CSS Boxes all pile atop one another making the whole webpage unuseable. So in the meantime I have implemented a browser detection script. If you are using IE5 or better you get to see things as intended - with style. If not you will be deprived of the style sheet and will see only unstyled content (think of it as the "palm pilot" version.) Oh well, this gets into the reason for CSS in the first place; I can detect a problem browser and feed it a custom style sheet without having to go in and muck-up content.
...live and learn. That's the plan anyway...

Sorry if there seems to be some bugs in the works, but I am in the middle of converting this site from a table based layout to one that uses CSS (cascading style sheet.) If you want to see the previous page, I'll keep it around for a little while.

You see, CSS places all the layout information in a separate file called a style sheet. There are many advantages to this way of doing things. Basically this is the wave of the future (probably.) Anyhow, check out this example I call "The Magic CSS Boxes". It shows the basic building blocks of this page. Open it an try changing the size of the displayed window... pretty cool eh? And if you view the source of the page, it's like - "how'd he do that?" ... It's all in the style sheet, man

It has been pretty tough, learning to let go of tables and frames. But the further I get away from those, the more I think I might be getting somewhere. But really, I'm only trying to get infinitelyremote.
- Mike

What is going on here?