Handy URL to use when trying to troubleshoot things, or to ask someone to tell me their IP so that I can help figure out a connection problem.

What Is My IP Address? - IP Address Lookup

Ever wondered why your hard disk is full? Or what directory is taking up most of the space? When using conventional disk browsing tools, such as Windows Explorer, these questions may be hard to answer. With SequoiaView however, they can be answered almost immediately. SequoiaView uses a visualization technique called cushion treemaps to provide you with a single picture of the entire contents of your hard drive. You can use it to locate those large files that you haven't accessed in one year, or to quickly locate the largest picture files on your drive.

This is an *awesome* piece of freeware. It's got a creative way of graphically displaying the relative sizes of the entire contents of my hard-drive at once, from large folders down to individual files. Within seconds I had spotted a few massive files that weren't needed anymore, and was therefore able to free up multiple gigabytes of space.

SequoiaView - Free up some hard-drive space

There are some spiffy little utilities here.

The "ImageResizer" in particular is turning out to be a lifesaver when dealing with large quantities of digital cam images. Now I can load everything to a directory, select everything in one batch, right-click to rotate everything clockwise or counter-clockwise as needed, and then resize them down to a web-friendly handful. HUGE timesaver. :)

Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP

] Everyone knows they should have a passing knowledge of
] vi, but most people groan at the thought of using it. In
] today's article, I'd like to demonstrate some of the
] tricks that vi has up its sleeve. It really is a powerful
] little editor and I'm constantly amazed at its number of
] built-in shortcuts.

A ton of neat little tricks on using "vi". I'm in and out of vi a dozen times a day, and I learned tricks from this page I never knew about!

Reference: Using the vi Editor

] Most Iraqis have been unable to access the Internet since
] March 31, when cruise missiles hit servers and satellite
] dishes at the Information Ministry in Baghdad. Repeated
] strikes on telephone switching centers have also disabled
] much of the phone service in the city, rendering dial-up
] modems -- Iraqis' predominant means of connecting to the
] Internet -- useless. Additionally, the war has knocked
] out almost all of the websites operated by the Iraqi
] government and state-controlled media.
]
] Meanwhile, the U.S. government's plans for repairing
] Iraq's IT infrastructure are still unclear. The Bush
] administration has charged the Agency for International
] Development with rebuilding the infrastructure and public
] facilities in post-war Iraq. But none of the agency's
] eight projects currently out for bid includes repairing
] Iraq's telecommunications or information technology.

I'm particularly interested in this too, to find out what happened to Salam Pax, the "Where Is Raed" blogger. According to a 3/31/2003 article in Salon, his IP was hit hard:

From http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/03/31/iraq_offline/index.html

] Meanwhile, two primary Internet access points for Iraqi
] citizens -- among them a high-profile blogger using the
] alias "Salam Pax" -- have been unreachable since the weekend.
]
] A Cisco switch that connected Baghdad residents to the Internet
] stopped responding Saturday morning, Iraq time. The device,
] located at Internet protocol address 62.145.94.250, served as a
] Web gateway for many citizens.
]
] The headers of a March 19 e-mail message from Salam Pax, author
] of Where Is Raed? a popular blog chronicling life in Baghdad,
] showed he connected to the Internet using the switch. Pax's
] electronic journal has not been updated since early last week.

Salam Pax's blog, last updated March 24, is here:
 http://dearraed.blogspot.com

Wired News: IQ Test for Rebuilding Iraqi Net

Even with all the "slashdot effect" that my site was getting from the mention in Schneier's newsletter, including thousands of visitors attacking all at once, my personal site ran without a problem. The server stayed up, and there was plenty of bandwidth. Thanks HugMe!

HugMe's Server Status