Buzzy's World

In my last entry, I ended mentioning that I was backing up in case the Windows 8.1 installation totally screwed up my computer. The installation went fine, but it's always good to have backups. It didn't take that long for me to back things up anyway, since I back things up every couple weeks. With that out of the way, I guess I'll talk about my first impressions.

Yesterday, I got a banner that appeared across my screen inviting me to open the Store app and install Windows 8.1. It's weird that it doesn't come down through Windows Update, when it's basically Windows 8 SP1. It provided a scarily large download size, but based on how long it took to download it, they were either providing the worst-case scenario download size or the uncompressed size. Anyway, I took a nap while it downloaded and messed around on another computer. The download also randomly stopped for several minutes, then started again. I couldn't figure out any sort of pattern; all I wanted was it to finish so I could use my Internet connection again. Eventually, it finished and restarted...and restarted...and restarted. When I finally had a chance to interact with my computer again, it started asking very installing-an-OS kinds of questions. Then I hit the "Sign in to your Microsoft account" step. I purposely didn't want to do that when installing Windows 8, but with this upgrade, it did not [visibly] give me any kind of choice not to. The only choices were to sign in, create a new account, or view the privacy statement. I hopped on the other computer I had nearby to look up if there was a way past this. Basically, you just click the option to create a new account, then there's an option at the bottom to keep signing in the way you always have, i.e., locally. This works the same way for a fresh install; click to create a new account, and click the option to sign in without a Microsoft account. (This site was the first one that showed up when I did a search, so it's their advice I took. The site also has how to remove a Microsoft account if you didn't want one in the first place.)

( First impressions and junk )

<Directory "C:/PROGRA~2/PHP/">
    AllowOverride None
    Options None
    Require all granted
</Directory>

FcgidInitialEnv PHPRC "C:/PROGRA~2/PHP" # Tell PHP where php.ini is
AddHandler fcgid-script .php
FcgidWrapper "C:/PROGRA~2/PHP/php-cgi.exe" .php # Can't have spaces in the path

A good chunk of yesterday was trying to come up with some MySQL/MariaDB code that could generate a random row for me. Doing the simplest thing (something like SELECT ID FROM tablename ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 1) is slow. This huge thing worked, but you can't run a sequence of commands the same way you run prepared [single] statements:

SET @r := (RAND()*(SELECT MAX(ID) FROM tablename));
SET @sql := CONCAT('SELECT ID FROM tablename WHERE ID>=',@r,' ORDER BY ID ASC LIMIT 1');
PREPARE stmt1 FROM @sql;
EXECUTE stmt1;

$query = 'SET @r := (' . (mt_rand(0, mt_getrandmax()) / mt_getrandmax()) . '*(SELECT MAX(ID) FROM tablename));' . PHP_EOL . 'SET @sql := CONCAT(\'SELECT ID,\',@r, \' FROM tablename WHERE ID>=\',@r,\' ORDER BY ID ASC LIMIT 1\');' . PHP_EOL . 'PREPARE stmt1 FROM @sql;' . PHP_EOL . 'EXECUTE stmt1;';
if ($mysqli->multi_query($query)) {
while ($mysqli->more_results() && $mysqli->next_result()); // jump to last one
    if ($result = $mysqli->store_result()) {
        while ($row = $result->fetch_row()) $theID = $row[0];
    }
    $result->free();
}

1 results repeated 5 times
1 results repeated 19 times
2 results repeated 4 times
4 results repeated 3 times
76 results repeated 2 times
Highest ID: 6148
Lowest ID: 22
Max Time to Execute (returning only an ID): 0.0022029876708984
Min Time to Execute (returning only an ID): 0.0006871223449707
Average Time to Execute (returning only an ID): 0.00086945366859436
Max Time to Execute (returning all 45 columns): 0.0029420852661133
Min Time to Execute (returning all 45 columns): 0.00085997581481934
Average Time to Execute (returning all 45 columns): 0.001065233707428
First Repeat at Iteration #61

For I don't know how long, I've been using Dyn (it was DynDNS back in the day) for Dynamic DNS service. At its peak, I used three of the five available subdomains with the free service. They slowly scaled back the subdomains to one and removed the wildcards, but it still did the job. All I needed was an easy to remember address to point to my IP so my brother can access my development server. Back in 2010, they added some kind of requirement that your account has to be messed with in some way once every 30 days. (This was fine for me because my router automatically updates the IP, even if changes aren't needed, once every ten days.) In May, they dropped free accounts entirely, but the existing ones could stay. This month, they shrunk that 30 day requirement: Updating the IP does not count...only website logins count. If you forget to log in, your account is wiped out and the information purged. I found out about this change via an e-mail they sent which is hawking the Pro account, basically requiring a payment for what used to be free. It was previously free and good enough, so lots of routers have support for them and only them. Now that free accounts can't be made and the existing free accounts require manual intervention to maintain (every login drops you to an ad for the paid service), I can't guarantee that my brother will be able to access my server at any given time. Because of that, I moved to freedns.afraid.org, which is a lot like what DynDNS used to be: free with five subdomains. I'm also lucky that it is supported by my router, though I have no idea if it's supported by my new modem/router combo that is waiting for a new ISP. I might have to find some old computer to run a client, which would be a huge waste of electricity.

I know there are people who think that since it's a free service, no one has any right to be angry when it's screwed with. But it's been screwed with in such a slimy way in order to take a once good service and make it unusable. Look at this disingenuous sentence from the e-mail they sent: "We understand that the possibility of resulting service interruptions may be frustrating, so we are offering an upgrade offer to VIP status (Dyn Pro) for just $10 USD for the first year." They understand that service interruptions are frustrating, which is why they put them into effect in the first place! (Also, full price, which it would assumedly go up to after the first year is up is about the same price I pay for my web host and e-mail service. Why would I want to pay as much for a subdomain for a site accessed by one person as I do for web space, bandwidth, and e-mail?) They want to drive people to their paid offerings; I hope everyone leaves. And when those former members want a paid offering, I hope they pay someone else. I felt bad for closing an account I had open for so many years, but they've started down a road and it looks like they're planning to remove all free service by attrition. As a free user, my only protest options are writing a blog entry I don't think anyone will see and closing my account. I doubt I'll get a PR visit like the writer of the 2010 entry I linked to earlier.