Pirates of the Caribbean Hallmark Keepsake

This was a gift from my mother and sister for Christmas 2006. It’s a Hallmark Keepsake Christmas ornament (#QXD6376). It depicts a scene from the movie Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl where Captain Jack Sparrow is being held in a jail cell. Pressing the button on the front of the ornament plays the music to “A Pirate’s Life for Me.” Here’s the text from the box:

As the Black Pearl descends upon Port Royal, its cannon fire blasts through a wall of the prison where condemned pirate Captain Jack Sparrow is held. Unfortunately, the hole does not extend far enough into Jack’s cell to allow his escape. The other prisoners lament Jack’s lack of luck as they flee. Desperate, Jack attempts to lure the four-legged jailer who holds the keys to his freedom. Will Jack manage to escape, or will he face the gallows in the morning and be hanged as a pirate? Well, Jack has escaped from desperate circumstances before, and he is, after all, Captain Jack Sparrow …

 

Front

Captain Jack’s Ass

Side
 

Harvard – Dexter Gate

This was a 2007 birthday gift from my wife. It’s from one of my favorite architectural model makers Timothy Richards.

Dexter Gate is a familiar landmark to all Harvard graduates. On the face of its lintel is carved “enter to grow in wisdom” and on the reverse, “depart to serve mankind”. Harvard commissioned this bookend to commemorate the centenary of this landmark. Harvard University was established in 1636 and is one of America’s earliest educational institutions after being set up by the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Weight: 1.6 kg – Dimensions: 7″w x 9.75″h x 2.5″d

 

Front

Back
 

WordPress Plugin: Cookie Timeout

My wife called me to tell me that people could reach her site’s admin page (specifically her mother), and wanted me to check her site. I told her that she probably forgot to logout, and I was right. The default expiration for the login cookie is one year. I just wrote a small plugin to change that value to something more reasonable.

Version History:

  • 0.60 Compatible with WordPress 2.7. (2008-12-11)
  • 0.50 Compatible with WordPress 2.5. (2008-03-29)
  • 0.42 Fixed another redeclare error and the plugin can now be run from sub-directories. (2008-03-22)
  • 0.40 Added option to ignore the “Remember me” checkbox on the login page. (2006-06-13)
  • 0.36 Added nonce security. (2006-06-03)
  • 0.35 Fixed “Cannot redeclare wp_setcookie()” error when the plugin is activated. (2006-04-10)
  • 0.31 Compatible with WP 2.01. Simply some internal housekeeping on their part. (2006-01-31)
  • 0.30 Compatible with WP 2.0. Now respects the new “Remember me” checkbox on login (2005-12-21)
  • 0.20 Added ability to expire the cookie when the current browser session is closed (2005-06-27)
  • 0.11 Added message for the need to logoff after making changes (2005-05-23)
  • 0.10 Initial version

NOTE: If you want this plugin’s values to work on password protected posts you have to replace the wp-pass.php file in the root of your installation with the following version:

WordPress Plugin: Frame Buster

I’ve written my first WordPress plugin. It’s called Frame Buster. This technique is also called a frame breaker or frame busting. It places some JavaScript in the heading of all pages that will prevent the page from appearing in someone else’s frame. This happened to one of my sites a couple of years ago and it was done to steal the site’s content. I did not like it. It should be noted that it will only work if the client browser has JavaScript enabled.

Version History:

  • 0.30 Changed name to avoid confusion with another plugin. (2010-02-18)
  • 0.20 Compatible with WP 2.0. It won’t bust out of the post preview frame. (2005-12-21)
  • 0.10 Initial version

This is the code that it uses:

<script type="text/JavaScript"><!-- 
if (parent.frames.length > 0) top.location.replace(document.location); //–->