This problem has been bugging the crap out of me since I started using GoDaddy hosting. All of my old mod_rewrite stuff stopped working and I had to find roundabout ways to get mod_rewrite working. I talked to GoDaddy support which is usually great but they told me they couldn’t help. I scoured the tubes o’ internet and found lots of people with the same problem, but not too many answers, and none that worked for me…until today! The problem was that Apache MultiViews were enabled by default in GoDaddy hosting (at least in their shared hosting 2.0 environment).

Apache.org docs say the following about multiviews:

The effect of MultiViews is as follows: if the server receives a request for /some/dir/foo, if /some/dir has MultiViews enabled, and /some/dir/foo< does not exist, then the server reads the directory looking for files named foo.*, and effectively fakes up a type map which names all those files, assigning them the same media types and content-encodings it would have if the client had asked for one of them by name. It then chooses the best match to the client’s requirements.

After I finally figured this part out, it was easy to disable. Just add the following to your .htaccess file in any directory which you do not want to use multiviews:

Options -MultiViews

So… this post is really just for random people scouring the internet tubes, probably not most of my normal readers…but it’s better than nothing.

I got two pretty awesome presents yesterday…

The first was a red Swingline stapler. Anyone who’s seen Office Space knows the story of Milton and his red stapler. (For those that don’t, just go rent the movie or watch it on Comedy Central.) The story behind it is I have been working as a subcontractor for a few months for a place where I used to be an actual employee. Since becoming a subcontractor, my workspace is constantly moved almost daily between cubes, offices, and random tables. While I was in a meeting yesterday someone put a red stapler on my desk! I still have yet to figure out who put it there, and everyone I have asked has denied it. I’m not sure if it was intended as a gift or not but I am keeping it until someone asks me, “Have you seen my stapler?”.

The second gift was a black iPod classic(named “The bPod”) as an early Christmas present from my awesome wife. I have wanted an iPod for quite a while but had a few hangups. I was too lazy to rip all my CDs, I’m not usually an early adopter and iPods kept improving every year or so, and I tend to over-think any purchase above $10. Since the iPod Classic came out, and the iPhone/iPod Touch is a pretty huge leap, I figured it was about time.

Google Maps has implemented a great new feature to customize your driving route after they give you directions. I’ve used this a couple times since it was rolled out with great luck. Basically, after you put in your start and end points they give you a route as a blue line on the map. Then you can click and drag any point on that route and move it to the route you really want to go. It is useful if you are picking something up along the way or just want to use a different road than they suggest (the “scenic” route for example).

It seemed to work great until tonight. I wanted to give someone not too familiar with the area easy directions into DC via Interstate 66. Google Maps refuses to give directions using I-66 inside of the Capital Beltway going eastbound. I even tried having my starting address as “I-66, Arlington” and the end address being Constitution Ave (which 66 runs directly into). The first thing Google does is exit 66 and take a much more confusing route. No matter how many stops I added, it refuses to use 66 eastbound inside the beltway. It had me literally driving in circles going in and out of DC because it would only drive West across the Roosevelt Bridge.

Anyone else run into this?