Everything In Between

Save for this entry, hopefully nothing has seemed to change here. I wanted to upgrade to the latest WordPress release, so after backing up my WordPress databases, I dove right in. Fastforward fifteen minutes, and here I am writing this entry. All my plugins work, and save for a few minor UI problems on the backend (RunPHP’s “eval() content” option isn’t properly hidden in the Discussion box on the post.php page), everything seems to be working just fine.

Once again, please do let me know if something went wonky and I haven’t found it. Other than that, though, it’s business as usual since I’m happy to say the upgrade procedure from WordPress 1.5 to WordPress 2 was easy as one, two, done.

Due to the fact that the old site’s forums were hacked (darn script kiddies), and all the content was deleted I’m closing that section of the site for now. It just wasn’t active enough to merit staying around anyway, really, and unfortuantely I don’t have a recent backup because (like I said) it hasn’t been active in forever.

I feel bad about removing all the good advice that was written there from the site, but chances are unless I reorganize the architecture of that section, it just won’t be seen anyway. Maybe it’ll come back to life in the future. Until that notice, however, the forums are no longer available.

Oi. Another sleepless night. Not for any bad reason, really, so no worries. It’s just that I’ve been consistently staying up ’til way past bedtime. I blame the strike because I’ve been cooped up in this neighborhood for way too long (and because I can). As a result, I’ve been unable to stop myself from pulling those crazy all-nighter coding/studying/working sessions that I’m infamous for.

They’re really not healthy, and I know I should stop, but i just can’t. I even made it a personal rule a while back, and I’ve been good about it and every other rule ’til these past few days. Maybe it’s the fact that Sara’s away. I hate to sound corny (sometimes) but I really have nothing to look forward to at night anymore. Sleep isn’t really something I want to do when it means thirty minutes of feeling lonely each night. And I miss cuddling.

So I’ve been coding and studying and working late at night to make myself stay awake. It didn’t really matter since I couldn’t go anywhere anyway. I was planning to get several gifts, but the strike meant I couldn’t get to them. Enter the Internet (and my generous brother), stage left, which saved the day as far as gifts are concerned.

But there’s still one more gift I need to buy, and since it won’t ship on time, I now have a reason to get out of the house tomorrow. Of course, seeing as how it’s 5:40 in the morning right now, if I go to sleep then I’m going to wake up at 3 PM again, and that just won’t do. So I’m staying up this night in the hopes of resetting my sleep patterns yet again. Maybe I’ll even get more studying done. (I hope I’ll remember what I read.)

Oh, and all the late-night coding has led to some improvements around this site, such as several new WordPress plugins. The most notable of these is the Subscribe To Comments Plugin, which will send you an email alert whenever a comment that you’re subscribed to is replied to. In other words, when you leave a comment, check the “Notify me of followup comments via e-mail” option to be notified of followup comments to your comments via email (uh, duh).

Um, what else? Ah, yes, Maymay Media‘s contact page and several other sections got a minor upgrade too. The contact page was the biggest deal, because it was well past due for me to include additional information from the sender in the messages I get from it.

What surprised me, though, was that I spent more time deciding which options to add than I did coding them. This goes to show me how much I’ve learned since I first created the site. No longer do I question if I can do something, but rather how long it might take me.

I’m also studying quite a bit from the AppleCare Technician Training course, preparing for the ACDT exams and my upcoming Apple interview (the latter of which I’ll say very little about here). I’m learning more than I can remember in one go, but it still feels good. I learn best through hands-on experiences, not through reading coursebooks, so I’m going to make a very serious effort at getting my hands on some sick Macs to fix as soon as I can. This will probably take the form of launching the Mayday Tech Support web site ASAP.

Ah, and I almost forgot: I’ve been starting to take a close look at Microsoft’s .NET Framework and, more specifically, ASP.NET. There’s money there, and it would be extremely beneficial to know how to swim in the Microsoft waters. So a recent opportunity has afforded me the chance to get Microsoft Visual Studio .NET, and I’m using it as a learning tool for the time being.

I think that’s it. Now it’s time for breakfast.

And so I have. Shiny new version of WordPress, shiny new, er, default template. Yeah, I know. But I want a personal project to give me some sort of break between the actual work-work and the studying for the ACDT certifications. It’ll be my coffee break coding stuff. Thing. Which I’ll work on tomorrow. When I have some capability of writing in full sentences. G’night. Oh, and naturally, if things start going haywire and you spot some bugs, do let me know. Thanks.

I don’t know why it took me so long to realize that I should do this, but it did. With that out of the way, say hello to my mini blogs.

First, what’s a mini blog? Basically, a mini blog is just a blog about a specific topic whose owner doesn’t really write lots of stuff for. Mini blogs are especially well-suited to things like links, hence, link blog. Yes, I know, it’s a whole new bunch of jargon to keep track of.

Second, I don’t really have them set up as blogs so the name mini blog is somewhat misleading. Instead, they’re just pages which will change pretty frequently because they’re pulling RSS feeds from all over the place and displaying them. So, among other things, there are no local archives for now. That’s not really so hard to do, but it’s not a priority for me right now.

The main cool thing here is that folks who aren’t up on the RSS bandwagon can still, basically, keep track of all of my goings-on around the ‘net via these pages because I’ll be publishing everything I do on other sites over here as well. Again, however, no archives, so if you miss some stuff you’re going to have to track it down yourself.

Anyway, that’s all I wanted to notify folks about. I hope you enjoy it. (Right now there’s just one posted, but there are soon to be more than five or so. Also, it’s very hackish right now and thus ugly, but I can deal with that in time.)

Update: Some post-post (get it, get it?) notes that I’ve been musing over:

• The versatility of what can be done with RSS and content syndication has just begun to hit the mainstream. As always, this is all thanks to its incredible usefulness.
• Being able to provide an overview of the massive amount of stuff I do online in one place is a huge usability benefit for readers, but as well as for me. I’ve been doing it for a long time now by using RSS to keep track of sites I like (even if I like a site, if it doesn’t publish an RSS or Atom feed, I’m not keeping up with it), but now I can do it for readers without forcing them to get a newsreader and adapt to a new technology.
• As far as information architecture goes, I think I’ve finally done a half-way decent job on my personal site. That’s rare because I always hate doing work on personal projects. Professional projecs are a totally different story, and I love working on them. However, my personal online life has always been an incredible mess, but now it’s starting to look like I’m getting things under control.
• I’ve firmly become a fan of RSS version 2.0 over other versions (especially the nasty-lookin’ RDF) and Atom. It’s just easier to work with.

Also, two new mini blogs (agreggation pages) have been added, so there’s a bunch more content there now. Still not done, so there’ll be even more in no time flat. (Maybe tomorrow?)

Tonight, I’ve finished preliminary work on switching the Maymay Media site over to its new design. Things are still a little shaky right now, so expect the dust to get kicked up again before it has too much of a chance to settle. The weblog is still using the old design, but the other sections are brand new.

Again, some things are still being worked on, but I wanted to show the new face of Maymay Media as soon as possible.

…which is not at all even close to being called “done.” But, I went over to my father’s studio today and he gave me his design ideas. He spoke, I coded, and a couple hours later we got this. He’s still somewhat in awe of the awesome power CSS has to instantly, easily, and globally alter the look and feel of a page. I’m still awed by his ability to know what would look good.

Like it? Hate it? I’m still getting used to it, but it was about time I got a designer’s help so I’m leaving it for now.

Oh, and yes, I know Internet Explorer is screwing it up again and there are some touch-ups that need to be made here and there, but I’m not up for it tonight. Comments and suggestions still welcome though. Even comments about known bugs and inconsistencies (thanks, Liz).

I’ve recently got into the whole del.icio.us link craze. Mostly, I’ve been using it as a cross-browser bookmarks list. Yes, Apple’s .Mac has Safari-bookmark syncing with iSync, but that’s only for Macs.

Anyway, I wanted to get a list of links I’ve recently added to it on this blog. MagpieRSS was the best way to do it, but I didn’t want to abuse the del.icio.us server by doing it, so I had to enable MagpieRSS’s cache. I had to search through the docs a little to get the cache feature working. I was trying to create the cache directory inside the magpierss directory, when apparently I’m supposed to have created it from the directory in which I’m calling the scripts that use Magpie.

This is a bit of a scalability issue, since I want to use Magpie in several different areas across my site and don’t want my webserver littered with cache directories everywhere. Beyond that little annoyance, it’s wonderfully easy to integrate RSS feeds into a site with this. I’m loving it.

Also, after coding the function that displays my del.icio.us links, I started searching for the cache solution, but found Stephanie Booth’s post regarding a different MagpieRSS caching issue. She seems to have solved her problem, and while I had to continue to search for how to enable MagpieRSS’s auto-caching, I did find a code sample which creates a del.icio.us links list. I’m now using a modded version of her function, as it was better than mine. Thanks Stephanie!

And for the curious, here’s the reference I found that showed how to enable MagpieRSS’s auto-caching feature.

Addendum: Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. Since this blog is actually generating two of my blogs in a weird way, I only added the del.icio.us links to this site, not my Ups and Downs personal site.

I’ve finished putting back all the old categories I had in my other blogs. This time, I’ve also changed the organization of some of my entries, so if you’ve got a permalink that isn’t working please let me know. While I don’t suspect there should be many problems, I’m going to keep an eye on my server logs just in case.

If there’s one thing I hate, it’s a 404 HTTP error.

Oh, and yes, I’m aware that all the new categories are messing up the design of my category listing. I need to update my stylesheet but don’t have the will to do it immediately. :) Deal.

Well, last night I said it was stupid to keep running one domain as if it were two sites. So, though I’ll keep the front-end of this site separated so as not to mix business with pleasure (too much), I’ve decided to integrate the whole thingamabobber into a single actual blog/database/backend/etc. That should keep things simpler for me. Have yet to reconstruct the categories, but that is only a ten minute task.

‘Bout time I started streamlining and compiling all my collected works under a single roof. Sheesh!

To do:

1. Filter which posts are posted on Maymay Media’s blog somehow. Some options:
   • built-in WordPress functionality? I don’t know of any yet.
   • RSS category-specific feeds. (Unnecessarily taxing on my server.)
   • Simple database connect and filter via category by rolling my own code.
2. Finish up the categories.