Update to Disqus

After a long brain-think, I’ve decided to use Disqus for my comments from now on.

There just seems to be no benefit to managing a comments system when there is so much that people expect out of it now.

Please bear with me as my existing comments are synced to “The Cloud” (or as we used to call it – a server on the internet).

Life and Blogging is Hard

Plus.net have moved to the new CGI platform after some sort of disaster. As this was coming for almost a year, I’m shocked that the platform still seems in such a shoddy state.

This has meant that the site has been misbehaving for a few weeks. Most notably causing random Apache errors.

I think that it’s a wake up call to me that I need to get this blog living somewhere else. Letting it expand and breathe as it needs to.

Some of the way to that is getting a new hosting plan sorted out. I wanted to do this in an el-cheapo style by using SQLite instead of mySQL to power WordPress, but it seems like the database abstraction that it uses might as well be non-existant. mySQL or bust I’m afraid.

In a time when PHP provides a unified access library, and many frameworks have a respectable set of DB abstraction libraries – it’s frustrating to see the WordPress team get suckered into making new features the top of the development priority list, while failing to solidify or revisit programming fundamentals.

And what’s the point of having plugins at all if they don’t get approved in any way? After my trial with SQLite, I’m genuinely worried about any WP plugins now.

Moving soon folks!

Stop Sexy Bookmarks from being filtererd

I’m quite a fan of the Sexy Bookmarks WordPress plugin. There’s clearly an element of grace in the design and the developers make no bones about how it should be perceived. Being ‘sexy’ has an inexpressible appeal for anything but it can cause headaches simply because of the connotations that are also brought up with it.

For example, searching in Google for Sexy Bookmarks is innocent enough at first until you get a few pages into the results.

The other problem is that corporate firewalls like WebSense can block words such as ‘Sexy’ if they appear in filenames. Continue reading Stop Sexy Bookmarks from being filtererd

Lacking Somewhere

It’s been a little while since I last posted, so I thought that I’d better throw something up for 3 reasons.

  1. I’m sitting at a computer installing over 10 CDs worth of software, and extremely bored
  2. Lots is happening in my life, a great deal of which I can’t go into on this blog
  3. Some stuff does happen, but I’m always too busy, and so I end up forgetting.

Well, no more! One of the core reasons for less posting is that this blog is fundamentally self-serving. I use it mainly for my own reference, so that if I need to do something IT-related I can load up the blog. Likewise, if I’m talking to someone I sometimes say, “I had that problem – search for it on my blog.” It’s a doddle. The investment in time is always a catch, though, and so I sometimes slip up and not post for a while.

So a rundown on cool things that I’m keeping an eye on or doing is coming right up.

Jon Collins, an Internet Hero

A fellow Marillion and Fish fan, Jon Collins recently posted that he’d sort me out a curry after comparing Fish’s new album 13th Star to cooking.

As I’m inept at cooking, I’ll take his word for it – but I thought I’d check out Mr. Collins’ credentials in a proper style. Readers of this blog (ha! I couldn’t resist that one) might recognise the name from my post about the Marillion biography ‘Separated Out‘.

Still, I checked out the A Collection website, to see what he has to say for himself there, a lo, there’s a link to his blog! There’s nothing like a blog to get a feel for a person.

Indeed, I can pin Mr. Collins down as an IT baking, cookery skewing, hedgehog mowing genius. And he likes Marillion of course.

So, well done to Jon Collins for being him, and when he’s in, or near Margate, I can expect a nice curry!