WordPress Twenty Eleven theme in effect. (This post is a test of the new, built-in Link Only theme functionality.)
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Category Archives: wordpress
This Here Blog Is Fixed
Crisis averted, thanks to my memory and downloadable plugins. Even got to upgrade the theme. If an image is missing or something goes boink, please let me know and I will fix it asap.
And then I did the Stupid Dance.
This Blog Is Alright, I Promise
The infernal somewhat-hinky theme that you see here is what happens when you:
1) Don’t backup the files in your damned wp-content/uploads/ folder before attempting an on-the-fly wp-admin/media-upload.php fix and .htaccess replacement over FTP (Filezilla),
2) Swear to Yahweh that you told Filezilla to delete only the remote wp-admin folder, but somehow wp-content decided to leap off the bridge along with its brethren sucking all themes and uploaded images down with it,
3) Are super-smarty-pants diligent about backing up your database from time to time but forget that your images actually come from wp-content/uploads/, when not sourced from Flickr or the originating site,
4) Are a general pinhead who should not be allowed near a computer, leave alone blogging-software installation after a certain time of night. It’s the difference between this and this. Muddling through this stuff at midnight is not the same as doing it correctly, with diligence and attention, at say 7pm. I’d blame the glaring absence of Mountain Dew in this house if it weren’t for the fact that I gave it up after college, and
5) Think WordPress.org is the bomb, but their Flash-powered media uploader is a piece of poo that requires fiddling with .htaccess in the first place. (Don’t worry, n00bs, it works fine over at free WordPress.) And the fix is reinstalling the latest WordPress files from scratch after backing up the database!
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All said, the worst case is that I’ve lost all most of the blog’s uploaded images and plugins that I will have to find and replace over time, the theme is rubbish again and the backup files are all over the place during this period of troubleshooting. What a pain. Learns me. But, by golly, I fixed the media-uploader.php problem! Scorched earth, but world peace! WHEEEE.
Ad so, the blog may have smoke coming out its backside, but I can now bring you this awesome picture of the President and First Lady enjoying a pint of the black stuff during their recent visit to Ireland. In under three seconds. Go O’Bama!
Sláinte!
Regular programming to resume when I find a new theme that suits this stable and the decorator gives me a quote. Expect falling plaster.
This Is A Test
of the VatulBlog RSS broadcast system, which has been a bit wonky of late.
If you see this post in your feedreader or don’t, please let me know in the comments’ section.
Attempting the use of Asides again to record short stray thoughts that don’t warrant their own post. Styling this is a pain in the rear. Let’s see how it goes. Update: AsideShop is the best plugin for this – instant, create-your-own templates without the fear of mucking up your overall theme template.
This Is A Test
Looks like yesterday’s post titled links for 2009-11-05 posted and reposted itself a dozen times overnight, eventually turning into links for 2009-11-06. I use the Blog Autoposting Tool (Beta) on del.icio.us which “creates a daily post of your latest bookmarks to your blog.” I wonder whether it went nuts or my WordPress install is on the fritz.
So, I’ve killed the blog posting job and the offending post itself, and will post links manually from now on. If this post does not regurgitate and spew like the last one did, it’s a del.icio.us thing. Otherwise, it’s a WordPress fail. The last thing I need right now is pushing around WordPress innards.
Are you sure you want to learn how to blog? This s*** be overrated, y’all.
UPDATE: It was totally del.icio.us’s fault. That’s what you get for relying on Beta.
Testing New Theme
VatulBlog’s latest incarnation is brought to you by Ocular Professor, “a photoblogging theme that features large images, gallery support, and threaded comments for WordPress 2.7 [and up].” Hope this is a better way to link the photographs at my Flickr gallery to this blog, make the blog more visually appealing and, given all the travel I’ve been doing, tell the tales with their pictures. Here are some images from my new life in the country.
If you’re a WordPress 2.8.x user, please upgrade to 2.8.4 ASAP. You can download the latest version from here or, if you’re (lazy and) adventurous like me, do this from inside your dashboard. WordPress 2.8.3 exploits admin password reset.
Upgraded VatulBlog to WordPress 2.7. The new dashboard is a lot like Flickr’s slick new Home page – all management utilities are available via drop-down menus on one page as opposed to tabs. QuickPress is sweet, but hotlinks have to be created manually and categories can only be added during an edit. Must be why they call it QuickPress.
Day 996: Travel, Sick Relatives, Computers. Gah.
Things have been rather hectic here at VatulBlog HQ lately. So busy that I have neither the time nor the inclination to blog. I’ve seen more of the insides of airports and geophysical data than any human should and the best part is that it isn’t over. More travel and data schlepping ahead.
This past weekend, I flew up to Ohio to spend some time with my parents and grandmother, the latter of whom I haven’t seen since my wedding around sixteen months ago. This is Patti’s (Tamil for grandmother) second battle with that awful beast known as cancer and she has just come out of another demeaning round of chemotherapy and radiation. Yet, she got out of bed and walked into the living room to spend time with one of her favorite grandchildren and, through coughs and sniffles, lovingly related to me all the things I used to do as a precocious young kid visiting my grandfather and her in India. I want to take this opportunity to say the following to my grandmother: Should this fate befall me, Goddess help me be half as strong as you are and look half as beautiful as you do after swallowing harsh, cancer-killing chemicals and being zapped by gamma rays, neutrons and protons that make you sicker than your illness provides. You, my dear lady, kick ass. I love you. (I also admire the hell out of you for tuning out the inevitable, heated discussion on American politics that went on among your children and grandchildren.)
Should this fate befall me. Let’s see – paternal great-grandmother and maternal aunt dead of breast cancer, paternal uncle dead of lung cancer, grandmother fighting non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and I live on Cancer Alley. Nice. When I mentioned this to him, Herr Doktor Brother assured me that nanotechnology will cure all within the span of a decade and that I’ve got to have faith in the coming and unstoppable advancements in medical science. I’m similarly optimistic about the oil industry and alternative sources of energy, but, like any passive consumer of products I don’t know much about, I’ll believe the cure for cancer when I see it.
Speaking of frustrating illnesses, Dangerblond‘s blog is on the fritz. More specifically, we are battling File ‘./blog/wp_comments.MYD’ not found (Errcode: 13), which probably means a corrupt Comments file/table which in turn means a WordPress upgrade. I may not be able to fix cancer, but I will make her blog cry Uncle, by gum. Tonight, I go in with a Ka-Bar between my teeth. Wish me luck.