Archive of October 2005

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

The Entity IV: In The Black

The Entity IV: In The Black

I'm looking down on a little boy
Don't get too close now, you'll fall inside
Go away now, don't play around
You didn't listen, got drawn inside
Now I hear you, you're just a mind
Like a story, you've heard before
Didn't want to believe it, it's so absurd

You didn't want to listen
You wouldn't take my words
You didn't see me, so you…
Took the chance

Now you're nothing, just a mind
Gave you warning, a second chance
It'a simple story, you can't go back
Ain't nobody, nor a second chance
Isn't anything that can take you back

Just a thought now, in the air
Learn your way now, it's simple fact
Just a mind boy, an entity
Free to go now, just enact your plan
Truly fact now, you're in the black


4/26/1982
October 19, 2005 @ 12:53 pm | Category:
Monday, October 10, 2005

PolarBlog V1.6.2 (Fungus Gnat) Released

PolarBlog V1.6.2 (Fungus Gnat) has been released.  This release fixes a serious comment deletion bug and another minor comment posting bug.

Enhancements
  • None
Bug Fixes
  • Deleting a comment deletes all top level comments! This  was being cause by a bug in MySqlDb::stripArray() where nested arrays were not being handled properly.
  • The auto-linebreak option on comments does not work.  This has been corrected.
Configuration Changes
  • None
See the PolarBlog Changes file for more information.  Please see the PolarBlog Upgrading documentation for information on upgrading your installation.

This release is named "Fungus Gnat" because this was an annoying pest of a bug!
October 10, 2005 @ 08:36 am | Category:
Sunday, October 09, 2005

PolarBlog Comment Delete Bug

I've just found that a bug fix I made in V1.5.2 (Groundhog)…

"Deleting a single comment destroying all root level comments!  A serious array data mishandling issue in the DB class has been corrected.  Nested arrays are now handled properly."

Has NOT been fixed and appears to still exist!  I know this because I've once again trashed my comments table! :(  So until I can extract it from the backup (probably tomorrow), my comments on most entries will be missing.

Consider this your warning not to delete comments until I get this fixed.  An easy work-around is to edit the offending comment and disable the display option.  Generally this is what I do even with spam comments, but was fixing another comment problem and stumbled upon this while deleting a duplicate comment I created.

I don't have an ETA for fixing this, but I will likely issue a new release to address just this problem once I do fix it.  Sorry.  I hope this hasn't/doesn't hit you too!
October 9, 2005 @ 10:25 am | Category:
Saturday, October 08, 2005

ig: The Google Drug

Several weeks back I was led to Google's new "Individualized Google".  Actually I don't even know if that's what it's called, but that's the best I can come up with from the "ig".  (Feel free to correct me if you know otherwise.)  Anyhow, I played with it a bit and found the drag and drop aspect of it to be really cool, but beyond that I didn't really have a need.

Then a couple weeks after that I had some more time to revisit it and play with it some more.  And the verdict?  After about a month of use, I'm addicted to the new Google drug!  I haven't yet made the switch there as my homepage, but I'd say it's not that far off.  Currently I use my Links page and also used to use my RSS Feeds page often.  But I've created a lot of FireFox bookmarks that let me quickly navigate/search for things on the sites I visit the most, type addresses in directly or simply Google my way through life.  This has made a portion of my Links page obsolete.  And the contents of my RSS Feeds has largely been integrated into the new "ig" page as you can specify RSS feeds as part of the customization.  This works well, but I have had some problems with RDF feeds not working.  But most of the things I follow regularly do work.  Goodbye RSS Feeds page?  It also has a very nice weather widget and that has largely obsoleted my Weather page also!  But as winter approaches, that will likely get used again because my default zip also pulls in the current radar image for me.

And to further pound another nail into my personal website, yesterday I learned about Google Reader!  I only played with this for a few minutes, but it quite possibly will become my news reader of choice in the future…particularly if they give me a widget on my new homepage.

Hit me again Google, I need another fix!  ;)
October 8, 2005 @ 07:59 am | Category:
Thursday, October 06, 2005

The Mantis

The Mantis
October 6, 2005 @ 01:05 pm | Category:
Monday, October 03, 2005

What Happened?

I used to post to my blog several time a week and occasionally daily.  So what happened?  What happened is my job has eaten my lunchtime!  I used to surf around to read the news and visit a few sites to gain some fodder for my amusement.  But my responsibilities at work have grown to a point that I often work while I eat my lunch.  Thus my casual surfing time has dwindle greatly and my in turn, my ability to spin new content here has been hampered.

So what have I been doing?  I've basically quit riding my bike since August with the exception of a couple of rides.  This again is a work related casualty as every couple of weeks I have to pull an all-nighter which throws my whole schedule off.  Additionally I often work late now and need to make up family time so I stay up later and don't get up in the morning as I should.

I've recently started getting up early again, but only stretching and lifting some weights.  I'm feeling like a big slug these days and I'm starting to have some pretty serious lower back problems…worse than I have ever had.  I know getting back into shape will help, so now I have to make it happen.  I still hope to go back to riding outside this season as I've lost a lot of some of the best weather ever for this time of year.

I have managed to get a few odd jobs done around the house including the final coat of polyurethane on the kitchen trim.  This has been a job on hold for the past two years because it's a hassle and my wife doesn't like the fumes.  But with her and the kids out of town for a few days I pounded it out in a very, very long weekend of work.  But it was worth it because now the kitchen is finally complete and it looks great!

I've spent some time with my parents who came to visit for several days a couple of weeks ago on their way up to Maine.  They just passed back through this past weekend and headed back for Illinois this morning.  We loaded them and the kids up and went out to the pumpkin farm Saturday, but only came back with apples.  They hadn't started hayrides out to pick your own yet so we will possibly be returning in a couple of weeks.

I've been working on the next release of PolarBlog (Homing Pigeon) which is the release which will finally allow posting to PB via email.  Alan can now start warming up to do his happy dance.  ;)  I've done a major overhaul of the Installer/Updater Utility that should make things easier for both user and me.  I discovered a bug in the recent RSS generator changes I made so a fix for that will be in this release.  And I had a request this morning to add some additional CSS to control the comment page which should also be in this release.  I'm hopeful to get this all wrapped up this month.

And as you've probably guessed, I've been working a lot!  And although it probably sounds like I'm complaining about it above, that's not the case.  This is the best job I've ever had and I very much look forward to going to work everyday.  One of the benefits was that I got to go to php|works in Toronto.  Not just me, but also seven of my coworkers as well.  Only three days, but jam packed with lots of useful leaning.

So there you have it —what happened.  And it's likely to stay this way for the foreseeable future.  So get used to seeing more of my (lame) writing and quick Snapshot posts.
October 3, 2005 @ 01:23 pm | Category: