Misc

Stuff that doesn’t quite fit anywhere else.

Blog seems functional again

 Posted by (Visited 11362 times)  Misc, Open thread  Tagged with: ,
Mar 242008
 

You may have noticed the blog being partially inoperative this weekend. Well, it seems to be back. We’ll see how it goes during the day.

The background: on Friday or Saturday I attempted to log into the admin dashboard only to be told that I had to upgrade my database. I assumed it was because my host was forcing me to go from the old 2.1.x version to the newer 2.3.3 version which has a lot of security fixes. Well, I clicked the “upgrade” link, it didn’t work, and then the dashboard became inaccessible. I got stuck in the endless upgrade loop described here.

I then spent two days trying forced and manual upgrades to 2.3.3, 2.2, and every number in between. Looked like it was always timing out when trying to update things. While I wasat it, though, I also uploaded the images for the new theme that I have been messing with — so at least there was a new look. 🙂

Morgan suggested forcing a database upgrade, which I didn’t see the point of, given that said upgrade is exactly what was failing each time. But it did make me go look at the value of the db_version field in the wp_options table. Which was “1” instead of what it should be. I changed it manually to 4773, and the upgrade link succeeded, and now it’s at 5183 (which is correct since we are currently running 2.2.3). So thanks, Morgan!

Tonight perhaps, I will try finishing the job and going all the way to 2.3.3. In the meantime, you may notice that some blog functionality is missing — translation, for example. Most of it is just commented out, and I will have to dig into the PHP for the sidebars to bring it back. The new theme is supposed to have a bunch of stuff rearranged, but I suspect it makes no sense to do that until I get to the latest version.

Post here if you see any obviously broken stuff, please!

Feed wonky

 Posted by (Visited 4331 times)  Misc
Jan 102008
 

Yes, the RSS feed is wonky for some people, popping up an auth dialog. I’ve gone through to remove the offending links, but it looks like lots of readers have it cached in various ways, which means that even though it is (theoretically) fixed, it’s still popping up for people.

Not sure what I can do about it at this point other than post a bunch to get the offending article pushed off the feed. 🙂

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Mailbag: marriages, links, China…

 Posted by (Visited 8585 times)  Mailbag
Jan 092008
 

Hi Raph: I am not sure if I’ve ever thanked you in my visits to your site before or when you had your old site up…so here goes now! I met my husband in Ultima Online in 2001. We are still together – in fact he made me his RL wife two weeks ago in Las Vegas with our family present to give our blessings. (Had a blast – wish you were there!) So, I don’t know really, how involved you were with UO. Richard Garriott also received my thanks but hasn’t written back yet. He’s probably busy with his Tablula Rasa (which i didn’t like at all SHHHH!). Anyway…thank you for creating that world and naming a shard “Catskills.” As fate would have it thats the place we both chose and there we met. HAIL RAPH! *hugs* Thank you for bringing us together!

Well, congratulations! And take that, everyone who thought that Catskills was nothing more than an iniquitous den of PKers. 😉 Though I suppose that by 2001, it wasn’t anymore. And for what it’s worth, I am sure that Richard would offer his congratulations as well.

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Year-end roundup

 Posted by (Visited 9108 times)  Misc
Dec 312007
 

It’s the end of the year as we know it, and I feel fine.

Well, no, not really. I still have the remnants of a chest cold. I am cancelling plans to head up to LA for a New Year’s Party that is always one of the highlights of the season. Ah well.

With the last blog entry or two, the blog quietly crested 500,000 words in the blog alone. The vast majority of it was about virtual worlds and massively multiplayer games, with a substrain about game grammar and game design. I slacked off hugely on book reviews (my desk is covered in books I was planning to post about — like, 40 of them). I almost might as not bother with the Watching category.

The blog is due for a redesign… it happens every couple of years. Ideas?

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Some links that caught my eye today

 Posted by (Visited 7907 times)  Game talk, Misc
Dec 072007