Tag: Code

There’s one thing about WP that has been annoying me a lot and it’s that the default category option doesn’t work (see bug # 0000182 for details). Since this is so annoying to me and the issue appears to be fairly low on the developers’ schedule; I decided to start investigating the issue myself. I found that check what you’ve set the default category to by running this SQL query against your WP database:

SELECT option_value FROM wp_options WHERE option_name='default_category'

For a bit there, I also thought I’d figured out which function should be calling this sort of query but after a bit more digging into my options; I realized that on my test install, I’d enabled the Advanced editing controls. Bah, back to the drawing board. Well, back to the drawing board tomorrow; I’m getting too tired tonight to continue digging through WP’s code to figure out the problem any further.

Oh and for the record, I’m not the only one that is annoyed by this.

There are by some estimates more than a million weblogs. But most of them get no visibility in search engines. Only a few “A-List” blogs get into the top search engine results for a given topic, while the majority of blogs just don’t get noticed. The reason is that the smaller blogs don’t have enough links pointing to them. But this posting could solve that. Let’s help the smaller blogs get more visibility!

This posting is GoMeme 4.0. It is part of an experiment to see if we can create a blog posting that helps 1000’s of blogs get higher rankings in Google. So far we have tried 3 earlier variations. Our first test, GoMeme 1.0, spread to nearly 740 blogs in 2.5 days. This new version 4.0 is shorter, simpler, and fits more easily into your blog.

Why are we doing this? We want to help thousands of blogs get more visibility in Google and other search engines. How does it work? Just follow the instructions below to re-post this meme in your blog and add your URL to the end of the Path List below. As the meme spreads onwards from your blog, so will your URL. Later, when your blog is indexed by search engines, they will see the links pointing to your blog from all the downstream blogs that got this via you, which will cause them to rank your blog higher in search results. Everyone in the Path List below benefits in a similar way as this meme spreads. Try it!

Instructions: Just copy this entire post and paste it into your blog. Then add your URL to the end of the path list below, and pass it on! (Make sure you add your URLs as live links or HTML code to the Path List below.)

Path List

  1. Minding the Planet
  2. Luke Hutteman’s public virtual MemoryStream
  3. geek ramblings
  4. The Equivocal Ramblings of Kevin Francis
  5. neverhood.net
  6. Spinneyhead
  7. Flat8
  8. The Rusty Spigot
  9. CoffeeBear.net
  10. (your URL goes here! But first, please copy this line and move it down to the next line for the next person).

(NOTE: Be sure you paste live links for the Path List or use HTML code.)

I just finished installing Comment Preview hack by Codeman38. It’s a pretty nice plugin that makes the user preview what their comment will look like before submitting it. Hopefully this will help certain individuals realize that they’ve actually submitted their comments rather and prevent them from submitting the same comment multiple times. *cough-Pukka-cough* 😀

I’m sitting here waiting for the program I’m testing to finish processing some data that I threw at it. I take a moment to stop over at the Terrapin‘s website to try finding out more info on some of their comopolitan drinks. You see they’ve changed their menu in the store several times and while they still make all the old drinks; you have to know what they are as they aren’t listed anywhere in the store1. So I’m browsing the site and I find myself thinking; gee, I read blogs regularly that are better looking than this site. I wonder how the site is built. You can image my horror when I looked at the source and discovered that it was made in Micro$haft Frontpuke. *shudder*

Okay, I’ll admit that more current versions of Frontpuke write code that isn’t as bad as what older copies of it spit out, but the Terrapin’s site appears to have been written in an older version. So not only are tables being used when they’re not really needed; the code is full of crap that doesn’t need to be in there. And if that’s not bad enough; the website hasn’t been updated in some time as it’s my understanding from the mother of the owners that their 2nd location has closed but the website still shows it as being open for business. Now given how easy WP is to work with; I’m thinking that I might try building a custom site for the Terrapin using it2. Come to think of it; I might want to try redoing that template for AWelkin using WP as well. Hmm… It’s a thought anyway.

1 Yes, I agree that’s a bad idea but what can one do about it?
2 Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know I still need to build a custom theme for my own site; but like the title of this post says, I’m bored at work and that’s where I get some of my better/dumber ideas for things like this.

This update was partially delayed due to some problems with our domain name. And depending on what the old bank balance looks like after paying my bills; I’ll be seeing about moving musings to it’s new host/domain name/style (maybe).

Most days of the week, I end up staying up far later into the night than is good for me; so I sleep late on the weekends to help catch up on my sleep. This last weekend, I actually managed to drag my sleepy but out of bed and make it to the bank so I could store some stuff in my safety deposit box. Whew!

After I got back from the bank; Ariesna and I headed over to the Coralville Public Library Booksale. We picked up a few interesting looking books, including one that I later started hoping wasn’t somebody else’s purchase.

See, CPL has a freebie section and a purchase section. We always go into the purchase section first and buy whatever strikes our fancy before going through the freebies. We’d done that and while looking through the freebies; I noticed a small book, titled Understanding the Scots, in a box near the door into the purchase section. Being part Scottish, I picked it up and started flipping through it. While I did this I turned around to see what Ariesna might be up to and then turned back to see if any other books in that box were of interest. Alas, the box was gone. Now, I don’t know if those were supposed to belong to somebody else (e.g. they’d finished in the purchase section and just set the box down) or if they were legitimate freebies and somebody grabbed the box with all the rest of the books. *sigh* I doubt I’ll ever find out.

After the booksale, we headed to downtown Iowa City for their 2004 Art Fesitval. We did a lot of walking around looking at all the cool stuff and I bought Ariesna a silver bracelet with a daisy in the pendent on the bracelet. She loved it and was going to just walk away from it, but I couldn’t have that so I bought it. While I’m not sure that it was a sound financial move; the smile on her face was well worth it.

Oh and I took some photos of the Art Festival with my new camera but I haven’t had a chance to go through them yet. Once I have; I’ll see about posting them here.

Later in the afternoon, we met up with Ariesna’s sister (Dee) and her husband (Ken) to see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter 3). To sum it up, I think the overall production values were higher in this film than any of the others but the story was very badly hacked up and if you’ve not read the book; I can’t image how you’d be able to follow what was going on. Still, if you’re a fan of the series; it’s worth seeing on a matinee.