Author Archives: Richard

Blacknight are the business

A Pipe and a Keyboard Posted on by

So the dust seems to have settled on a rather tricky day yesterday.

It started with a cautionary email to warn me that Head Rambles was receiving a lot of traffic and that this was interfering with other sites on the shared webspace.  I had been meaning to move it to its own area anyway so this came as no surprise.

Head Rambles is effectively hosted on three servers – mail, web and database.  The move was simply a matter of moving the files on the web server to a new area.

Simple?

No.

Copying across the files should have worked, as all references to the database should retain their integrity, which they did.  However, Word Press and its ancillary plug-ins isn’t quite so flexible.  It transpired that there were quite a few references in the database tables to absolute paths.

A typical entry in a record could be something along the lines of the following:

/usr/local/pxm/vhosts/115124/webspace/httpdocs/headrambles/wp-content/

However, moving the site files from webspace 115124 to webspace 120566 could have implications for the site, as the record would then have to read

/usr/local/pxm/vhosts/120566/webspace/httpdocs/headrambles/wp-content/

That aside, the site should have functioned normally, with maybe a loss of functionality in a couple of plug-ins.

It didn’t.

For some reason, the site refused to function in its new home.  It was slow, to put it mildly, and while I was desperately trying to find the cause of this, I got another mail from the people in Blacknight. 

I must point out here, that I had been trying to sort the problem out on my own.  Blacknight had obviously been monitoring both Twitter (where there were a few caustic comments about the site being down) and the site itself, as they then stepped in and moved the whole site to a new server.

Anyway, the site ran perfectly in its new location (apart from the few changes that had to be made to the database), and we never did discover the cause of the original problem.

I cannot sing the prises of Blacknight highly enough.  They saw a problem.  They solved it.  As they are a large company, they presumably have a fairly healthy workload, yet they dropped all to help a client in trouble, even though I had not wanted to bother them.

So – a huge thanks to Niall, Nils and especially Paul.  And of course to Michele for running the best hosting company in the business.

Hi tech holidays

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Driving through Sarlat in France the other day, it occurred to me just how much technology has changed holidays.

First and foremost, satellite navigation has changed things dramatically.  Part of my preparation for holidays used to be the frantic gathering of maps and then plotting out routes.  Of course if I was going to some new area, this would mean ordering maps for the destination area too.  I would spend hours plotting out the best route to take, frantically jotting down notes to keep by me as I drove.

All that is done away with now.  The first time I took out the maps was the day before we left.  I took no notes and although I brought all my maps with me, I haven’t used them.  I have no need, as if I want to go to a particular spot, I just program the SatNav, and off I go.  Of course there are side benefits too.  If I am running low on petrol, all I need do is ask the SatNav and it will happily list all the nearest petrol stations and how to get to them.  That has been a life saver on more than one occasion and, what’s more, that is something even the best maps can’t do.

The mobile phone has also changed things.  Up to a decade or so ago, if I went on holiday, I was incommunicado for the duration.  No one could contact me, and if I wanted to contact anyone, it meant finding a phone box and making a trunk call.  Now I can instantly text anyone from anywhere.  Apart from that, it makes exploring a town a little easier.  The two of us can separate and go our different ways, and then meet up again after a quick phone call.

The Internet has had a big impact this holiday.  The place where we are staying has high speed wireless access and this has been a tremendous boon.  I have used Google Earth to find the best car parks in a strange town and even found the best areas within that town to visit.  I have used it to find out the opening times of the various shops around.  I have used it as a gazetteer to find out a little more about the places we intend visiting.  Naturally I can use it to keep track of the bank accounts and how the spending is going.  I can even use it to top up my mobile phone.

There is one thing that technology has not replaced though.

I still send postcards!

I murdered the wife

A Pipe and a Keyboard Posted on by

I finally sorted my writing problems, in more ways than one.

My first problem that I last wrote about was the difficulty of writing in very bright sunshine, where the glare on the screen made it unreadable.  The solution to that was ridiculous in its simplicity – all I had to do was change my Windows colour scheme from the standard to High Contrast White.

That took care of that!

My other problem was the story line I am working on for my Magnum Opus.

I had the main theme of the story and quite a few interesting strands to weave through it.  But no matter how hard I tried, it didn’t work.

I have made about five false starts, on occasion getting up to two or three thousand words, but each time the plot fell on its face in a mire of contrived and patently ridiculous scenes.

There was something wrong somewhere.

One evening I was sitting out enjoying the last of the sun and just letting my mind wander, when suddenly I had an idea.

My main character has been happily married for years, and it was the wife who kept upsetting the plot.  I had my brainwave!

I killed the wife.

So the story starts with my main character as a widower.

Immediately everything (or nearly everything) fell into place.  New scenes presented themselves and the plotline is a lot stronger.  I am well into it at this stage with several thousand words under the belt.

Whoever said that killing the wife is a bad thing?

Putting my muse in the shade.

A Pipe and a Keyboard Posted on by

The weather here in the Peregeux region of France is beautiful.

We have been here two weeks so far and have only had one morning of rain.  The rest has been blistering sunshine.

This has led to a bit of a problem.

One of the things I intended to do here was to write.  The ideas are flowing and the urge to write is strong, but I am torn.

Do I sit indoors and type away while the sun blazes outside?  No.  That would be tantamount to sacrilege.  I did not come six hundred miles to sit indoors and type.

Do I sit outdoors and type away in the sunshine?  That would indeed be my ideal, and I have in fact tried doing just that.  However, laptops and sunshine just do not mix.  I am not worried about the lack of power outside as this laptop has a very good battery life.  What stops me is the glare on the screen.

No matter how I set up the laptop, I find myself squinting through the glare trying to find where my curser is, and what exactly I have typed.

To say that this is frustrating is to put it mildly.

Feckit.

I think the sun wins.

Mobsterworld are a shower of gangsters

A Pipe and a Keyboard Posted on by

Grandad uses Twitter occasionally, as do I.

He had the gross misfortune to somehow get tangled with a thing called Mobsterworld.

Having got his password they then proceeded to bombard all his followers with DMs [Direct Messages] purporting to come from him, and inviting everyone to join.

Needless to say, his followers were not too happy.

I changed his password.  That was no problem.

However, this Mobsterworld crowd weren’t too happy as they were trying to access his account using his old password, and they were trying repeatedly.  As a result, the account was locked by Twitter, due to the number of unsuccessful atempts.

So here is a warning to all Twitterers –

Under no circumstances, join Mobsterworld.  Do not be taken in by ANY DM inviting you to join a Mafia gang.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED