site backups

Since my wife and I started using a blog again, I was thinking it would be cool to go back in my archives and grab the old posts I had on here years ago, and try to find a way to import them back into the blog.

So I started looking in my backups folder for a database dump that would have the blog posts in it, and I searched and searched, but could not find the most recent version of it. I have a coupe older ones, and some really old ones, but not any that were from right before I deleted the blogs.

I don’t know why I didn’t make a backup of them, or if I did, I don’t know why I didn’t keep it in a safe place, but I didn’t.

So I jumped on the wayback machine, and found one more post that I didn’t have in my backup. I imported the backup into my database at home, installed the version of WordPress I had when the posts were made (also via the wayback machine), and posted that last one that was missing. Then I installed the latest version of WordPress, made an export file, and imported them into this incarnation.

So now I have posts that go back about 5 years (albeit very sporadically), with the possibility of a few missing that are probably gone for good, unless I happen to find an old dump somewhere that I didn’t know about, but I doubt it…   oh well.

I’m off to make a backup of my site right now, and I’ll label it ‘Keep’, because obviously, the method I have now doesn’t work.

Maybe I should start putting my site backups in Subversion…

Anywho… enjoy the old posts.

broken site

so my webhosting company was recently bought out and decided in all thier wisdom to follow the old adage of “if it’s not broke, break it, then don’t fix it”.  ok, maybe it’s not an old adage, but it sure does fit the situation.

the new company decided to move all the websites to new servers and in the process broke just about every one of the thousands of sites hosted on those servers, mine included. and it doesn’t stop there. in the past couple of weeks, my site has been off and on more than a newbie dj mixing with cassette tapes.

it seems like every couple of hours the site goes down, only to be back up again (but with limited functionality) the next time i see it. it’s getting really annoying. and the support people are not really helping, but it’s not entirely thier fault, because it seems that the errors are not happening everywhere in the country.
anywho…  the whole point of the post is to let everybody know why the site has been being stupid lately.

…and don’t host your site with WebHostPlus.

rss feeds update

since writing ‘rss feeds in your inbox‘, the post letting people know how to get my blog in their inbox, i have upgraded the blogging software.
this has changed the rss feed url.  the new rss feed url is:

http://www.iohelix.com/wordpress/?feed=rss2
http://www.iohelix.net/blog/feed

so there ya go, all fixed.

comment spam

i stated in a post back when i switched over to this blogging software that one of the best things about it was that it automagically blocks all incoming spam.

well…  it’s still doing it and rocking it like nobody’s buisiness. last night i got about 15 emails letting me know there were comments waiting to be approved and not a single one of them was legitimate.

if i hadn’t switched to wordpress, i would have been sifting through my blog searching for all of the comment spam right now.

now all we need is a way to really piss them off when they try to spam us. by maybe freezing thier comp for a while everytime they try to send spam, so that if they hit the wrong place thier comp freezes for the rest of the day…  yeah, that would be cool.

stupid spammers. it’s not even like they’re trying to get you to buy something cool either. i mean, really, who gets a spam and think, “ya know, i’ve been meaning to have my penis enlarged, i should give these people in that third-world country a call, i bet they could do it really well.”

nope, doesn’t happen.

blog theme

well…  wordpress 1.5 came out not too long ago, and i’ve upgraded the blog software as you may be noticing right now. the only thing that sucks is they changed the whole skinning process and started to use themes. i’m sure it’s a step in a positive direction, but now i’ve got to figure out how to skin the darn thing and get my old skin back (which was based on Human Condition by Ian Main)
so i’ll probably be working on that soon, and i hope that this new version is everything they say it is…

but it should be, the people over at wordpress are super cool and probably the best developers anywhere… keepin it real, just like it should be.

*UPDATE*:
as you can see, the theme is coming along nicely, i’m learning some cool things about wordpress and have implemented a few upgrades and plugins to make the iohelix blog experience even better.

rss feeds in your mailbox

i just discovered that, when using a compatible mail client (such as mozilla thunderbird), you can have my blog entries sent right to your inbox without having to check the site every day.

this is also true of any RSS feed.

so, what are you waiting for?  get the latest version of thunderbird and check it out !

there is also, as of the time of this writing, a Release Candidate for the 1.0 version of thunderbird.

you may want to check that out as it has many bug fixes and newer features.

now for the instructions:

to set up thunderbird to read the rss feed, click on Tools -> Account Settings…
then select ‘News & Blogs’ from the menu on the left. this will allow you to click the button labeled ‘Manage Subscriptions…’

click the button labeled ‘Add’, and in the Feed URL: box enter http://www.iohelix.net/wordpress/?feed=rss2http://www.iohelix.net/blog/feed
(this address can also be found on the main page of the blog in the box labeled “META” on the menu side of the page, as well as some other feeds, like the comments)

click ‘OK’, then ‘OK’ again, and ‘OK’ one more time.

after you have returned to the main thunderbird screen, click on ‘Get Mail’ in the upper left hand corner of the screen, and watch in wonderment as the blog posts appear automagically in your inbox.

anytime i make a new post, it will appear there all bolded and highlighted and ready for your reading pleasure.

if you wish to comment on one of my posts, just click on the link provided in the header info of the post and it will sweep you off to internet land where you can view the post on my site and add comments however you see fit.

amazing, isn’t it?

that is all…   for now…

new blog software

this new blog software has got to be the best thing ever.

it looks pretty cool, the back end is awesome and the best thing is…  automatic comment moderation.
which means, i don’t have to sift through all of the comments any more and search for comment spam. before a comment hits the screen, it’s sent to a queue where it sits waiting for me to delete it before ever appearing on the blog.

nice.

except that i didn’t have any comment spam until i added the link to the old location of the blog…

maybe thats my fault, maybe it was inevitable, either way, i still don’t have to sift through them.

yay  =)

election day aggravation

well…   it’s official…  Utah politics sucks my ass. I can’t believe that that many people are willing to throw away the rights of other people based on the sole fact that thier (the other people) way of life makes them (the stupid ones) uncomfortable.

election day was yesterday and on the ballot was a constitutional amendment (#3) that changed the definition of marraige to being the union of a man and a woman. it also took away the rights of any other such union. here is the actual text of that ammendment:

(1) Marriage consists only of the legal union between a man and a woman.
(2) No other domestic union, however denominated, may be recognized as a marriage or given the same or substantially equivalent legal effect.

now, the first part in itself is severly fucked up. why?  because. who are we to say that two people who aren’t a man and woman can’t get married?  why does it make you so uncomfortable?  and why do you think that by taking away thier rights it’s going to make you feel better about yourself?  i mean, while we’re at it, why don’t we take away women’s rights, and the rights of blacks, too?  what makes a gay marraige so threataning?  is it the fact that some book says it’s a sin and therefore it must be true?  or is it something to do with the safety of children?  because lord knows that gay people can’t love a child the way straight people can *end sarcasm*.
the second part of this little two line atrosity is even worse. look at it closely. it takes away the rights of common law marraiges, for ALL PEOPLE, not just same sex couples, who now, by law, can’t get married, visit each other in the hospital, make desicions in times of emergency, and determine what is best for the person with whom they’ve shared their whole life and love with because a single sentence that just got added to the utah constitution says so. how fucked up is that?
and don’t even get me started on the damn presidential election. i mean, if i hear one more person say they hate bush, AND THEN NOT VOTE FOR KERRY?!!  wtf?  i hear it all over the place… that bush is stupid and bush is lame, and bush sucks at this and bush sucks at that…  blah blah blah…  well, you just had your chance to fix it and what did you do?  sat on your ass and moaned about it. i voted. but only two of the things i voted for passed because the rest of the people in this closed-minded, bigoted state can’t see past thier own narrow feelings.

*end venting*

sorry about that, i’m just so frustrated, and it’s not just utah, like 12 states passed similar amendments. i mean, seriously.

— insert huge topic change here —

so…  i got engaged a little while ago, kinda excited, kinda nervous, kinda swamped with school, work, and now planning for a wedding (ok, not really ‘planning’, but saying ‘okay, sure’ to ideas my fiance throws out).  it’s not like i’m super stressed right now, but there are times when i’m not quite sure where to start and it gets to me a little bit.

also just got back from disneyland where my niece had her fourth birthday, got to hang out with my sister, and my niece for a day while at California Adventure, which is way cool. Tower of Terror is awesome, i recommend it to anybody, except for you wussies out there.

i’m also working on the new corporate intranet and public site for EGI, which is pretty dang huge for a guy who only designs websites as a hobby. the site uses ColdFusion, which is a server side script not unlike php and perl. although it does have its pros and cons. pro is its simplicity, theres no distinguising between the code and the html while coding, the code merely consists of specific html ‘tags’ (for instance <cfif> </cfif>), but because of it’s simplicity, it’s also a little harder to do complex things without a superfluous amount of code.

i also designed a site for a friend of mine (soon to be brother-in-law through two marriages) at www.photmillard.com.  i really like the way the site turned out for him, i’m actually quite proud of it. it’s simple, but the backend is custom coded in php to select a different random picture from each of the various photo albums and display it as a rollover on the main page every time it is refreshed. i also re-skinned the photo album that he uses (the same php script as mine), and created all new graphics, edited css, and code.

anywho…   it’s been a while, sorry to keep everybody in the dark about what’s going on, but i been busy.
plur, lates

p.s.- you may also notice (if you frequent my blog) that the look (and script) has changed, i was forced to do this by some weinie that kept comment spamming my blog. why do people feel they have to be dickheads?  what happened to respect?

it’s done!!

i got done putting the finishing touches on my new and improved website layout last night, made a few new pics for the walls section, and uploaded them today. take a look around at the new site and enjoy!

i really like the cleanliness of the whole layout, its very easy on the eyes, no part is too contrasted, and they all blend very smoothly. if you’re using mozilla or firefox as your browser, you also get an added bonus, if you’ll look in the blog (which you are right now), you’ll notice that as you move the screen up and down, the background doesn’t move, not even inside the light parts. makes for a really interesting effect. i kinda like it. oh well, enough about me, lets talk about you.

leave comments if you wish, or sign the guestbook and let me know what you think.

plur, lahter.

new look coming soon

so i decided that it was about time to revamp the site, take out stuff that wasn’t needed, and redo the over all look of the place. i got the main page done, you cant see it yet, but i’ve heard from a couple of people that it’s pretty cool…

so i was sittin in class today and everybody started handing papers forward to the teacher…  i guess there was homework due today that i thought was due tomorrow. damnit.    oh well.

we got our tests back today, got a 94, which was very unexpected…
sorry for the rambling, i’m not quite all there right now…   don’t know why, just kinda off today.

blah blah blah    nevermind.