Asymptomatic

There must be intelligent life down here

Site Upgrades
January 13, 2005

I did a WordPress upgrade today. Another 1.5 beta from CVS. There are new fields in the database that made things go wonky. If you upgraded and you’re having trouble registering users and adding comments, you’ll need to actually run the upgrade.php script in the admin directory.

I also did an upgrade of Mom’s site last night. (Hi, Mom!) I set the Presentation to “Default” so it looks all Kubrick-y. I’m sure it wasn’t a big deal, but putting it back is just a matter of setting the Presentation Theme to “Classic”.

Along with the changes to WP 1.5, I’ve made a bunch of updates to OSA, which is currently the spam protection I’m running here. It seems that the WP devs added a lot of filter stuff to the commenting engine, and there’s really no telling if it will stay stable until release so that OSA would continue to work. That is to say, it doesn’t look like they’re finished updating the code. Last time I looked through trackback, it didn’t even use the code that they’re currently modifying. Hopefully, that’s all up-to-date by now.

Delphi Components
January 12, 2005

I’ve been looking at some delphi components that would help write an editor of some description. Yesterday I was yammering about how Edit Pad Pro isn’t quite the editor I need it to be. So I put some research into what it would take to get my Delphi 2005 installation up to snuff for building a brand new editor. I found some good components.

MS Anti-Spyware and Edit Pad Pro
January 11, 2005

I’ve installed Microsoft’s Anti-Spyware, and I have to say that I’m impressed with it. I also installed Edit Pad Pro, and we’re still having issues.

The spyware detection features of Microsoft’s Anti-Spyware are nothing new. I’ve been using AdAware for a while, and it does the same thing. But the real-time protection is pretty cool. Basically, it installs some system hooks that notice when programs write to certain vital system files. I have a good example of the protection this provides.

Tsunami Relief
January 11, 2005

In a recent comment, some nameless person laments the contribution of money to tsunami-affected countries.

At first, I couldn’t believe that we’re sending more overseas for aid than we would send to Florida for hurricane relief. But then, how many people died in Florida? And how many people’s homes were insured? In spite of itself, our country is pretty rich. And for those people that aren’t, there are government programs that can help.

A Contest
January 10, 2005

I’ve been thinking of having a contest to drum up another round of comment magnetizing. I just feel in a good mood about the blog, I suppose.

The problem is that I don’t know what the contest should be. Truth be told, I had a decent contest set up back in December. It was all Christmas-oriented. The problem was that the questions in the quiz I had constructed were too difficult. I don’t want to give too much away because I may use the quiz next year as a novelty or something, but let’s just say that if you didn’t know the number equalling two times the mass of the Earth, you weren’t going to solve my puzzle.