Technophobia

Monday, November 21, 2005

You should be seeing the wedding template. If you don’t see it, then refresh your page or clear out your cache and start over.

White satin background with elements of navy blue, silver, and white. This is my wedding in web format…

We’re under 40 days from The Big Day.

Now that this is done, I shall go upstairs for bead work and TV.

Good night.

I decided to tweak the template as we get down the wire on the wedding. So the basic format will remain, but the colors will change to those in my wedding. Nothing fancy, just different. All will be returned to the normal spring colors when we get back from the honeymoon.

What’s a bummer is that you can’t really do silver on the web. So it will be shades of gray, but that’s close enough.

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

For the past week I have been unable to access Outside the Beltway from my office computer. My home blogging has been so sporadic over the past couple of weeks, that I can’t remember if I was able to get to James’ page there or not. I seem to be getting a 412 Precondition Failure page, which I had never seen before.

Anyone else having a problem (looks at Robbo, who shares the same network)?

Anyone know how I can get around this?

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

There’s something wonky with the blog today. Actually, I’ve run into problems for the past several weeks and my host tech support says I have apache processes that are not completing or something like that.

Then today, I got word via email that the comment page is acting up, but it seems to only be acting up on one particular post.

Now I’m getting 403 pages when I try to look at my blacklist or whitelist modules.

Anyone savvy with EE have a clue what could be going on? How to fix the apache process problems?

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Seems my blog was running “a large number of active apache processes to the point there are too many open, many are in a stuck state because of on the server side of things, called a segmentation fault, usually its an issue in php scripts that cause this” according to the tech support person who worked my help ticket last night.

Techies, anyone have the time or inclination to help me figure out where I have out of date scripts that may be causing this?

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

I got an email from a reader who said my RSS feed hasn’t been updating since January. For those of you who read this blog via RSS, is this true?

Any suggestions for how I need to fix this?

I have no clue how this module works and reading the user guide stumped me completely.

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

I need to spread the word that my old blog (freakinjen.us) is no longer alive. My former host finally pulled the plug, which means visitors will get the dreaded 404 page.

There are several folks who have me linked with the old URL still. If you would be so kind, I would appreciate your assistance with reminding people to update their blogrolls with the jenspeaks.com domain.

Thanks so much!

Saturday, August 06, 2005

We have a conundrum here at the house. My computer clock and what I see on the blog match - currently 1:51pm ET. My father’s and mother’s blog times are showing one hour behind while their computer clocks are correct.

What time do you see on this post? Please indicate your time zone. If you’re on the east coast you should see 1:51pm.

LATER: I updated to EE 1.3.1 this morning - the setting for Daylight Savings must have been set back to “no” in that install. Thanks.

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

I have no clue why the sidebar is dropping. It happens on occasion and it’s frustrating, but I can’t figure out why. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I’m aware of the problem.

Thursday, July 07, 2005

So I attempted to update the blog to EE 1.3 and it’s broken. *sigh*

What’s weird is that the control panel is lacking in the css and the linklist module won’t work. I’ve removed the linklist code so that the blog page will at least open. Blogrolling back-up is in place for now.

Anyone upgraded to EE 1.3 that can explain what I missed to cause the basic looking cp?

UPDATE: Fixed the linklist problem. I still need advice on the Netflix plugin if anyone knows of a bug with that.

Oh yeah, and let me say that I like the changes with the new version. The cp is cleaner, with tabs to expand the items you want.

If you’re thinking about switching your blogware, think about Expression Engine - it’s worth the chunk of money you’ll spend. And pMachine Hosting is excellent as well.

Wednesday, July 06, 2005

1. Somebody please tell me that The 4400 was a repeat on Sunday. Because my DVR did not record it if it was a new episode.

2.

Nope. Still need help on this one.

Thursday, June 23, 2005

I just tried to scan the picture of the bridal bouqet and wedding cake I want and no go. Apparently, I am not set up yet on the scanner, although I could swear that I scanned some stuff right after our Assimilation. So I asked my boss about which password we’re supposed to use just to make sure I was using the right one and he came around to take a look. He managed to scan the bouquet to his directory and then he laughed that if his wife ever poked around his work computer (and why she would ever do that is a mystery) he’d be in trouble.

What I love is that he never questioned why I was scanning something personal while at work. I have a great boss.

I guess I’ll need to scan it a my parents’ this weekend (note to Dad) instead.

Tuesday, June 07, 2005

I have had a lot of problems with Firefox since I installed version 1.0.4. I thought it was just me having problems until I got fed up with having to end my Not Responding sessions in the Task Panel last night and went to the Mozilla Forums to investigate. (Sorry, no links. No time right now to hunt them down.) Turns out that I’m not alone in my frustration.

I have two issues:

1. Quicktime doesn’t load properly - I think it’s actually Flash stuff. Regardless, it doesn’t work and I get that dastardly Q icon.

2. The browser hangs, requiring me to open the Windows Task Panel and manually end the session. This is random.

In my perusal of the forums I found a post that said that the Ad Block extension might be the culprit with the Quicktime issue. So although I hated the thought of losing that function, I uninstalled the Ad Block extension and wah-la, it worked!

At that point I decided to leave on the up note and I shut down for the night. So I don’t know if that will have solved the not responding issue. I’ll figure that out tonight when I get home.

So I ask you, Firefox users, are you having problems with version 1.0.4?

LATER: Links added.

Thursday, May 26, 2005

The lists seem to be working. Yoshi rules and has created a clever little hack that is easy to install and use.

Thanks again, Yoshi.

Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Via Jon I learned that there is an Expression Engine hack for link listing that eliminates the need for blogrolling.com. I have uploaded the files and imported my rolls, but for some reason the links aren’t showing properly. I’m not sure what I have coded incorrectly.

Jon, any ideas? Feel free to poke around behind the curtain.

LATER: I will be away from a computer for the day, so I apologize for the messed up links in the blogrolls. If they’re not fixed by the time I get home tonight, I’ll put the blogrolling code back until I figure out the problem.

LATERER: I figured out the problem. The links from blogrolling didn’t come over with the blog titles. Weird glitch in the import. I will work on this later since I’m getting ready to leave for the day.

NEXT DAY: I’ve returned the blogrolling code to the page until the hack problem is resolved. Thanks to Yoshi for checking in and helping me find a solution.