Category: Housekeeping

Wow, for about half an hour I thought I’d totally destroyed my blog. I just upgraded to a new version of WordPress, and it wasn’t the easiest transition.

During a brief morning web browse I came across this little article about fixing your parents’ computer. I was gratified to see that it recommends my first course of action:

Switch the system’s default web browser to Firefox
Download Firefox. Install it, and import all of IE’s preferences and bookmarks. (See previous Lifehacker feature Importing Bookmarks into Firefox for more info on how.) When Firefox asks if it should be the default web browser, click “Yes.” Finally, remove the blue E from your parents’ desktop. On newer versions of Windows (like XP), you can simple drag and drop the blue E into the Recycle Bin. In Windows 98 (yeah you know some of your parents still use it), in Control Panel choose Internet Options. On the Advanced Tab, uncheck “Show Internet Explorer on the Desktop.”

To help your parents grok the transition from the blue E to the orange fox, rename Firefox’s desktop shortcut to something more obvious, like “Internet – Mozilla Firefox.”

Grok, indeed. Did you know it means “to understand something intuitively or by empathy?” No, neither did I.

I’ve just upgraded the blog’s spam trap, so the errors some people have complained about should be fixed.

I’ve sorted out my email glitches. My new address is my first name (all in lower case) @junkopia.net. My old clara.co.uk address will be defunct by the end of September at the latest. Cheers all.

I have just broadbanded my parents’ abode in Worcester, and consequently my clara.co.uk email address will expire in the next few weeks. I’ll be changing it, hopefully to something @junkopia.net, but I’ve had a problem setting up the email boxes on my webspace. I’ll post news on here when I get everything set up.

My blog session in the wee hours of the morning cleared my head and sent me back to sleep nicely. Today’s a day off. I had various plans involving DV cameras and movie watching but they’ve all fallen through, so I’m sitting at home researching DV equipment prices and tinkering with the blog. Let me know if the new colour scheme burns your eyes.

Today has been comment spam day. I just had to delete about fifty gibberish comments, all linking to an online poker website. Consequently I’ve installed a spam filter. Let me know if your legitimate comments don’t make it past my new security measures.

Coming soon: metal detectors, shoe searches, magic puffer machines which blow your shirt up in search of boobies and, allegedly, traces of explosive dust, and my personal favourite, cavity searches!

First I changed my webhost, now I’ve changed my blogging tool. I’ve swapped Blogger for WordPress. WordPress is the bomb. WordPress is the new Movable Type. It offers me a lot more control over how things are organised, and now I’ve got proper webspace and a proper website address, I may as well have a proper full-on, fully loaded blog.

That and Rev. Rehash will denounce me as a pussy if I don’t.

I’m currently moving all my old posts over. I’ll be jiggling around the layout for a little while too, so don’t be surprised if all looks odd next time you visit. It’s still debatable whether or not being able to categorise my posts will make me any more likely to write, but I like to think it will. Indulge me in this fantasy, please.

After a second overquota problem from Portland, I’ve decided to cut my losses and change web hosts. I now have a ridiculous amount of webspace, and bandwidth limits I’m in no danger of exceeding.

And it’s a lovely sunny day in California. T-shirt weather already. Here’s a view from our balcony.

Welcome back, everyone! After about three weeks of downtime I’m able to post again. Bad news is, Portland have completely erased the contents of my website. And while Blogger (the thing which keeps everything organised) maintains an archive of all the text somewhere else, it does not do the same for the pictures. All the graphics are gone, gone, gone. Many of them will remain so because my backups are all over the place. Some stuff was on my Acorn back in Worcester, some stuff was on Courtney’s Dell laptop which got a new hard drive, and less essential stuff never got backed up at all.

Hopefully the bare bones look won’t last for long.

I returned to the empty apartment after my morning shift to find it dim and empty. A small black box sat in the corner of the kitchen. Leads trailed from it into the wall. There were vents along the top, a row of five lights on one side and a switch on the back. Where had this mysterious box come from? I opened a beer and sat staring at the box. In its presence time seemed distorted, sucked in and compressed. I stared and drank.

A cat wailed in the parking lot below. I took a slug from the beer and reached towards the box to flick its switch. It offered little resistance. There was a sudden flash like the return of a thousand distant memories and a sound which can only be transcribed as “fo’shizzle!” I was transported to a land of burning phosphor. I heard languages and music of many nations. I saw footballers punching the air, armies marching, face after face after face. I felt the presence of all the people I’d ever known edging inches closer.

For ever, it seemed, I whirled in distraction, watching the pictures, hearing the soundbytes, sucking it in greedily like an endless milkshake. And all of a sudden I was sated. In the blink of an eye I was back in the kitchen with an empty beer bottle in my hand? Where had I been? Would I ever go back there again? I hoped so.

We got broadband internet, DSL, call it what you will. It’s here, it’s turned on, and I’m connected again. Hurrah!