ralpress.org

Well, earlier today while deleting comment spam I managed to inadvertently delete all of the blog comments and pingbacks I’ve received since December, courtesy of a careless tick in a “highlight entire list” checkbox. I had a fairly recent backup, but was nervous about using it, because the last time I restored a WordPress database my post tags (as opposed to categories) broke. I recently read somewhere that WordPress now has much improved support for tags and so I decided to restore the backup and use the exercise as an excuse to install WordPress 2.6 in my server space at WebFaction (install as new app rather than upgrade, thus allowing me to fall back to my old version, 2.5.1, if anything went awry).

Installing the new version together with its MySQL database was a piece of cake thanks to WebFaction’s application setup wizards, and the import of my old database from my local machine was a no-brainer using WordPress’ “Import” facility. The only catch with this procedure is that with the backups being XML files, they don’t preserve images. The image paths within the content are preserved, of course, but the image files themselves must be re-uploaded manually (although, given the dearth of images that I physically host, this ran to the grand total of a single image).

The import seems to have preserved the post tags without problems. WordPress 2.6 looks very similar (in terms of administration tools)  to 2.5.1, although I haven’t examined the new features yet. One very welcome improvement is that the side-bar now has a better widget for adding free-form HTML. The relatively poor support for custom content in the side-bar was one of the things I found most disappointing about earlier versions. Now that this has been improved, I’m going to find it hard to pick holes in WordPress. The frequent need to perform updates to fix security holes remains a pain, but that’s my only real remaining gripe. WordPress really is now very good indeed!

Did you decline the Microsoft Windows EULA on your PC? If so, you may be entitled to a refund from the “manufacturer”.

Story here.

Paul Graham has published a broad list of entrepreneurial ideas that YCombinator is interested in investing in. It’s a very interesting list for not only does it target the often-cited broken models (e.g. traditional media news, DRM-protected digital media, shopping guides, etc), but also many of the first wave of “new” solutions, such as EBay, Craigslist, Wikipedia, photo-sharing sites, and other applications that are often regarded as web-era success stories.

Pointing out that the traditional news media model is broken is trite now, but even so, I thought this was a good summary of the situation:

“As Marc Andreessen points out, newspapers are in trouble. The problem is not merely that they’ve been slow to adapt to the web. It’s more serious than that: their problems are due to deep structural flaws that are exposed now that they have competitors. When the only sources of news were the wire services and a few big papers, it was enough to keep writing stories about how the president met with someone and they each said conventional things written in advance by their staffs. Readers were never that interested, but they were willing to consider this news when there were no alternatives.”

This guy appears to be pretty well known, but I only discovered him today. Some people are so skilled you just find yourself smiling in admiration as you watch them. I was grinning from ear to ear watching this.

Larry Wright: New York Street Drummer

Another great clip

The independent galactic equality tribunal has declared that Wales is under-represented on British TV. The tribunal is of course right. Wales is indeed under-represented on British TV, for similar reasons that North Kent, Felixstowe and the Lake District are under-represented on British TV. Of course, North Kent, Felixstowe and the Lake District are not identified with that magic ingredient, ethnicity. They don’t have a flag to fly, an anthem to sing, or a national breast to thump and so their under-representation is, frankly, less important. Much less important.

Next stop: companies forced to provide Cornish-only prayer rooms

Is this destined to be the latest manifestation of “cattle prod culture”?

“I’m sorry, but I really did order a vodka and tonic”

ZAAAP!

That something like this is even being contemplated by some is frightening. All that rhetoric about how terrorism must not be allowed to change our way of life. For some it was obviously just that,  rhetoric.

And even if we ignore the personal liberty ramifications, I think it’s obvious what this would end up being used for in 99.9% of cases, yep, “educating” beligerent passengers and those foolish enough to disagree too vehemently with airline employees.

(*Thanks to a wag on reddit.com for the title)

“… a dayglo publication that’s full of utopian drooling about technology, bogo-economics, and junk science”

No, no one has leaked the next Labour Party manifesto, British Wired Magazine is re-launching!

Why everything you knew about cheese is wrong

Seen on Butterflies and Wheels: hilarious clbuttic shenanigans on the American Family Association web site:

http://www.reason.com/blog/show/127271.html