Geekery

geek·er·y: Socially inept single-mindedness or accomplishment in scientific or technical pursuits. Posts in this category pertain to particularly geek-related topics such as WordPress upgrades, other blog-related software and plugins, software security/bugfixes, Microsoft vs. Apple vs. Linux, math, science, website updates, OpenID, etc.

WordPress 2.1 Upgrade

Filed in Web DevelopmentTags: Geekery, Web Site, WordPress

I apologize if you've noticed any site down-time or other oddities. WordPress 2.1 has been released, and the upgrade has been less smooth than normal.

First off, after happily downloading the new version, I started reading the WordPress support forums to see if any common installation problems were cropping up. Good thing I did, too, because the minimum PHP/SQL requirements were increased for this release (and this critical information was - shall we say - not exactly made obvious in the version announcement and upgrade information).

I checked my server, only to discover that I was running older versions of both PHP and MySQL. Fortunately, I have an awesome, responsive host, because all it took was a request to upgrade PHP/MySQL, and they took care of it in less than 24 hours.

Unfortunately, upon upgrading, some of you may have noticed that the blog disappeared completely. As it turns out, my WordPress install with all of the plugins I'm using had gotten a bit bloated with PHP memory use. I had to disable several plugins temporarily to get back under the max PHP memory allocation. (Again, a support request to the host to increase the max memory allocation was responded to promptly, and the request should be taken care of sometime today.)

Having taken care of those issues, I went ahead with the upgrade last night. I probably should have done a bit more research, as the upgrade involved quite a few fundamental changes to the back end, including template tags and other gotchas. So, I've spent most of last night and this morning making several underlying changes to my blog template (the details of with which I will not bore you). Things should be working properly now, but if you notice anything broken or amiss, let me know.

Update: I'm glad to see that someone found some usefulness in this post!

Windows Vista DRM

Filed in Social IssuesTags: Computers, DRM, Geekery, Technology, Windows

Leo Laporte and Steve Gibson have been having an interesting discussion about Windows Vista Digital Rights Management (DRM) in Episodes 73, 74, and 75 of their weekly SecurityNow podcast, including a conversation with Peter Gutmann, who wrote a white paper called "A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection".

Today I noticed a GRC newsgroup post referencing a shashdot post discussing a Windows Vista Blog post discussing Gutmann's paper.

If you are considering an upgrade to Windows Vista, and are not familiar with what Microsoft is doing with respect to DRM in the new O/S, you probably want to take a look.

Feedburner Test Post

Filed in Web DevelopmentTags: Geekery, Web Site

Just testing Feedburner feed integration...

Social Bookmarking Integration

Filed in Web DevelopmentTags: Geekery, Web Site

You may have noticed the row of (perhaps odd-looking) images at the end of each post. Thanks to the Social Bookmarks plugin, you now have the option of using one or several of the social bookmarking services with my blog posts. If you are so inclined, feel free to use them; if not, feel free to ignore them!

I Resemble These Remarks

Filed in MiscellaneousTags: Geekery

Top 10 Ways to Motivate Geeks, from Retrospector, with a follow-up post.

I would say that it's scary how well his list resonates with me, but as I've always said, I embraced my Inner Geek a long time ago!

Cooking For Engineers

Filed in ScienceTags: Food/Wine, Geekery

This site rocks!

Via Casting Out Nines, who says:

Cooking for Engineers is a cooking site (imagine!) with the detail-oriented geek in mind. All the measurements are in MKS units rather than tablespoons and cups. The recipes — and there are many of those — are formatted as little Gantt charts, which makes so much sense to those with a little operations research exposure, it’s scary. There are experiments — for example, comparing the results of cooking bacon by frying, broiling, or microwaving. Think of it as Alton Brown taken to his logical extreme. (AB is, by the way, my hero; I find that a disturbing amount of my classroom pedagogy is based on how he operates on Good Eats.) If you enjoy cooking but long for a more scientific approach — check it out.

Just Testing

Filed in Web DevelopmentTags: Geekery, Web Site, WordPress

Just testing WordPress 2.0 multiple-trackback funcationality... pay no attention to this post!

Fun With RSS

Filed in Web DevelopmentTags: Computers, Geekery, Internet

Just came across Local Weather RSS Feeds. Nifty.

Oh, I use Omea Reader. Lots of choices for RSS aggregators out there, but I like this one.

Geo Test

Filed in Web DevelopmentTags: Geekery, Internet, Web Site

Just Testing...