Yep. So the last you probably saw from me was on July 4th. It's 6 months later. Over the last 6 months, I haven't been posting because we've been (slowly) migrating my website from WordPress to Serendipity. We were having a lot of problems with the database crashing, and Darrin was sick of running mySQL because he hates it, so he found Serendipity, I tried it out, and decided yep, we'll switch it over.
This wasn't without its own share of problems, however. It took a bit of digging and code cracking, but we (and by we I mean Darrin) finally got it working how it should be.
I'll post more about the last 6 months separately. Most of the topics really deserve their own posts. But in a nutshell, we're all well, and things are going fairly smoothly around here.
Apologies to anyone who posted a legitimate comment between the blog move and today. Everything since the move has been deleted because there was too much spam to wade through (because I hadn't set up the spam blocker yet). If you've commented since then, please try again and I'll probably approve it.
I keep getting really weird, almost-legitimate comments posted on my blog. And then I look at the URL they've entered and yup, spam. Thought I'd share a few with you just for a laugh.
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Huh?
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Too much information.
See you in 2012.
Not if I see you first.
I'll put up a teaser evaluation then: It is either the best looking update to the world's best blog, or the ugliest good work.
Uh, thanks, I think.
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I'd be grateful if you learned how to spell. And use proper punctuation.
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Yeah, and...?
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Lost in translation?
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That one makes my eyes hurt. A LOLcat could write better than that.
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This one was on a Farm Macheenery (exploding) issue. Nobody's ever called it beautiful before.
Hey, found your site by accident doing a search on Bing but I'll definitely be coming back. As for your post I more or less agree with a lot of what you've said here but wouldn't it be just as easy to move on? I mean why muddle with your quality of life if you don't have to?
10 am Thursday morning, I'm innocently sitting at my computer trying to look at one of my regular web haunts, when I get a 'cannot connect to server' message. I tried another site thinking that one was just having trouble, but I got it again. So I went to power cycle the modem, which is usually my first port of call when Darrin isn't home and the internets are broken. Nothing happened. Checked all the cables, tried again. Still nothing happened. Pick up the telephone receiver...dead silence. Ah. So that's the problem. Got out our brand spankin' new laptop and tried to find an unsecure wireless network. Only one wireless network comes up, and it's a secure one. Drat. Eventually I rang up the Telstra fault report number on my mobile, punched in our phone number, and was told by a computer that a line had been cut somewhere and they expected it to be resolved by 7pm that night. Okay, so one day with no internet is annoying, but not the end of the world. I can cope. I'll just go do some sewing & gardening, stuff I'd been meaning to do for a while anyway.
7pm comes and goes. Still no dial tone on our phone. So Darrin's home by now and rings the fault number, and stays on to talk to a real live person. They tell him it's been pushed back to Friday evening at 7pm. Boo, hiss.
Friday morning, keep checking the phone to see if there's a dial tone. Nope. Rang it from my mobile a few times and it RINGS. From past experience setting up my phone line when I lived at Campbelltown, this tells me maybe they've hooked it up to the wrong house. But anyway. I keep ringing the fault number now & then to see what's going on, and all they say is 'service difficulty' and 'as soon as practical' for return of service. That doesn't fill me with confidence.
So anyway. I was catching up with some friends in North Adelaide, so I thought I'd take the laptop along and see if I could find a wireless network while I was there. Nope. So when I left I started looking again, with the laptop open on the passenger seat. North Adelaide was looking pretty good for wireless networks, even unsecure ones (for instance Internode, our ISP, has several around the city). But I couldn't connect to any of them. I'm thinking being in the car was interfering with the signal. So anyway, we start driving home. And I decide what the heck, McDonald's has free wireless, and a playground, and I'm desperate. So we stopped for lunch and Caleb played in the playground while I surfed the net a bit. And then we went home.
And I kept checking the modem/phone/fault number for updates, but nothing changed. And Darrin decided to ring them just as I was going to bed, and talked to a real live person again, and they told him: Monday.
MONDAY?! Could they be any more slack? (Well, yes, it's Telstra. Slack is their middle name.)
Oh, and also Friday evening, I was trying all night to get into online banking from Darrin's Blackberry, but it kept telling me the service was too busy and to try again later. Argh.
So Saturday morning I got up, tried the Blackberry again, and still no luck. And then I showered, got dressed, and headed off to the library to use one of their computers. And here's where it starts to get funny. Not.
I sat down at a booking computer and punched in my card number & PIN. And it told me that bookings aren't allowed on my account. Huh?! I've used computers there before, and I'm pretty sure I haven't been 'naughty' with them, so why the heck is it telling me that? I tried another one. Same message. So I go to the desk and tell the librarian what's happening, and she checks my card, and tells me there's a fine on my account that has to be paid before I can use a computer. Great. So I check in my wallet, and as I expected, I don't have anything even closely resembling two dollars. And I tell the librarian that I need to get into online banking, so I can transfer money into another account, so I can withdraw it and pay the fine. She doesn't look too happy about it, but gives me a temporary login so I can get in and transfer the money. Yay.
So then I walked down to the ATM, got the money, went into the shops, got some meat for tea, and went back to the library. Paid my fine, sat down at a booking computer, and it told me the next available computer would be 45 minutes away. And have I mentioned that Darrin needed the car that afternoon to go orienteering? Yeah, so that wasn't gonna work. So I went around to one of the quick use computers, 15 minute sessions, and used that one. Logged back in when time was up, went for another 15 minutes. About 4 minutes from the end of that session, Darrin sends me a text to ask what we're doing for lunch and that he WAS planning to leave in 40 minutes. Oops.
So I went to a takeaway shop & grabbed a couple schnitzel packs. Came home, had lunch, Darrin sat down at his computer and said "Do you want the good news or the bad news?" I gave him a funny look. He said "The good news is our internet's back. The bad news is our internet's back so we can sit around wasting time."
So I had a few hiccups with the Wordpress sites, so that some things weren't showing up, or showing up correctly, but now I'm pretty sure I've got it all fixed. Let me know if you see something odd (AFTER you try reloading the page and/or restarting your browser, in case it's something on your end).
So anyway. If you haven't seen the new improved Little Para Pants site, go look.
Been migrating this to Wordpress over the last few weeks, and finally got everything working like I wanted, and everything moved over, and tonight finally remembered to ask Darrin to point melvania to the new site instead of the old crappy Mambo site...and here we are. All Wordpressed up and nowhere to go.
I didn't want to post anything before we switched it all over, because then I'd have to move more posts over...and I didn't want to. It was nearly 700 items I had to move!
And Little Para Pants is all switched over too. If you're using IPv6, however, it'll take a few more minutes for everything to synchronise.
I'm not going to bore you with blogging about the election today. I'm going to bore you with the news that we're getting a new colour laser printer by the end of the week! Just so I can be different, because everyone blogging today is blogging about the election.
{mosimage}I've done a slightly major Little Para Pants website edit over the weekend, and made up a flyer, and an order form, and care instructions, and there's now a contact form where you can sign up to get email updates about the business. Yep, we've entered the big time.
And tomorrow afternoon I'm picking up 4000 flyers to pass around to people. The advertising has begun....
And we have a logo. It's in this post (or will be once I upload it).
I haven't done any more sewing yet, but I'm going to a sewing day with some friends on Saturday so I probably will then. Means I should probably at least cut out some pieces.
