Category: Meta

Crankypantsing, Meta

To Coppermine or Not to Coppermine

Shelly

I somehow managed to upgrade Coppermine, but it still didn’t work. After some blind tinkering (and I mean, really blind, as I haven’t the first clue what the hell I’m doing), I got it working. Of course, all the database tables are mangled, so now I have to decide if it’s worth messing with trying to re-upload all 2000+ files. It means more work for me, but the benefit is that the image files I display here will be about 1/10 to 1/20 of the size of the ones from Flickr. If you aren’t on broadband, this is a big, big deal. Even with broadband, it means slow loading times and being at the mercy of the whims of Flickr.

Of course, I could also get everything re-loaded only to have it crash on me again.

Crankypantsing, Meta

Oops!

Shelly

A few words of advice:

If you’ve only gotten three hours of sleep the night before, and it’s creeping up on 1am, you probably shouldn’t try fixing a couple of broken links on your website. Because, if you do, you may find that you’ve accidentally saved one file on top of another, obliterating it completely. No biggie, you can just grab a fresh copy of the code from your website, right? Well, no, not if you didn’t notice until after you’d uploaded the file and overwritten the good copy.

Thankfully, it was only my links page, which I don’t care (too much) about. The bare bones of it exist in a text file somewhere, if I ever feel like reconstructing it. It’s not a priority, though. If it had been anything else, I’ve got back-ups, but they aren’t properly coded, so losing the current copies might have made me weepy.

Crankypantsing, Meta

Grrr!

Shelly

As suspected, my web host says that the problem is with my gallery software, and that I will have to take it up with the Coppermine folks. IDTS. The problem is a database corruption issue, which the Coppermine folks can do fuck all about. So my brain nearly implodiated, and then I cried. I don’t know why I was surprised, because I was expecting my web host to give me the brush off. I should have been prepared for it.

Anyway, there is no way in hell that I’m going to be able to unsnarl the mess, so I think what I’m going to do is try to point everything at Flickr. Of course, that makes me want to cry, too. I got a hundred posts done, which leaves 1062 to go. I think it may take me awhile!

On the bright–but no less frustrating–side, this means that I don’t have to try to keep any sort of unified theme going between Coppermine and WordPress. I spent some time weeding out my existing theme templates, and I uploaded a few new ones that look promising. The one I settled on seems to be pretty stable, though, of course, it doesn’t behave properly in IE. Instead of two sidebars, y’all will see just one. Be thankful that it’s not in the middle of the page, because at this point, I’m so fed up that I just don’t care.

I like the basic look of this template, but I can’t stand the weird line spacing after image files, so I’m not sure how long I’ll keep it.

Crankypantsing, Meta, Photography

Coppermine Errors

Shelly

Something has gone horribly wonky with my Coppermine database. God only knows what, but I have a feeling that it’s beyond my ability to fix. As far as I can tell, my web host is not experiencing any known issues, so whether it’s something on their end, that will miraculously heal itself, or something I’m going to have to fix (ha!), I don’t know.

I am not amused.

The only bright point is that it looks like images are showing up fine within my blog, but if you try to click on anything to view it larger, you won’t be able to. I think pretty much everything is hosted over at Flickr, though, so if you really want to look at a full-size image, that’s the place to go.

Did I mention that I’m not amused?

However, as promised, here’s the sink from our conference room. Charming, isn’t it? It sort of suits my incredibly cranky mood!

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Meta

NoBloPoMo

Shelly

November is National Blog Posting Month (NoBloPoMo), or, as I mentally call it: NoMoPoblano (I am not a huge fan of chilis, I guess). I like my version better. Anyway, this entails blogging every damned day, something I sometimes find a bit challenging. We’ll see how it goes. I’m not going to resort to posting filler, so all I can say is that I’ll do my best to have something to show, even if I don’t have much to tell.

It’s also National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). I signed up for this, too, because clearly there is something wrong with me. What the hell was I thinking? I’m behind, of course, but I’m hoping to get caught up this weekend. If I can figure out how to weave them together, I’d like to incorporate sketches into the book (since I really need the practice), but I’m not sure that’s going to be possible.

I think I may have bitten off more than I can chew.

Crankypantsing, Meta

Adventures in Fake Blogging

Shelly

Catalog Card
Library Catalog Card = Old School!

I’m supposed to be learning about blogging, and a whole bunch of other Web 2.0 stuff, for work. No, really. It would be funny, except it’s not. I do get a certificate at the end of it all, but first, I have to set up a blog (oh, but seriously), a Flickr account, listen to a podcast, and do a few other things.

My initial reaction was that the library was a few years behind the curve. Not that that in itself would be surprising, but surely, you would think that my coworkers would know about blogs, social networking, and whatnot? Well, you (and I!) would be wrong. One coworker seemed kind of repulsed by the idea and a couple of others have asked me to help them. These are folks who really ought to have a grip on this stuff as it’s sort of job related, but apparently, not so much. I am ashamed to say that I was at first amused–yea, mightily!–at watching coworker #1 try to set up a Blogger account and format her first post, but then I got a kick out seeing her “get” it, and I felt like a giant meanypants for being impatient. Not everyone is having fun with this stuff, but the ones that are, are entertaining. And those who aren’t? Well, like eating spinach, it’s good for them, whether they like it or not.

So, I spent half an hour this morning setting up Fake Blog. I can think of better ways to waste my time. I asked if we could test out of it and got the stink eye. I thought it was a reasonable question! Apparently not.

Crankypantsing, Meta, Photography

Stones and Seeds

Shelly

I think I might be done tinkering for the time-being. I’ve been trying to find a WordPress theme that’s been ported to Coppermine that I can stand to live with. Just about every one I’ve tried has been broken in some way or other. The blog template doesn’t work in IE, or the gallery portion has fatal errors. It’s been frustrating, but for once, I would like a set of towels and washcloths that match, dammit! If you know what I mean.

So, as much as I’m not really keen on using someone else’s artwork right out of the box, I think this one will do for now. It’s not too ugly, it matches, and it works in IE. Hallelujah!

Of course, this theme does not in any way match my website proper, but I’m refusing to think about that right now.

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Fragment of Seed Pod

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Hole in Stone

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Quartz Crystal

I’m not sure what the heck that thing in the top photo is. It could be bone, it could be a tooth, or it could be a weird piece of a seed pod. I just really can’t tell. Ms. Lea may know, though, being as it was sitting on a stump by her front porch. I meant to ask her, but got sidetracked.

I also meant to snag the burned out guts to the wacky polyester-fabric-and-copper-leaf circuit board. They were very cool, and would be a nifty addition to a collage or three.

And, dear lord, if the stompy girls get any more stompierierier, they’re going to bring down the staircase. My computer table is directly on the other side of the wall, and they’ve been running up and down the damned thing (the staircase, not my computer table, though it’s just about the same difference) for the last ten minutes. Aieee!

Meta, Photography

Searching

Shelly

I just noticed that this template is lacking a search form. Eeep! All is well now. I’ve stuck one at the top of the center column at the bottom.

Funnily enough, the code supplied in the WordPress documentation did not work. I lifted this directly from my previous template, and it seems to be working fine.

And, another toy cam photo, just because I can.

2004_01
Winter 2004