Time Scheduled For Me

I mostly got out of the paying job on time, leaving a new problem to deal with in the morning. Good news: I believe it is just a problem for one company (Thursday morning: found a second company with the same issue, damn.) and isn't indicative of another system wide issue (Thursday: it doesn't affect every company but it may necessitate the IT contractors tweaking the program again). But I'm not putting any money on that either. (Thursday: smart, I still had functioning brain power when I composed this last night).

My chiropractor realigned my back and I scheduled an hour-long massage on next Monday, which means I'll have to take off early. Oh darn, I'm so broken up and guilty about that. Especially since I spent today in so much pain and took Aleve just after lunch to make it through the afternoon. I haven't been able to write, edit, or tweak websites in three days and that is so not helping my mental state. Exercising has been hit just as hard.

So the massage, early bedtimes for the rest of the week (hasn't happened yet damn Daylight Savings Time), and squeezing in some creative writing are on my agenda to pamper myself. The weekend day of rest will probably end up being two. I'd love to slather on some suntan oil and lay out on the lawn and bake a while, but I'm keeping my options open.

In other news, I'm wading out into active website administrating after having dropped it for years. I made a stab at it before and it didn't stick. This time I decided to put 15 minutes six days a week and an hour on Saturdays to what needs doing. Procrastination has a harder time building up if I stick with that schedule.

The test sites are still the bane of my existence on the web. I created a local server on my old computer and the motherboard fried. I created one on my current computer and found I couldn't import the databases because they were too big.

So my latest bright idea: set up the development sites as subdomains with a copy of the database. And all I can get are 500 Internal error pages. My hour ran out before I could figure out what I did wrong. What I have discovered: "copy database to" works to create a new database with the same information. You can't make the database and chose it to write over it, even if you left it blank to do that. I don't know if the old database tables are what is frakking with the sandbox sites, but I haven't crashed the live sites while I'm getting this straight. When it gets too hot or rainy to sunbath Saturday, I'll be working on them again.

I'm relieved I've left the Library as static pages. Currently, my fifteen minute days are spent on it. The project list has developed into a lengthy one while I was ignoring the sites.

That wraps up everything I had wrote at supper Wednesday night. Thursday, my supervisor returned from her trip and proceeded to go handle supervisory things with the Assessment snafu (like yell at other department heads why in the new system we can't amend our assessments when the company sends us the paperwork we have always asked for). The decision was made to accept the overpayments and use the new refund system that nobody told us was going live. I warned my contact in the Fiscal division; the rest of them are on their own. Tomorrow I should be able to actually mail back payments for the companies who owe us zero second thing in the morning that I never got a chance to do today. I'm also hoping beyond hope to get a chance to write something fictional. Don't hold your breaths on that one.

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The BookWorm

Not a good week from crossing things off the list

I don't know if it's the rapidly changing weather or some residual graduation-is-over-stress-let-go thing, but I have had the hardest time concentrating on things I need to get done.

I totally missed the eye appointment I had Monday after work, but luckily rescheduled it for today. I get up too late to work, and when I get home, I'm staring at the computer screen until I remind myself to look at your list. I feel fine; just not here.

I did manage to get the modules fixed at the Circulation Desk and FanFiction Garret without breaking anything this morning. I ran out of time before I could start moving Alt. BM Site's. I divided the setting up a local development environment into nine sub-projects, so as of now, I'm two-thirds done with project one. PROGRESS!

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The BookWorm

Did I accomplish anything?

I have 9 pages of typed instructions/notes of how I screwed up, 7 handwritten pages of notes to add to the typewritten, 10 or 11 multi-page articles printed out of instructions and how-to's cited in the typed/handwritten notes, an equally thick stack of stuff printed out to consult but didn't end up citing them.

The local multi-sites setup is finally working, but with still so much so wrong, all I want to do is delete and uninstall and start all over.

If I didn't have an empty sink, I'd swear I didn't accomplish anything this weekend. :p

Basically, why my contributed modules didn't work when I thought I had installed them correctly after getting them out of the core module folder? The folder under sites MUST match the virtual host's server name! NOBODY said that when setting up virtual hosts. In fact, I only found it mentioned under doing it online not on a local server environment. Gee, guess what keywords I was using when I searched for directions.

I can fix the production site modules, and then backup everything that already works to make the local development environment out of. I don't know if I can make separate installs work, but I do know what has gone wrong with the multi-site setup. At least to the point where I can get two sites up and running, and will be free to discover new issues.

If I uninstall XAMPP, I could reinstall it on the external hard drive and make it portable. Then I could do all my website edits from it without being limited to what computer I use. I think I understand where all the hiccups were for the virtual host file now. (Provided I get the paths typed in correctly so it doesn't matter if the drive's letter assignment changes.) I think I can get everything downloaded and installed fresh instead of going back and fixing another goof-up I just found I did thanks to not having the damn Drupal handbook memorized.

I don't know what to do about Windows declaring folders "read-only" when I need to write to them, but that is easy to deal with once you know why those error messages are popping up.

I'm tired of not being finished with this. I should be figuring out the changes I want to make to the site, not STILL trying to make this all work without breaking.

I'm done for the night. I'm taking a shower, and then curling up to watch Alice on the Syfy Channel.

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The BookWorm

Um, where's my bounty from the god Caffeine

In case I haven't talked to you already, I'm back from my trip and had a lovely time. Just what I needed to do. However, I brewed my last bag of caffeinated tea before I left and just finished my last soft drink this morning. I've got a cup of hot chocolate to stave off the withdrawal since I don't get paid until Friday. *Sigh*

Anyways, I'm happy to report that the local copy of Circulation Desk is finally running properly in my Development Environment with all the contributed module folders out of the core module folder. Oddly enough, they refuse to work under sites/circulationdesk/modules but will work under sites/all/modules. On the prod sites this won't matter because they each are a separate install of Drupal. I will have to be extra careful in the development environment with which modules go with which site because they will have access to all of them.

Depending on what the lack of caffeine does to me today, I haven't decided if I should fix the other two sites production sites or their local copies first. I know I need to translate my notes of bitching into actual instructions, but I don't feel awake enough for that. :p

In other news, I got my haircut last night! It's chin-length now, and the rest sent off to Locks of Love. Now I just have to make sure I don't break out or flake up and figure out the the twist for the stole for Dec. 12th. Seriously, the included instructions don't work. I'm afraid I may have to safety pin it to the robe so the colors show. Is that against the rules for proper collegiate wear?

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The BookWorm

Getting Error 404

I took most of the weekend off from the trying to make the development environment work problem. To be honest, nothing was going to happen by the time I got home Friday night. I ignored it on Saturday. Sunday I had company and got to see Star Trek rebooted. Now I can finally catch up on my GWC podcasts.

So Sunday night and Monday morning, I finally had a clear enough head to go back to the problem. So I Googled on "getting 404 error on my local Drupal site" and found Learn By the Drop. His answer to the first comment was to check the .htaccess file.

None of my downloaded files have that one. I think the FTP program hid it. So I went through through CPanel to find it and downloaded for Circulation Desk, FFGarret, and Alt. BM Site.

Cleaned out the cache, refreshed the local copy of Circulation Desk, tried logging in, and it still didn't work. *headdesk* Damn I was so hoping that would do it! It made sense because it is a file you get with a clean install and a file computers tend to hide for user's good.

Back to the Google links. Apparently something goes wonky with clean URLs. Found a Drupal forum post on details to make sure are in the Apache code for those to work. The issue they're talking about is turning on the Clean URLs and I can't even get to the admin pages. :p Okay, down in the comments, other people describe what I have, so I changed it. *Crosses fingers* Turning Apache on and off. Great it turned back on. That always worries me because it takes forever. Back to the browser that i think has gotten tired and doesn't want to play any more. :p End program on Firefox. So tired of it doing that. Okay, got Firefox back up and try logging in the local copy of Circulation Desk.

New error - 500 - I haven't made the changes to the virtual host file yet. Made changes. Got paranoid that Apache wasn't going to come back on again. It did. Back to Firefox. Clean cache. Refreshed local copy of Circulation Desk. Try logging in. 500 Internal Server Error.

One last trick from this thread is to check the .htaccess file to see if a wrong option has been selected. Whelp, that is there but I think it is commented out. Make no changes to this file.

Another possibility is the symbolic links problem that is the first handbook page under "Multiple Drupal Sites Under Windows." Downloaded the Junction.zip fiel, which is the program that builds symbolic links for Windows. But that page also talks about using one codebase for multiple sites. *Sigh*

Figure I would find the fresh version of Drupal and follow the instructions from "Running multiple sites on a local PC from a single codebase" tells me before trying to fool with Junction program tomorrow. I can just comment off the coding I know works in the virtual host file without losing anything. I have no idea why this step has me so damn leery of doing it. I think I'm afraid I'm going to end up having the wrong things on the wrong site, probably starting with the themes.

Short version of this morning: I'm bumbled my way through the instructions, got to the Drupal installer page, figured out how to make sure the folders storing all my files is read-write enabled, ran the update script twice, before I finally got logged in and REACHED the administrations pages. God-awful ugly administration pages with my theme no where in sight and a mile-long pink box listing all the errors my database was throwing. I had to leave for work by that point so I just rebooted the computer to give it a nice rest.

It was 2pm before I hit myself upside the head. Of course all the tables for the different modules were throwing so many damn errors, the modules ARE NOT WHERE THEY NEED TO BE IN ORDER TO RUN NOW!

At this point, I'm looking forward to throwing out all the incomplete instructional printouts I have amassed once I have typed up step-by-step instructions of what I need to do for FFGarret and Alt. BM Site's local copies to work right. :p

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The BookWorm

Apache fixed, so a new problem!

Development Environment: I finally worked out the virtual host problem. Where I screwed up was applying the instructions for setting up one virtual host to setting up multiple ones. You can put this code for one virtual host:

< VirtualHost www.example.com >

DocumentRoot /www/example1

ServerName www.example.com


# Other directives here

< /VirtualHost >

But you cannot put each URL when you have more than one Virtual Host, that causes the overlap problem. And then my computer didn't like the asterisk wildcard and I had to put in numbers for the IP. But it works. Apache doesn't shut down and the local sites now come up in Firefox. I haven't tested that in IE yet; one headache at
a time.

Now I get the front page for the Drupal sites under local, but if I try to log in or click on any links, the browser can't find the file/content/node/whatever. *headdesk* No issues for the Library and finding its html files. So chalk one up to being done correctly, albeit accidentally. :p The second weirdness about this, last night FFGarret worked and Circulation Desk didn't. This morning they both don't work. :p But that's why I think it's a Drupal end of things issue and not Apache.

I can send emails with more info on what I did if you really want it, because I do think I goofed something else up.

In other news, it's Friday and I will update the Number Crunching posts when I get home. Next week I'm having Thanksgiving in Texas. I don't know where the piles start and end on my work desk and home desk, and would really prefer curl up somewhere where I won't spend any money. :p

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The BookWorm

Apache fun

Last night was fun. I'm leaving Alt BM Site alone for now because I need to get a current backup of the database and the files. And I might as well figure out what the hell I'm doing wrong before doing that. I got Apache 2.2.14 running and got the virtual host set up for the Circulation Desk. It worked! On a roll now, so I set up the virtual hosts for the main pages of the Library and FFGarret.

Which went straight to Circulation Desk when I tried to access them in the browser. *headdesk*

So I comb through the code again, and thought I found the mistake. I added in a trailing "/" when the code doesn't like that. Corrected and rebooted the entire computer and went to bed.

This morning Apache won't run, but at least I get an answer out of the error log, which I didn't get last night. "All the other virtual hosts are overlapping with the first one (Circulation Desk) so it's only using Circulation Desk. You may need a NameVirtualHost directive (or something like that)."

I Googled the exact phrase, but must have found four or five possible solutions. I have printouts to compare what they did to my own code. At worst, I can run each site one at a time (I haven't actually tried FFGarret and the Library by themselves that may help me figure out what is wrong with their virtual host code), but that defeats the point of setting up virtual hosts so you can run multiple sites in the development environment. So tonight I guess I'll be trying out each of the "fixes" I've found and hoping one holds.

I have Firebug, but I haven't figured out how it tells you what is wrong. Or even if it can when the issue is in a background file. It's been a few months since I tried using it, and I see they have add some other items to work with it. Maybe one of them will help.

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The BookWorm

Not like Mom can make

I really wanted biscuits and red gravy this morning. I baked biscuits from scratch, but my red gravy doesn't taste like Mom's. *Sigh* So now I'll have to ask her what the difference is.

Fun with test sites continued all weekend and looks like it will probably continue all week. Issue #1) Taking a full twenty-four hours to think of the simple solution to the database transfer problem. "Why don't you export the tables after the one giving you a fit in the import and just import that half?" Worked in about thirty minutes. Issue #2) All these codes and background programs use different symbols to tell the computer "don't run this." None of the instructions I have said anything about deleting the # in an Apache file. At least, that's what I'm assuming the issue is now. I wasn't able to test the hypothesis before I had to leave for work.

Guess what I'll be doing when I get home. :)

I'm fairly certain what stopped me when I first downloaded everything the instructions told me I needed was that the direction stopped making sense. *Sigh* I've been adding notes on my printouts in the hopes that I'll understand said notes when I have to do this again. :p

Repeat after me: this will all be worth it when I can play with Drupal modules without fear of breaking the whole damn site people are using.

Yeah, primary goal for this is to see if I can build a wiki for the Library. Secondary goal will be fixing the fanart process for Alt. BM Site since the module it uses now will not be maintained going forward. :p

Goal for today: Get the bloody announcement card finished so all I will need to do is print and mail. Everything else is bonus.

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The BookWorm

Updating Alt. BM Site State of Progress

Oh bloody hell. Well, if you've gone by the site, you have seen it is still down for maintenance and is looking rather pale.

Now I'm going to try to reconstruct the weekend. Yeah, this is a me pounding my head against the desk post, but hopefully, it'll give me a clear path to start tonight when I get home. If I get home with time or a mood to work on anything; Mondays have been running late at the paying job.

So I reread Drupal instructions on creating a test site until I finally understood them. If there was pay involved, I would seriously consider helping write their technical manuals. I got the database exported and saved to my harddrive. I could not get it imported into the new test database. Did not feel like going around with the server's help desk, so I started working on the test site anyway. It doesn't bother me if there is a policy against database imports, but I couldn't find it anywhere.

A crucial step went wonky somewhere--besides the need a new copy of the database--and I discovered the changes were going onto the live site regardless of the measures I thought I had taken to prevent that. So then it took at least another hour before I get logged in after putting the whole shebang into offline mode. This was so not what I wanted to do. I wanted to have the breathing space of a test site to get most everything right before changing the production site.

So I managed to get the whole thing updated to Drupal version 6.13, turned on the new versions of the modules already in use, turned on new modules I think will help, and created a new Zen theme but didn't make it pretty yet. I really rushed through that whole part too quickly 'cause now I'm facing all the problems and don't know where to really start.

Problem number one: the new modules wrecked the navigation menu. For some reason, the links to get to their admin pages ended up there instead of on the admin page where I've always seen them go before.

Problem number two: I lost some pages made with views and it took a few hours to stumble my way through recreating them in the new Views admin pages.

Problem number three: AcidFree albums are no longer under development. And that means finding a new gallery module. Let's just say that I'm less than thrilled with my first choice at this point. That may change if I hear back from the developer with some clear instructions on how to set things up and make them a little more automatic.

Problem number four: the cron job refuses to run. I haven't even begun to figure that one out yet.

Problem number five: fixing the theme CSS. Actually, I don't see this one being a headache, I just haven't reached it yet.

Any good news? I don't have to retag anything, all the taxonomy terms moved over without breaking. I haven't lost any data and the database appears to be running normally. I think the biggest issue I'm having is a) losing track of what I'm doing because something else that is wrong snags my attention, b) have more patience figuring things out, c) frantic to get it done before the users get disgusted.

This has hammered home the need for a secure test site that won't talk to the production site and change anything for all the Drupal sites I have now. I'm fairly certain I have enough disk space on the external harddrive to set them up, and I should do that while I'm trying to hammer out the changes on Alt. BM Site (that mostly involves waiting on FireFox to unfreeze). It took long enough to work out the kinks with FFGarret and the Circulation Desk; I don't want this snafu to happen again.

Set up a Windows test server using XAMPP
Windows-specific guidelines
Import a MySQL data dump with BigDump
Create a test Site

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The BookWorm

Websites are back

The budget is squeaking like a mouse in a trap, but I managed to get the hosting bills paid. Next step is to get the updates finished and set up the Project Wonderful ads. Then I can go back to the creating content and crossing my fingers so nothing breaks while I'm concentrating on other things.

Yeah, I think I can check in on things again in December. After I turn in the Faulkner paper and get a new diploma.

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The BookWorm

This Doesn't Bode Well For the Rest of the Year

I don't think a single month has started well this entire year. July is no exception. There's no money to renew the BookWorm's Library or Alt. BM Site's hosting. I'm hoping I don't lose everything in the server while waiting on money to become available. Yes, I made backups but I'm not a hundred percent sure the database backup worked for Alt. BM Site.

HOPEFULLY, the budget will work out with the next paycheck and I can pay the bill. Meanwhile, if there was something available for download on my blogs that now doesn't work, send me a message and I'll see if it's not too big to email.

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The BookWorm

Once It Looks Pretty, It'll All Be Worth It

I understand how HTML coding works. I understand How CSS stylesheets work. I understand how content management works under Drupal to the point where I can set it up in less than an hour not counting downloading and searching for the modules I want.

What I don't understand is how to make the theme look like I want it to. Or more specifically, I don't know where the conflict is to make it go away.

I don't understand how PHP works. I bought books, read websites, asked questions, but there is something about it that does not connect in my head. Drupal's theme engine (from what I understand out of the Zen's theme building project) works by using the *.info page plus PHP pages to take what has been listed in the CSS stylesheet, and bam! make the Drupal site look customized pretty.

Remembering the pain in the ass time I had hacking into whatever theme I had hacked into while setting up Alt. BM Site, I was sold on this idea. Those hacks have been one of the brakes on updating Alt. BM Site, and anything that could help me build a theme I could just turn off and on or easily correct if I got something ugly on it sounds like a perfect no brainer. Circulation Desk would match the rest of the Library once set up correctly. I could fix things like poll sizes on a CSS stylesheet and watch them take effect site wide for Alt. BM Site without deleting something that allows stories to show up (for example, can you tell I don't trust myself in PHP?) And this is a great example of why theory is always more fun than fact.

So I follow their directions and set up the library desk theme. Then I cracked open the CSS stylesheet and transferred code from the BookWorm's Library. Upload and turned it on, and was greeted by brown as far as the eye can see. Okay, brown is the background color I have lurking under the background image, so that part worked. Where's the image? Dug out the CSS coding tags from HTML Goodies. Oops, I deleted a pair of parenthesis thinking I didn't need them on a style sheet. Added back, saved, uploaded, and refreshed. And still brown as far as the eye can see.

Now I didn't clean out the cache; something I didn't remember until typing this up. SCORE! I just checked it on the work computer and I got the background working. So that's probably the problem at the home computer. Maybe I can get this thing working after all without needing to find someone to do it for me.

Besides that hair pulling, I've been hit with the 'tween-projects-slump also. It's not exactly true, but it still feels weird not to breathing the story in and out all day long. More than once I've had a what should I be doing now moment during the day. It really hit me last night eating supper at a restaurant that was starting to know me as the writing customer. Sure, I could pull out the notebook and start on a new idea, but I have two stories in editing stage plus the website updating. The writing muse can put her feet up for a rest. And that just makes her feel weird.

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The BookWorm

Making Plans

I have no idea how I managed to do it, but my back feels like it has been tied up in one giant knot. Or as my massage therapist friend put it, “You’ve got a lot of tension there.” My monthly chiropractic appointment is Thursday, but I may see if I can move it up if it doesn’t improve. The only thing I can think of is that I haven’t been moving enough, with the sit-and-study, sit-and-write, sit-and-manipulate-the-images routine I’ve had lately.

And it took almost all weekend to review projects and plans and try to figure out what will be going on in the next eight months. There’s something really satisfying about being able to make a hole in my Weekly To Do List template. Not that the other things already scheduled on the list won’t fill up that time without me adding anything, but I allowed myself a Zen moment of accomplishment.

I would like to avoid the insane layering of projects if at all possible. Which is why I took so long studying everything. Let’s start by looking at the really backlogged:

• Housework – shouldn’t count as a project but it got out of hand and needs to be wrestled into submission before I make myself sick.
• The BookWorm’s Library – updating is a year past due
• Alt. BM Site – ditto
• FFGarret – time to unveil this and see if I can make it work
• BMFM: Turbo – finish
• BMFM: For Worse – finish
• Tin Man: Dragons and Ninjas – finish
• Tin Man: Pirates of the Nonestic – finish
• Strix – start and eventually finish
• Zy’s Novel – start and eventually finish
• Faulkner paper – finish on the deadline
• Office remodel – have plans so I’m ready when I have money
• Kitchen remodel – have plans so I’m ready when I have money
• Bathroom remodel – have plans so I’m ready when I have money
• Sewing circle – toying with this idea as a way to be social and get things off the project list

And this is just how easily the plans overwhelm me, damn it. It’s all well and good to say “update the website” but that doesn’t cover all the mini-projects that must be done fore I can sign off that it is finished. *Deep breath.* Prioritize. Admittedly, not my strongest affinity.

The BookWorm’s Library – what needs to be finished for me to feel like it’s a real update?

1. Newsletter set up with a new story ready to go including Author’s Notes and soundtrack
2. Edited Author’s Notes with soundtracks uploaded
3. Story mistakes fixed
   • missing flash players added
   • fix McGilla to Magilla in crossover
   • Make sure all the edited Evil Jack stories are uploaded
4. Take down old Writing Tutorials and put up link to FFGarret
5. Forum for feedback
6. Project Wonderful ads

Okay, I think these six things (and believe the idea list is much longer) are doable by the end of the month. Some of them may be already done and I forgot I did them. But let’s not get ahead of myself here; break everything down into Action Steps.

1. New story ready to post: BMFM For Worse is done
2. New story’s Author’s Notes is ready to post: done
3. Soundtrack for new story: already uploaded
4. Newsletter delivery system: need one
5. Newsletter announcement: rough draft written
6. Author’s Notes had soundtracks added to them: done
7. Author’s Notes have been uploaded: no
8. Missing flash players have been added: no
9. Crossover fix has been uploaded: no
10. Edited Evil Jack stories have been uploaded: no
11. Removed old Writing Tutorial section: no
12. Add links to FFGarret: no
13. FFGarret ready to go live: no
14. Forum delivery system: need one
15. Project Wonderful ads created: no
16. Project Wonderful ads have been positioned on pages: no

Lot more listed as “no” than “finished.”

FFGarret: Needs before going live

1. Create ads for Project Wonderful
2. Write first article
3. Write second article
4. Write third article
5. Write fourth article
6. Write fifth article
7. Write and publish an article a week—see if setting up future posts is possible with Drupal

Like dominoes falling into place, sadly almost. There’s a lot to do here, but I think it’s totally doable to make two of these items two Big Rocks for the week. So I’m going to have these projects finished by June 1st before moving to the next one.

That’s the plan as it stands right now. Let’s see how the week turns out.

My content

Websnark: Of course, this all discounts the deep joy some people get at railing against the man in as dramatic a way as possible. For those people? I say "by all means carry on."

I never really got on the Live Journal crazy. Friends convinced me to start a blog, I went with Blogger, I figured out how to do backups, and never really looked at anything else. And now after the breastfeeding pictures icky thing and now this, I'm glad I'm not on LiveJournal.

And the Right Reverend Wishlish in the comments makes a valid point about hosting your own content (or paying for hosting same difference). While I don't feel the need to migrate from Blogger at this time, I can if I need to.

But my first thought upon reading all of this was: "This is why I do Alt. Biker Mice Site." It's not the only reason, but slashfic deserves a place too. If you personally don't want to read something, that's fine. But you can't impose your taste upon everyone else, that's censorship. Art gets trickier, but you can still take steps to shield unsuspecting eyes.

And SixApart has hurt a lot of people, which could have been avoided had they handled it better. (All the same, I'm glad the fandom I'm heavily involved in has characters above the age of minority.) I'm not sure how the argument "it's their property, they can do what they want" holds water now. Contracts can't be changed online without notice, court rules. But even that doesn't change the fact that SixApart dropped the customer service ball and LJ users should be taking procautions to protect your words and images. And that's just good advice for all things online.

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The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Alt. BM Site goals

Don't freak out. The major work is done. This is stuff I want to get done before I can back off for a month.

1. Set up the test version in a subdirectory off of Alt. Biker Mice Site.
2. Use test site to figure out
   1. the need to log in twice
   2. how to fix the log out so you go to the splash page
   3. block and page listing users who want to see mature content with their DOBs and showing the check mark is checked yes
   4. Long range - how the bloody hell to do Torture posts
3. Update all rules listed. Maybe in one spot separate from the FAQ. Also use less words in them.
4. Are nodes still open to anonymous viewers? Used to be they could read or see and not comment.
5. Set up moderators.
6. Figure out why the Syndication block isn't working with Bloglines.
7. Start a contest for a new layout.
8. Better exposure to Bikermice.tv and Red Planet
9. Make a decision on webrings
10. Add the who's online block. I can't tell if anybody's using the site at the same time I am.F Figure out how to hide the Who's online block so just me and moderators see it.
11. See if we need to add the Abuse module
12. Find a way to send out mass emails to all users, because I doubt the read rule changes

A lot of stuff should be done to the test site first, before moving it to the live site. And some stuff listed doesn't have to happen before I slack off. I just wanted to have it listed so I won't forget it.

And if anyone else has noticed something else it needs, tell me and I'll add it to the list.

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The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Alt. BM Site update

I sent a service ticket to SiteGround this morning, hoping that the problem is something that can be fixed without getting a server backup restore. They charge for that. Paying is not an issue; I just want it to be a last resort. Depending on how serious they take it, I may hear back on it today but more likely tomorrow.

Update: To paraphrase Vinnie: "I FIXED IT! I updated! Erect a statue! Give me a guy to kiss!"

Though I do promise not to let the ego swell for the next six months.

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The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Update on July 15th

Harry got canceled. Which is why I stayed up until 4am last night working on the website update. HUMUNGEOUS progress thanks to Bek and Mez. I have to find some virtual thank yous to send them that are safe and not viruses in disguise.

So if all goes to plan for me today, (Murphy, I swear to all the gods I will kill you!) I think I can finish the transfers of the fanfics to books, set up the Latest Fanfic page, set up the new announcements system, figure out how to better moderate/automate the smut viewing permissions, and change my username before I go to bed tonight.

If I don't, it was the weather. And I should have enough done to let the users back in.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Saturday plans

Simple plans really. I have to go to AMF meeting tomorrow; so today is homework, website update, and cleaning house.

The poem I'm working on is supposed to be a response to "I Don't Like You, Poetry" and it's being tiresome. The lines are decent but not coming together to form a response. I have other poems to post up for my contribution this week, but I'd feel better about my final project if this one would bam! come together.

I'm not going to talk about Doctor Who in this post. Some of my last posts have been jumbled altogether trying to get everything in my head shared. I need to go back and edit the Highlander movie review into a new post. And remember to add my observation I wish the McLeod clan would make.

3pm Update: I have something on the poem, but I'm still not getting anywhere with it. And then wasting a few hours on fanvids at YouTube and hurting my toe, so I'm packing in the homework for website stuff.

6pm Update: Well I can't do any website updating on Alt. BM Site. And since I have now finished scrubbing everything that needed scrubbing, but don't feel like turning in yet, I think I need to go find food.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Happy Fourth of July!

And I'm celebrating my Independence Day by doing homework. BUT if I get all caught up, I'm going to see Transformers at 3:40pm or 7pm (depends on the first show selling out). Followed by Independence Day on DVD.

I've always had warm fuzzy about Independence Day. Great lines, and I thought a nice update to War of the Worlds. The commentary on the DVD put a new spin on it for me. "We made a classic 70s disaster film. Only our disaster happens to be an alien invasion." Compare it to Earthquake or the Inferno; but I never saw it until they pointed it out. Yes, I am a geek who watches on the DVDs extras for surprises like that. And I got titles for Tolkien critical theory to read someday from LotR Extended box sets. (It's usually the segment on J.R.R. Tolkien and sometimes the "From Book to Script" segment.)

Hmm, comments on last post: so my rewrites to Superman aren't a good idea? I'm going to start collecting Lois & Clark on DVD; I actually enjoyed watching Dean Cain and his Clark was actually a reporter.

Anyways, I'm excited about Transformers. Everyone I've heard from has said "go see it." I haven't talked to my rabid fan friends, but I don't think I want to until after I've seen it. I thought my comment here was pretty good defense for the movie.

My back is feeling better, meaning I have a tad more mobility but I'm still downing ibuprofen like candy. I'm going to have to take my ass to the doctor and I need to go anyway, and explain I think I still need a few more weeks of therapy. Which sucks because I should be healed by now. I lost two days of writing because of it.

I did weigh myself and didn't lose or gain. I think I forgot to say that.

The project in the study carrel is just Educators' Guide. Mainly because my progress has been horrendously slow on it and on I need to concentrate on getting it finished. So I'm thinking lunchtime (if I can keep myself off the damn Internet) will be fiction once I'm caught up on homework for the day. Then there's Thursday, Friday, and Saturdays where I can't go to the carrel. Thursday is Yoga class--it might be best to make that the day off. I tend to come home right at bedtime. Friday and Saturday--once I'm sure I have all my homework assignments in--are free for fiction and Alt. BM Site, which is dragging out painfully now.

That schedule is just my thoughts so I don't forget. I'll iron out something better later.

I need to update my word counts for July and get cracking on homework.

Update: It's going to be the 7pm show, which means I've got time to kill. ID4 and leave at 6pm. I don't want to be stuck with a front row seat. Oh I finally caught up on all the comments to make--yeah! Now all I have to do for this week is answer any new ones and write my poem for submission. I tried working on it but it's getting jumbled. I'll take another stab at it tomorrow.

Update Again: Oh Holly's right. Transformers. Kicks. Ass. Go see it already!

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/

Sunday plans

Catch up on homework for online class.
Catch up on chores.
Buy flea medicine for Mustard.
Take Dad to belated Father's Day movie.
WRITE!
Finish Alt. BM Site updates.
Finish scanning the box on my desk. The stack is probably 3-inches high, but Reader's Digest articles take up a lot of scanning for something that small. (Okay, now that sounded completely random.)
Write in study carrel.
Go swimming.

We saw Live Free or Die Hard, and even though I liked the last sequel with Samuel L. Jackson, this one is on par with the first Die Hard. He kills a helicopter with a car. Dude, if that part in the trailer does not want to make you see this movie, you are not into action-adventure.

Plus, the plot is based on this article: A Farewell to Arms by John Carlin. For me as a writer, I love the fact that a nonfiction article explaining the inefficient ways the government is trying to prepare for what John Carlin calls the I-war becomes a Bruce Willis action piece. Proof that everything goes into the mill.

Now I doubt updates on Alt BM Site are happening today. Damnit, because I need to get it finished. But I didn't realize how badly behind I was on homework.

The plan today: 4pm go to the Library and work there but not homework to about 6pm.
6pm go swimming for at least an hour, that depends on how much I can do.
Home, supper, sleep on time.

Which means I got now until 4pm to work on homework and only homework. Though I think I may give myself a break in between assignments and wash clothes and dishes. And if I'm good and get caught up and maybe a little ahead, I might have time for the updates. But I'm not counting on it.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/