The Sincerest Form of Flattery

While we’re in this lull:  I would like to make the observation that I have the WordPress Stats widget (or plug-in, or feature, or whatever it’s called) installed, and according to it, the vast majority of the traffic to this site, day by day, week by week, month by month, is created by three things:

• people linking to the post with the picture of the capybaras
• people linking to the post with the picture of the sheet music
• people linking directly to the picture of the sheet music, in a manner I’m not sure I understand (as clicking on that information within the WP Stats block brings up the image in a sort of “phantom” post:  one that has no text or date, and does not appear in the Posts or Drafts list, nor in the index of the site.  It might just be that the stats block has no provision for showing the http of the image without the blog formatting…  but then why isn’t the capybara picture listed on its own, too?)

This is heavily ironic, as in neither of those cases was I the original author of the image involved:  I just swiped ’em from somewhere else on the web, cleaned them up with leveling and sharpening, and then used ’em myself.  Serves me right, I guess.

The Usual Voodoo

FontBurner has suddenly stopped working.

I would attribute this to upgrading to WordPress 3.0, only I already did that days ago, and between now and then it was working fine.  I think.

And nothing else about the technical end of the site has changed.  And it’s the same version of Font Burner I had before.  And I reinstalled it, and the font, just to make sure it wasn’t corrupted.

Nnnnh…  maybe it’s the new version of Firefox?  Or the new version of Adobe FlashPlayer?

*sigh*

All Systems Go

Seems like everything is back to normal (and, look, Tales is even 2.8.5 now!  Oooooooooooooo!)  Spilt Wine and Sticky Rice has also been restored, so if you’ve never bothered to check that out, now’s the perfect time…

Excelsior!

On the Blink

Tales has been a bit skittish lately–  all of Interregnum was migrated involuntarily by my host to a new server, and my subsequent attempts to upgrade to WP 2.8.4 in order to deal with the issues the migration created resulted in new issues,  including a total inability to log into my own Dashboard, until just now.  I’m suspicious as to whether everything is actually back to normal;  I seem to have less than complete functionality at the moment.  So if you’re trying to visit the site and getting 500 Internal Server Errors, or any other sort of bug, I’m workin’ on it.  Post a comment here (if you can!) and let me know.

Spilt Wine & Sticky Rice was also part of that migration, and has been having the same problems, only worse, so I’ve taken that down for a while.  Will cross post here when it goes back up.

Incompatibility

It has been called to my attention that some people who view this site are seeing it with formatting errors. One error, specifically:

This vertical alignment of the journal title is not intentional.  The titles are formatted via a WordPress plug-in called FontBurner which calls a separate site to get the antique-looking font they use (the advantages being that it’s easier than coding that myself, and that you, the reader, will see that font regardless of whether or not you have it installed on your computer.)  Apparently the interaction of FontBurner with the WP template in play causes this distribution of the title characters to occur when the journal is viewed using IE7 or IE8 32-bit.  (I’ve never noticed because I don’t use IE;  I use Mozilla Firefox.  IE8 64-bit will also display it correctly, although in that case you’re buying the correctly formatted title at the price of being unable to view the Flash and Quicktime content, since IE8 64-bit doesn’t seem to have supported plug-ins for that yet.  Sheesh.)  So if you’re seeing Tales in the above configuration, it’s because your browser and FontBurner are at odds.

I’m not sure how to fix it yet.

Real Life Principles my Son and I are learning from his first Erector Set

1. The instructions are never as clear as they should be.
2. When the instructions are clear, they are incorrect or impossible to implement.
3. The guy who worked on the job before you was a moron.
4. If it is possible for a dropped part to fall into the assembly, it will.
5. Nothing ever performs as advertised on the trial run.

Worse Than I Thought

The outlets are testing Hot-Neutral reversed.

This place is a death trap!!

Shocking Revelation

Now that I’ve purchased a new surge suppressor to replace the old, fried one [I bought the Belkin 4000 joule “home theatre” model, if you care], I have made an unbelievable discovery:

The two outlets that all of my high-end computer equipment have been plugged into for the last six years are not grounded.

Well THAT would explain a lot, wouldn’t it?

Once Bitten: the saga of computer power supply protection [part 3]

This is the last post in a series of three.  Read the previous posts on surge suppression and power conditioning/ voltage regulation.

UNINTERRUPTIBLE POWER SUPPLIES

Arguably the final step in being able to thumb your nose at the vagaries of man and nature is the Uninterruptible Power Supply, or UPS, the point of which should self-evident from the name.   A UPS consists of a battery plus some associated circuitry;  you plug it into the wall, then you plug your computer and peripherals into it and (ideally) ignore it.  They come in three flavors: Read the rest of this entry »

Once Bitten: the saga of computer power supply protection [part 2]

This is the second post in a series of three.  Read the previous post on surge suppressors.

POWER CONDITIONING & VOLTAGE REGULATION

In theory, your wall outlet is supposed to deliver a steady, predictable source of current to the devices plugged into it, free of fluctuations.  In practice, this is not always the case, for a dozen different reasons:  the time of day, the demands on the grid, the way the wiring and appliances are set-up inside your house.  Plug your air conditioner and a lamp into the same socket and watch the lamp dim when the air-conditioner kicks in;  you’ll get the idea pretty quickly.  Any attempt to deal with straightening these sorts of fluctuations out is loosely referred to as power conditioning (or sometimes line conditioning;  in my case, and probably yours, the attempt  is going to start at the wall socket, not at the pole outside.) Read the rest of this entry »

Once Bitten: the saga of computer power supply protection [part 1]

Like most people, I occasionally find it necessary to research topics with which I have no previous familiarity, in order to address certain nagging practical questions.  (“Is the risk of drug interaction between pseudoephedrine and vicodine overstated?” “Am I endangering my life by attempting to pry this thermocoupler loose from the furnace with a sharpened spoon?”  “Will writing this e-mail get me arrested for insider trading?”  Etcetera.)  Unlike most people, however, I frequently seem to find myself in the situation of having done that research, only to wind up with another hundred questions.  Such is the case with the exciting topic of computer power supply protection, the mention of which has invariably elicited a monosyllabic and confused “Huh?” from those friends with whom I have dared to broach it.  I am setting forth what I have learned about it and related matters here, not only to straighten it out in my own head, but in the hope that it might prove useful for someone else wrestling with these same issues.  If you’re that someone, read on… Read the rest of this entry »