Hi all, I just wanted to let you know that I’ve fixed some bugs that were being seen on the site after my hosting company made an upgrade to the phpBB systems on their servers.

I also have been using the Firefox browser lately – it’s AWESOME. Watch for some style enhancements for those of you using Firefox.

Thanks for putting up with the bugs.

Sometimes I amaze myself.

I decided yesterday that it was time once and for all to move the old blogs into the new blog system. I haven’t done this yet as it simply isn’t as easy as it may sound. The two systems use a completely different database structure and the new one is much more complex with a more robust security built in.

But in the end a database is a database and moving data from one to another is – no matter how complex – a matter of properly worded SQL commands. So, I wrote up some pseudo-code that described what I thought would have to happen to make it all work. I then started writing actual code that could accomplish this.

I’m only about 20% done with the blog-conversion code, but so far the code looks good and I’m confident it will work. I hope to have the conversion code complete by the end of the week. Once that’s done I’ll have to do a serious backup of the site before I risk running the code.

If all goes well all blogs will be within the same database system by the start of next week, and this is a good thing for several reasons. Firstly I want to add some new blog features such as TrackBack and an RSS feed for The Triad. It will also allow me to grant you, the DavidMeade.com users, some new abilities (such as editing your comments, or creating a “Favorites” list of blogs). It will allow me to remove several pages and several databases that simply wont be needed anymore. Also I’d like to be able to promote old blogs in the new system to give them a 2nd airing.

Anyway once all this is done, I plan to do some upgrades to the user system. Sometime in the near future I also need to see if I can fix the photo galleries … but that actually will indeed be quite difficult.

I’m thinking about some potential upgrades to davidmeade.com.

No promises or anything, but I’m considering a significant upgrade to the blog system. I’ve been meaning to add things like TrackBack and RSS Feeds for some time … I’m giving it consideration again.

I’m also hoping to find a good way to merge the old blog database with the new blog database. This is more complex than it might sound because of the comment system – changing a blog ID breaks alot of database links. It comes down to having the right set of SQL queries but basically I’ll get one shot at it … if I mess it up I’ll have to restore from back up. Once I decide on a the end goal I’ll start writing the SQL to accomplish it.

So, if you see any craziness on the site dont panic … it’s most likely just me testing something out.

Well all, I’ve put up a links page. For those of you who need something more than DavidMeade.com to surf in a given day (can’t imagine), be sure to check out my links page where you will find more entertaining sites to keep you happily distracted from whatever it is you SHOULD be doing.

Something is horribly wrong with my web server. The people who run the server changed something and broke everything. I’m working on getting it back up and running like before, but without internet at home it could take some time. Please forgive the inconvenience, and pray for an understanding and knowledgeable support representative.

Here are some helpful hints on how to make DavidMeade.com work seemlessly for you.

The login system on DavidMeade.com seems to be working much better now! Please be sure to select the “Log me on automatically each visit” option when you login. This way you wont have to login each time you visit.

Also be sure to add DavidMeade.com to your list of sites that are allowed to use cookies and pop-ups.

DavidMeade.com uses cookies to log you in automatically, and it uses pop-ups for blog comment windows, etc.

To ensure these features of DavidMeade.com are allowed in your browser, do the following:

In Internet Explorer:

• Select the “Tools” Menu
  

• Select “Internet Options”
  

• Select the “Privacy” tab
  

• Click the “Sites…” button
  

• Enter “davidmeade.com” and click “Allow”
  

• Click “Ok”
  

• Click the “Settings” button
  

• Enter “davidmeade.com” and click “Add”
  

• Click “Close”
  

• Click “Ok“

I have taken drastic measures against the amount of SPAM I’m recieving. If you believe that I am not recieving your email, please tell me your email address and I will make sure it’s allowed. You can tell me of your email address by sending me a private message here on DavidMeade.com.

The Whats New list now correctly links to the specific blog, news article, or guestbook entry for which the notice is for. Both new articles and new user comments will now link directly to the specific article.

Whew! Thank goodness that’s over …

When I added the Yahoo! Integration to the site, I also apparently broke something in the blog formatting. I do believe I have fixed it however.

Please let me know if you find any formatting problems on the site.

Thanks,

Dave

Several new quotes have been approved. Be sure to submit all those funny quotes you hear throughout the day!