The Time Sink

Here's a bit of an update for you Moveable Types: the Blacklist plugin is up to version 1.61-beta and the feature set alone is worth the upgrade if you're still running 1.0b. ...and Jay Allen has dialed things in to where it is now safer to play with things: with 1.0b, you could hose your site if you didn't have the needed Perl modules installed. That was easy enough to recover from (you just removed the three plugin files), but the new version errors out in a very polite fashion and lets you know what is missing without disrupting your site. Upgrading is just a matter of dropping the new files in on top of the old. Easy enough...

...but what about that Perl module, "Storable", you read about in the documentation? Well, you need it to run the show using your database. ...but what if it's not there? ...and won't things crash? Not any more: as I mentioned (and found out the hard way with 1.0b), not having it used to lock up the site if someone commented. Now, if it's not there, you get an error saying you need it.

Okay, can I drop that module into the tree somewhere and use it in that fashion? Not with what we've seen on the servers I've been working on; it needs to be compiled in (we found that out with much trial and error <g>). ...but with a boost from Perl Monk Matt Beland, who was gracious enough to share a mini-tutorial with me and Patti McEwen of Mirror Images Web Services (I assist some of her clients), Patti was able to get Storable.pm set up on one of her servers and things just slammed into place after that.

We weren't quite so lucky on another server; but hey, this update handles that also: you drop in another Perl module and some supporting files (YAML, if you're into that) and now you're running the blacklist without using your database. ...and with no noticeable hit on performance. Cool enough: that install was also a slam dunk...

On, and there's a blog set up with an XML feed to help you find updates to the blacklist. ...and he's trying to springboard that into a multi-platform system to allow the blacklist to be used my other Content Management Systems.

Oh, and yes, you are supposed to need MT 2.6 or above. ...but liz, over at Surreally.org, dropped an MT perl module from 2.6 into the 2.5 install there and has it working just fine (yep, it's updated, liz).

Talk about torn and conflicted!!! I was helping Daniel with his homework this evening; and once we cleared his English/Language sentence structure assignment, we started to review his History work. ...and it turns out they're outlining the chapter on 3x5 cards and presenting the work in PowerPoint.

Wow. Not bad for the teacher showing them the basics and the Daniel using one of the teacher's templates: he already had eight slides up and ready to go. ...and with a consistent piece of clip art to tie the pieces together, but with different backgrounds for each slide. Wow...

For those who were wondering what those funky sites were that started showing up in your referrers, those are Google-juice seeking porn linkers. Yep, those ones with the bare news articles and the airline stuff? Sure enough. This 's perhaps the definitive information source so far: Porn Sites Hiding Behind Blogs

What this bunch is trying to do appears to be to generate Google hits from sites that maintain their referrer stats on line. ...or maybe from those sites that list things like "last five referrers" as it is so easy to do with Moveable Type. Those "plain" sites you see floating along with one referral all contain an invisible link at the bottom that links to an adult web cam place.

I'd say the cure is pretty straight forward: don't have your referrers sitting out where Google can find them, -eh? At least password protect that directory. ...and for the MT users? Just pull that code so you aren't shilling for the jerks.

Payback time, soccer style... There are worse things to endure after too many Saturday mornings up too early either burning up in the sun or freezing in the rain than sitting at a pizza place with most of a large pepperoni and a half-pitcher watching TCU try to make up a 25 point deficit to Southern Mississippi in the fourth quarter and almost pull it off. ...and watching them convert two onside kicks, one in the classic style, the other with a thirty yard kick to a receiver coming down the side line. ...and all the while leaning back against Shelley as she chats with the other soccer moms <g>.

"That's just wrong." That's the quote from a co-worker early this afternoon as I hung up the phone and explained how kids these days just don't have a chance...

Around 1300 I'd received the autoforwarded weekly grade list from Daniel's math teacher. ...and Thursday's benchmark test was a bit lower than we like to see. So I called Shelley to make sure he had his 'makeup worksheet' with him when she picked him up so he could do it over vacation.

Man, what happened to the days when you could get those things home and do them late at night and have the grade adjusted and 'they' never really even knew how bad you did? I mean, Shelley and I knew his test results and were coordinating on the redo before the poor kid even got to his class!

Heh. I almost forgot to drop by here today! Let's see... Okay: Brad's game started at 0800. Yeah, way early. ...and we had the first frost of the season today. Whew! That was darned cold. ...but Daniel and I wandered off into the shadowed areas and took shots of frosty things. ...and Brad ended up goalie the entire game again and did a great job!

Of course, this is California; so three hours later we were at Daniel's game stripping sweats off and gettting a little burned from the sun's rays. Sheesh.

As promised:

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"Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic."
Arthur C. Clarke, "Technology and the Future"

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