bobafred

This is a note to all my WordPress readers out there: Don’t do what I just did. First, some background.

I wanted a local WP install so I could make changes to my site on a non-live version. Previous to this, new development took place in a secretly hidden folder called boba_new under the main site. Secretive, huh? To accomplish this, I spent yesterday afternoon installing the various pieces and for the most part, this all went smoothly and I had a working base WP install. Here’s where the fun started.

I figured that since I do daily backups of the db, I would import that into my new local WP db. That way I don’t have to makeup test posts or whatever to actually have some content. Makes sense. What I forgot to remember was that not only does the backup contain posts and comments, but blog settings too. So, by importing all these, I effectively pointed my local WP admin to my live WP admin. Then, thinking I was in the local WP admin, I mistakenly changed the live WP admin to point to the local WP admin. At this point I could login to both, but could not change any of the settings. I had created a circle of non-workingness. This also destroyed the pointers to the themes. If you visited my site around 6:00 pm or so yesterday, you would have seen this.

The solution was that I had to go in and do updates to the wp_options table. The updates to fix this are:

update wp_options set option_value='http://yoursite_url' where option_name='home';

update wp_options set option_value='http://yoursite_url' where option_name='siteurl';

A very handy page for situations like this is the Database description from the WP Codex. This page also came in handy when I imported my comments from another commenting system.

The good news is that I have learned from my mistake. I think that I am going to look into dumping the db into separate files. One for posts/comments and the other for settings.

The flickr v1 badge, the thing that shows random photos from my collection, is showing random photos from other peoples streams. This is a bug that is being discussed here.

The current workaround is to upgrade your badge to the newer v2 badge. The steps to do this are here. The new badge code carries a crapload of CSS styling and tables which I’m not really a fan of. I just stripped out the javascript call to generate the badge and placed it into my code. Easy enough.

Seems that flickr wants us to upgrade.

Just got back last night from a fun weekend trip to Chicago to visit my good friends Adam and Melissa. This was my second time to the fine city of Chicago, and I have to say that I like it there. On this go round, Robert and the team of Cameron and Roz joined in the fun.

Friday night involved Chicago deep dish pizza and an engagement party for Adam and Melissa. The party was a blast and continued into the late night. There was a keg, a dog, a baby, a long discussion about whether or not the 3 different colors on candy corn actually were 3 different flavors, etc. After that we went back to their apartment where I briefly fell asleep on the couch watching TV while others talked or something.

Saturday had us walking around town and hitting a few stores. The most important part was the Puma store and the Agile Track Jacket I bought. It should be noted that I have zero plans to actually run in my new track jacket. Next, we stopped at a bar and had a few drinks where I had the Electric Cool Aid (2, in fact) and they were damn good. They contained OJ, cranberry, melon, rum, amaretto, etc. Sounds ungood, but thats not true. We hit a local Italian joint for dinner and then some bars for more drinks and some rapping, West Coast style. The evening ended at a chill bar with pool and rum and cokes.

5 hours later it was Sunday morning and we were up and ready for the Architecture River Tour. I was a little unhappy about waking up that early, but was really glad that we got to do the tour. I would rate it as ‘exceptional’. After that I had French toast and sausage links and was happy again. The rest of the day consisted of resting before heading to the airport for my flight.

To top off the weekend, when I arrived at the airport in Chicago I saw Peter Mayhew, aka Chewbacca. I wanted to say hi and ask for a photo, but I didn’t want to disturb him. He’s really tall.

Big thanks to Adam and Melissa for providing a place to stay and for showing the out-of-towners a good time. Can’t wait to do it again.

Photographic goodness here.

After a long break from web stuff, I have returned. [cue theme music]

Last night marked another successful APWBWGTTD meetup. If you don’t know what the APWBWGTTD is then you are seriously missing out. There were plenty of new faces (fat asian baby, Neon Poisoning, others) and of course the old school members (not going to list them). This month’s location was the Brewhouse Cafe in L5P and I have to say it was a good choice. First, they have nachos, like any quality bar should. And, I very much enjoyed my French Dip sandwich. I hear its not as good as the French Dip at Darkhorse, though. But really, who wants to goto the Darkhorse?

My photos exist here.

Now Edgemoor Drive can leave me alone about not posting anymore.

As a side note, my theme music would definitely be a Pantera song. Most likely it would be By Demons Be Driven or Regular People (Conceit), both of which are from the excellent album Vulgar Display of Power. Metal!