Category Archives: Announcements

Announcements

Welcome to the new server

By Dougal | Published: December 4, 2009

After much flailing about and gnashing of teeth, you should now be seeing this site served up by my new webhost. My original plan to use FastCGI + PHP CGI didn’t pan out (for some reason). But with other improvements to my configuration, I think that the new setup should work pretty well.

After it’s had some time to burn in, and I have the chance to twiddle some more knobs, I’ll try to post a few tidbits of what we changed. [...]

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Server Reconfig Redux

By Dougal | Published: December 4, 2009

After a couple of failed attempts at switching to the new server setup, it seems I’m going to have to fall back and punt (at least on a portion of it). With the help of Frederick Townes, I have what should be a really screaming-fast web server setup. But for some reason, it seems that the Apache Worker MPM + FastCGI (mod_fcgid) + PHP CGI combination is not stable. At least, it’s not for me. [...]

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New Server

By Dougal | Published: November 18, 2009

I’ve completed my migration to the new server, as mentioned in my previous post. I’m going to give it a little time for any problems to shake out before I do any heavy testing, but please let me know if you notice anything that doesn’t work correctly.

Update, Dec 2: I’m trying again, after some server configuration help from Frederick Townes (W3 Total Cache author). So far, testing with ApacheBench has looked good.

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Twitual

By Dougal | Published: March 9, 2009

Recently, I launched a new project called Twitual.

Twitual is a service which lets you compare your Twitter friends and followers lists in interesting ways. You can see which people are ‘mutual’ (you follow them, and they follow you back), which are ‘fans’ (people who follow you, but you don’t follow them), and which are your ‘idols’ (you follow them, but they don’t follow you back).

Currently, I still consider Twitual to be in an alpha-testing state. [...]

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It’s Time for Some Changes

By Dougal | Published: October 13, 2008

I’ve been saying for years that I want to redesign this site, but I still haven’t made many substantive changes. One of my favorite sayings is, “The cobbler’s children oft go without shoes.” It certainly applies to this site, as I spend a lot of time doing web development, studying programming, CSS techniques, SEO, user interfaces, and many other related disciplines that make up this craft. [...]

Also posted in Personal, WordPress | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 13 Comments

WordCamp Birmingham Registration Deadline Approaching

By Dougal | Published: September 22, 2008

If you have been thinking about attending WordCamp Birmingham 2008, but haven’t committed yet, now is the time. There are only a couple of hours left to sign up. Registration is only $25, and that includes lunch and a tee shirt — talk about a bargain! Register now!

Also posted in Community, The South, WordPress | Tagged , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Yarrr! It’s Talk Like a Pirate Day!

By Dougal | Published: September 19, 2008

Once again, we have arrived on Talk Like a Pirate Day. I had been hoping that I would be able to find time to upgrade my Text Filter Suite plugin for WordPress (which includes my Pirate filter for posts and comments), but I’ve just been too busy. [...]

Also posted in Community, Fun, Pirates, Plugins, TalkLikeAPirate, WordPress | Tagged , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

WordPress 2.6.2 Release

By Dougal | Published: September 9, 2008

As most of you have probably already seen in your Dashboard, yesterday afternoon saw the official WordPress 2.6.2 Release. And as mentioned in the comments on my intitial news break on the 2.6.2 Beta, the focus is on two security patches to cover weaknesses in PHP’s random number generation (which affects password encryption strength), and in MySQL’s field length checking. [...]

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WordCamp Birmingham

By Dougal | Published: September 4, 2008
WordCamp Birmingham September 27-28, 2008

If you haven’t already heard, WordCamp Birmingham is coming up on September 27 & 28, 2008. And for those of you not in the States, that’s Birmingham, Alabama, not England. [...]

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WordPress 2.6.2-beta1

By Dougal | Published: August 29, 2008

It looks like there’s going to be another point-release of WordPress coming soon. WordPress version 2.6.2-beta1 was just branded in svn a short while ago. . [...]

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