Author Archives

About Dougal Campbell

Dougal is a web developer, and a "Developer Emeritus" for the WordPress platform. When he's not coding PHP, Perl, CSS, JavaScript, or whatnot, he spends time with his wife, three children, a dog, and a cat in their Atlanta area home.

Nessie Insurance

Jul082005

Silliness from the land of my forefathers: Triathalon competitors get monster insurance for swimming Loch Ness. One of the world’s most famous fables faces a serious financial test in two weeks’ time when 100 international athletes plunge into Loch Ness – each insured for Â£1m against monster bites. […]Not everyone welcomes the insurance deal, though. The official Loch Ness Monster Fan Club took exception to the suggestion that Nessie would attack anyone – however much … Continue reading →

Any day now

Jul082005

Any day now, we will have a new life to watch over. The doctor’s estimated due date is July 18, but there’s no real accuracy to those predictions. The baby is engaged, so it will probably be pretty soon. I’m hoping that she’ll wait about another week, to give us more time to get our house in order. But she’ll come whenever she’s ready, regardless of whether we are. Any day now…

London calling

Jul072005

Our hearts go out to all of those affected by the terrorist bombings in London earlier this morning. Those of us in the U.S. know what you’re feeling right now. I’ll never understand what terrorists hope to accomplish by their cowardly acts. History has shown time and time again that terrorism is an ineffective tool for change. Rather than weakening their enemies, the attackers will galvanize their victims and their allies. Purposefully killing innocents in … Continue reading →

Now playing…

Jul072005

About a year ago, I started to work on some code to include a “now playing” feature here. It would track music I was listening to in my media player (Winamp, at the time), and put the info in the sidebar of this site. I looked at various canned code solutions, but I usually like doing these things myself. But it wasn’t a high priority, so I just tinkered with it here and there, and … Continue reading →

Bugged!

Jul052005

About a week ago, a yellowjacket stung me twice on the ankle while I was mowing our lawn. Obviously, it hurt like hell when it first happened, a feeling akin to being stuck with a hot soldering iron. The initial pain subsided fairly quickly, going down to a persistent itch and a constant dull (but firm and distracting) pain. After I finished cutting the grass, I applied ice, which helped for a little while. Later … Continue reading →

Map Service APIs

Jul012005

Both Google and Yahoo! have announced APIs for their mapping services. I’ve already gotten a developer key for the Google service. But it doesn’t support address searches, only lat/lon coordinates. So I’m thinking about applying for a Yahoo! key, using their service for geocoding (translating from street addresses to coordinates), then using Google’s mapping interface with all of its Ajaxy goodness. Google Maps API Yahoo! Maps Web Services I don’t know what I plan to … Continue reading →

WordPress 1.5.1.3

Jun292005

An important security issue was brought to our attention which required an update for our users. You should update your blog as soon as possible to WordPress 1.5.1.3. If you are unable to do the upgrade in the short-term you may protect yourself by deleting the xmlrpc.php file from your WordPress directory.

New Van

Jun232005

Chrysler Town & Country LX Yesterday morning Susan took our 1996 Ford Aerostar van in for an oil change. Last night, we drove home in a 2005 Chrysler Town & Country LX. How do these things happen? The Aerostar had served us well, but at 10 years old, it was getting a bit long in the tooth. Plus, we were able to pay off our Explorer by folding it into the financing for the new … Continue reading →

I’m a statistic

Jun222005

I’ve participated in an online blogging survey being conducted by the Media Lab at MIT. Actually, it’s about more than just blogging, as the questions also cover use of email, instant messaging, and texting (cell phone SMS). This is part of a PhD project by Cameron Marlow, so if you’ve got 15 minutes to spare, sign up for the survey and help the guy graduate. There’s only a few days left, so head on over … Continue reading →