Dougal Campbell's geek ramblings

WordPress, web development, and world domination.

Changes coming

Aug142003

Real Soon Now, I will start converting this site from MyPHPBlog to WordPress. Not that there’s anything particularly wrong with MPB, it’s served me well, and I have been on the development team for it for some time. But when the chance to participate in WP development came up, I found it hard to resist, so I’ve been putting my efforts there. As noted on the WP Dev Blog, I’ve been working on the XML-RPC API interface. I’ve added support for the metaWeblog API and the MovableType API. The MT support is almost complete, and handles just about all of the features supported by the current version of the Zempt blogging client.

MPB users should take heart, however. They’ve added some new members to the development team recently, and they are working on some new features even now. They are also going to be renaming it. This was already discussed on the mailing lists, but they haven’t announced it on the web site yet, so I’ll leave that up to Jeremy and friends.

Service Pinger

Aug122003

The other day, I updated my Service Pinger to include two new services, BlogRolling and BlogStreet, at the suggestion of Guy Robert Vestal from The BlogHunter.

I also renamed it from “XML-RPC Service Pinger” to “Blog Service Pinger”, since three of the eight services listed aren’t actually using XML-RPC.

Database Disaster

Aug122003

Earlier today, I accidentally borked my database. Fortunately, I was able to get a backup copy of my tables from August 5, so I only lost a couple of posts. Thanks to Google’s cache (and my own memory, bad as it is), I was able to repost the missing articles. Whew!

The irony of the situation is that what I was trying to do was to clean up my database tables in preparation for converting all my current blog entries over to WordPress. Repeat these words: “Always backup first. Always backup first. Always backup first…”

DHTML/CSS Menus

Aug112003

Gavin Kistner has come up with an amazingly lightweight DHTML/CSS menu system based on unordered lists. His is the first standards-friendly, cross-browser solution I’ve seen that handles submenus. It’s just what I’ve been looking for to fix the kludgey menus we’re currently using on my employer’s web site.

More Ping Services Fun

Aug072003

First off, I’ve added GeoURL to the list of services in my Service Pinger. It’s not an XML-RPC service, so I might rename the page to make it more general.

And second, the Ping Services are now available on the front page of The Blog Hunter, a weblog portal site which is sort of like Yahoo for blogs.

Eye Candy

Jul252003

Over the past few weeks, I’ve found some cool screen savers for Windows XP (well, for any Win32 system, really). Actually, I was searching for how to write my own screen saver, and I found a page full of screen savers. I particularly liked TwinkleGL, Rotating Galaxies, and ZoneRings.

Then a few days ago, I ran across references to ZMatrix and Drempels over on Matt’s site. These two are more than just screen savers — they can also give you an animated desktop background. Coooool. I’m running Drempels as my background, and ZMatrix as my screen saver.

Blue Screen of Death

Jul222003

I got my first BSOD under Windows XP today. It’s a little darker blue, and the font was different than blue screens under Windows NT. I would have taken a screenshot, but MY COMPUTER WAS CRASHED.