Minor Troubleshooting and Turned On FastCGI

Posted on June 29, 2007 by Kirk M

Took care of troubleshooting of some minor kinks in the blog this evening which have been bothering me of late. Nothing major, just minor things like the login to my blog’s Admin getting stuck on one script which threw up a dialog box in my face stating that a script was taking too long to load (or something to that effect) and did I want to stop it or continue on. That was very nice for it to say so but it didn’t tell me which script it was!!! It doesn’t seem to be caused by a plugin though so I just have to chalk it up to upgrading to WP 2.2.1 since that’s when it started happening. Since it doesn’t do it all the time I’ll just wait for the next release to see if it continues to happen then I’ll make some noise.

The other thing I did was turn on FastCGI acceleration at my host’s end of things to see how that worked. Here’s what this is supposed to do:

FastCGI is an option in the control panel that you turn on that will allow
PHP scripts on our servers to stay in memory and avoid running the PHP interpreter each time a PHP script is run. This greatly reduces server load!

I’ve heard good and bad about this in various forums I’ve run across but my host (Bluehost) has tested this for several months now and has added all sorts of custom enhancements just for us blogging type folks running all sorts of PHP scripts. So far it seems to be working okay but it’s you readers who’ll have the final say. If anyone sees a weird problem going on, please let me know asap and if you can include a few details as to what you were doing at the time it would be much appreciated since I’ll be giving feedback to my host if things start going wrong.

Anyway, it’s 10:00 PM and time to hit the sack. And after I hit the sack I guess I’ll go to bed. Don’t know why I have to keep hitting that darn old sack anyway. Can’t see why I just can’t go straight to bed without hitting anything. Next thing you know I’ll have to start hitting the hay or something equally ridiculous. And I don’t even have any hay.

Isn’t this silly?

G’night all.

Technorati Tags: FastCGI, WP 2.2.1

Never Enough Time…Shopkeeper this weekend.

Posted on June 29, 2007 by Kirk M

So much I want to do…so little time. It’s been one busy time at work and I’ve dragged myself home pretty much wiped out all week (oh to be 25 once more!). Not complaining at all really, I’m really glad I’m back to full hours again. It just looks like I’ll need some time to build up my endurance factor since I’d like to be able to do something besides stare cross eyed at the monitor or lay on the couch, you know?

I’m playing shopkeeper for Long Meadow Farms Quilts (my honey’s quilt shop in town) this weekend while she is off doing a show at the Island Pond July 4th Festival so the weekend schedule is full. I enjoy being shopkeeper though. Reminds me of some of those old stories that always included a general store or “supplies and sundries” outfit where there was always that ever present storekeeper that constantly regaled their customers with interesting and sometimes exaggerated stories and tales of times gone by. Okay…so it’s not quite the same at the quilt shop but it’s still enjoyable.

So I’ll be putting off everything except these small posts of interest until after July 4th when I once again resume my old work schedule of Tuesday through Friday with a 3 day weekend in between (I have to work part time). Then I’ll have time to get the chores done, projects for my honey’s shop built and work done on my two blogs.

I’m looking forward to it.

Technorati Tags: Long Meadow Farms, quilts, Vermont quilts,

Hotter than the Hinges of…

Posted on June 27, 2007 by Kirk M

Well…you know the rest of it.

Unbelievable. In the 90′s today…in northern Vermont…in June no less. Last year at this time it rained 26 out of 30 days in June and I think the mean average temperature was around 68 all month. Thank the powers that be the rest of the week is going to be in the 70′s.

To my way of thinking, if it’s going to be this hot then I want palm trees, a hammock between them, a nice big, sandy, island beach, lots of crystal clear ocean water and an endless jug of ice cold pina colada’s and I’d be much happier.

Ah me…instead it’s off to swelter in bed and up for another, much cooler day tomorrow. So, until I get out of work tomorrow evening…

Y’all have a good night.

Technorati Tags: heat wave

Privacy and Google? What’s your opinion?

Posted on June 27, 2007 by Kirk M

peeking I’ve been thinking about Google and all these privacy issues being bantered about in the news of late so I was wondering…

Is anyone really concerned about your privacy being violated by using Google or do you believe that privacy begins at home and what kind of private information you actually store on your computer?

And protection such as firewalls and anti-virus programs? Or how about signing in to iGoogle before you use it? Is that riskier than using Google without signing in (meaning searches)?

What do you think? Let me know. Might make a good future post you never know.

Technorati tags: Google, privacy, personal information

The VA Once Again

Posted on June 26, 2007 by Kirk M

WRJ VA You know, you’d think I’d get tired of this and if you did think that…you’d be right. But sometimes it’s a nice break from the routine also. The ride down to White River Junction, VT is 2 hours long from where I live in Newport up by the Canadian border and runs down highway 91 through some of the most beautiful country Vermont has to offer. And most of it is a view “up on high” before 91 drops down into the CT River Valley at the small town of Fairlee in Central VT, about 20 miles from my destination and the VA facility. The CT River Valley is no slouch when it comes to beautiful countryside either. Someday I’ve promised myself to take that ride just for the sole purpose of taking pictures along the way (and bring plenty of batteries along to be sure). It might just give me an excuse to shoehorn an image gallery into this blog so the folks can get an idea of what I’m talking about.

Meanwhile…I’m almost late getting started.

Have a good day folks.

And Hi to all you MyBlogLoggers peeking in through the “windows”.

Pain at the Pump

Posted on June 24, 2007 by Kirk M

suv-econ-gas-pump.jpg.w300h294 I came to decision the other day that I’ll never let my tank get below a half again. That is not unless I win the lottery or something, then I wouldn’t care and most likely I’d go find a rig around the same size but more fuel efficient. If it didn’t exist then I finance the research to build one. Okay, back to reality.

I own a 1995 Jeep Cherokee (Sport). It doesn’t have power windows or 6-way powered seats nor are they heated. No power anything for that matter except the brakes and no cruise control. The radio works though. All in all this version of the original sport/utility vehicle is just about the same as all the Cherokees that came before it over the last couple of decades albeit with a somewhat less jarring suspension. It’s a tough, ultimately reliable, go anywhere vehicle and my particular rig is also in fine condition. But it’s not fancy and it’s gas mileage, although good for a genuine 4-wheel drive, ain’t too great when it comes to rolling into the local midi-mart to gas up. And with the gas gauge reading between 1/2 and 2/3rd’s, the pump rang up $50.00 before she was full.

Now some of you may ask me why don’t I get something more efficient and environmentally friendly? Okay, that’ sounds like a good idea. So why don’t I?

Read on… Continue reading →

I am a “Thinking Blogger”…Who Woulda Known?

Posted on June 23, 2007 by Kirk M

I think, therefor I blog. Well, someone had to find out my secret sooner or later.

Micki of My Rearview Mirror has recently bestowed upon me the honor of “The Thinking Blogger” (I modified the image a bit). This originated in a meme sometime ago and she found me worthy and passed it on. Unfortunately, I’m one of the latter ones to receive this award so the meme is for the most part, out of date since all of the blogs I would have chosen have apparently already taken part in this. Be that as it may, my effort here is one of the many blogs that “make her think” and I am indeed honored that she thinks so (sorry about that).

Now it’s my choice as to whether place this little guy in my sidebar or not but I chose to do so simply because he somehow fits in to the scheme of things. All that’s missing from the image is a curl of smoke coming up from the top of the little guys cranium and it would just right. I’ll have to work on that.

So many thanks Micki, much appreciated and I’m linking the above image to her original post so anyone interested can take a gander at this particular meme’s rules. I simply don’t know of any blogs that haven’t been tagged already with this. Perhaps as time goes on and I meet more blogging folks, I’ll revive the meme myself and go “tagging’ away.

Technorati tags: memes, thinking blogger

Upgrading WordPress and Trimming the Fern

Posted on June 22, 2007 by Kirk M

The upgrade is complete and everything seems to be working okay including my “burned” feeds. I started the upgrade around 7:30 PM so it took the usual 20-25 minutes and I took advantage of waiting for the deletions and uploads etc to finish and trimmed the poor fern that sits in the window in back of me which looked like it had more dead fronds than live ones. Just about the time I trimmed the last dead frond off the fern, the last upload to my WordPress was done. How about that.

Now who says a man can’t do two things at once?