I was going to write a long detailed post, but in the interest of maintaining the family’s privacy, I will just ask those of you who pray to pray for my supervisor’s son, who is in the Cardiac ICU at Children’s Hospital in Washington, DC. He is on the fast track for a heart transplant because they hope that will make him well again - but they don’t even know what’s wrong. It’s a very grave situation, so if you are the type to send well wishes or good vibes, please do that too.

Edit: Redirect your good vibes a little bit north; he’s being moved to Johns Hopkins as soon as a bed is available.

I heard the song “Christmas Wrapping” (by The Waitresses) on the radio the other day, and I wanted to download it. I searched the web and couldn’t find it, and I didn’t feel like using a torrent or something like that. So I was about to open up iTunes and just buy it, but then in my search results I came across AllofMP3. They have songs cheap! “Christmas Wrapping” was something like 20 cents, and I also picked up Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime” and “Do They Know It’s Christmas” from Band Aid. I was a bit skeptical about ordering at first, because AllofMP3 is a Russian site, making their downloads of dubious legality. But this TechCrunch post made me feel much better, so I went to pay - but credit card balance refills weren’t available. I checked back at the TechCrunch post, and a lot of commenters said that refilling their balances through XROST was okay too, so I added the minimum ($10) to my account.

I also did a bit more searching around, I added a few Michael Jackson songs I didn’t already have, and I added the entire original 1982 soundtrack album for Cats. All this for only $6.61! Plus, because I signed up through XROST I got a 10% bonus, and AllofMP3 has a 20% holiday bonus for a few more weeks, so I ended up with a balance of $13 total. Woo!

PS: The download speed is pretty fast, too.

Here’s an equation for you:

Setting up PHP 5 on Dreamhost + How I configured a custom php5 build on my Dreamhost account - Installing PHP5 + CR Puzzles = A Happy Me

That only took forever. The latest version of PHP is 5.2.0 and I’m running 5.0.3, but that’s okay. The funny thing is, I don’t even remember why I wanted a custom PHP install. I guess it was so I could mess with the restrictions on uploads and processing time, since those didn’t seem to be affected by changes to .htaccess. But I also kind of like running independently. Of course I’ll probably never be able to upgrade, but at least now if I decide I don’t like it I can just add some #’s in my .htaccess and fall back on the Dreamhost PHP installation anytime.

I finally decided that the increase in 500 errors after my deletion of php.cgi had to do with Dreamhost switching their Apache servers, or something like that, rather than their installation being somehow weaker than my custom one was. But still, I am happy to run it myself, so I can tweak stuff. At least I hope I can, or this was all for nothing!

Hopefully this will be the last ultra-techie post for a little while, I imagine some of my readers are starting to get bored!

Well, I screwed up my site big-time. I was trying to make WP-Validator work, but I have close to 10,000 entries for it to analyze (that’s posts + comments) and so it needs altered max_execution_time and memory_limit variables. While I was playing around with different ways to resolve this, I managed to delete my custom php.cgi file. Oops. Most of my website is built on PHP - photo galleries, weblog, personal FTP, everything.

So I tried reinstalling custom PHP, but it broke. I filed a support request, choosing the OMG EXTREME CRITICAL EMERGENCY!! EVERYTHING’S BROKEN! People are DYING! option for the first time ever. I realized that the error I had gotten when it died was that the process was killed, and DreamHost occasionally kills processes for no apparent reason, so I figured I’d try again. This time it broke in a different way at the same point, but apparently it was enough for my journal.amanita.net domain to start working again. I’m glad I moved it from /amanita.net/journal to /journal.amanita.net because I think that’s what helped fix it.

Unfortunately my personal FTP and photo galleries are still down; I assume anything that’s actually on amanita.net itself is dead. I am assuming my journal has fallen back on the default PHP installation used by DreamHost; at this point I am more than happy to have it all go back to the default!

*blink*
Oh. I just removed from my amanita.net .htaccess file the part that told it to look for my custom install. Now everything is using the default DreamHost installation of PHP, and my personal FTP and photo gallery seem to be fine. I’m going to leave my support request in place because I would like to know what happened when I tried to install my custom PHP (the part that broke), but it’s not nearly as critical now. There’s no way to change the priority on the ticket, but if any DreamHost people are reading this, well…get back to me when you can, okay?

I realized I didn’t have any way of checking stats easily for CyDy Blog (NSFW), so I wanted to find a WordPress plugin that could do it for me. Colleen had recommended a WP plugin called ShortStat, but I thought I would look for other options and I came across the seemingly-robust FireStats. I’ve installed it over at CyDy Blog, and I decided to put it over here too. I never remember to check my MeasureMap stats (a quick glance reveals 59,332 visitors since I started using it a year ago, minus some from when I changed my design and forgot to put the MeasureMap code back) or my Analog stats, and Google Analytics doesn’t like me for some reason, so I thought perhaps having it in my WP admin screens would get me to check it out more often.

I’ve also installed Anti-Leech on both sites. It’s another WP plugin, this time with the intention of fighting back against splogs that steal your content.

• I have had a headache for two and a half days now.
• I forgot that I had put my tiny diamond earrings on the bed, and then I went and slept in the bed. They are not lost, they are just missing - either on the bed or the floor. But it’s going to be a pain to find them.
• Although 25% of voters have voted for deafjournal.net, I realized that I don’t want to be solely responsible for providing support for however many users I get! So that one is probably out of the running. Really, right now, it’s between corsetworld.net, geekygrrl.net, and meredithonline.org. I still don’t know what I would do with the latter two, because I already have amanita.net where I keep all my stuff. CorsetWorld would have a purpose, though, so I’m kind of leaning that way - but I still like the geekygrrl.net too.
• The ATM in the building where I work is no longer making us pay a surcharge! Yay! (I use a credit union with exactly one location in the metro area, so I am used to paying a surcharge at all ATMs.)
• I am on a million Gallaudet-related mailing lists right now. I am getting several blogs (People of the Eye, Elisa Writes, Mishka Zena, and RidorLIVE) by e-mail and I am also on the GallyNet-L mailing list which is very active. I also continue to get two copies of every USA-L News mailing that goes out (can’t figure out how to deactivate either of them!) and I signed up for the GUFSSA alert list this morning. My mail is full of Gallaudet-related stuff.
• I am no longer sad when the scale hasn’t gone down. I have been at 160 for a couple of months now, give or take a couple of pounds now and then. I am going to continue on my diet, so I will be elated if I lose weight, but I will still be happy if I just maintain.
• I still have a headache. I have no Advil at work.

With absolutely no help from anybody except Kristine (kdlb) I narrowed it down to a couple of domains I might want, and what I might want them for. Please vote; I’ll close the poll when a winner seems apparent.

Domains

Which should I get? (purposes here)

deafjournal.net (provide a free blogging service) deafvideoblogs.net (collect links to signing blogs) corsetworld.net (links and galleries for corset stuff) meredithonline.org (dunno) lovemeredith.com (dunno) geekygrrl.net (dunno)

View Result

Free Web Polls

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Well, it’s done. I’ve deleted the catch-all address I’ve used for years at my domain. I’m actually pretty scared of what’s going to happen…I don’t know if it’s an aversion to all change or if there’s legitimate reason to be scared of losing mail at this point. I visited 233 websites and changed my registered e-mail address. There are another 139 addresses that were either already established as legitimate, or for which I couldn’t change the registration information for whatever reason. The legitimate ones are being forwarded to my Gmail, and the ones I couldn’t change are being forwarded to a webmail account on my host that I can check periodically.

I’m pretty sure everything I would want to receive has been taken care of in one way or another, but it’s still nervewracking. Cutting down on the 1000+ spam e-mails I received daily (and all the bounces from falsified headers) will be nice, but I’m still nervous about possibilities. I’m not sure if I should bother enabling Dreamhost’s Junk Filter on my domain…if it doesn’t apply to forwarded addresses, then it’s only good for whatever is getting delivered to that spare account. I think for now I’m going to leave it turned off; if I continue to get lots of spam in either my Gmail or the spare account maybe I will use it.

If you need to reach me, the e-mail address you already use probably still works. Ask if you have questions about that.

I used to use a catch-all e-mail address on my domain as a form of spam tracker. I signed up for JobsOnline.com using jobsonline at my domain name, for Callwave.com using callwave at my domain name, etc. Originally, this was not a bad idea. Several sources refer to this as a practice that was effective in the past for making sure mis-addressed e-mails didn’t get lost, but those sources also acknowledge that it’s no longer a good idea to use a catch-all because it’ll overwhelm you with spam. I get over 1000 spam e-mails per day, to addresses like zvwrlkj at my domain, etc. That doesn’t count the spam I get in the form of bounced e-mails from people spoofing addresses at my domain. But I’ve been doing e-mail this way for years, and I was just putting up with it.

Now I’m trying to consolidate my accounts into a couple of e-mail addresses. I reviewed my “Site Registration” folder in my e-mail (I knew I kept that stuff for a reason) and I came up with a list of about 400 e-mail addresses I have registered with in the past. Now I’m visiting all of those sites and changing my e-mail address to meredith at my domain. That’s what I’ve spent a lot of today doing. I’d really like to be able to turn off the catch-all and use Dreamhost’s junk filter, so I am going to go through these 400 or so addresses, and then try turning it off and seeing what happens…