…grayblog…

Month: April 2005

  • Asleep

    I told you that they aren’t much company…
    Monty and Treacle, asleep
    At least they’re both here today.

  • Another boring post about technical problems

    Thanks to Gordon, I seem to have kicked the .htaccess generation into gear on my WP installation, by CHMODing to 777 then back to 666. I shouldn’t need to do that, but there you go.
    Naturally, all this has done is reveal a whole bunch of other problems. If I modify the permalink structure, .htaccess updates, then I get an internal server error if I go to the home page or the WP admin pages. So, apologies to those people who have been trying to look here today and have had error messages.

    I’ve taken a look in my server error logs and I notice two things – firstly, when .htaccess updates, the following error is generated:

    [Fri Apr 8 11:48:45 2005] [error] mod_gzip: TRANSMIT_ERROR:32

    Secondly, when I try to call a page, the internal server error caused is as follows:

    [Fri Apr 8 11:52:37 2005] [alert] [client 81.130.49.105] /var/www/vhosts/grayblog.co.uk/httpdocs/.htaccess: RewriteRule: cannot compile regular expression '^?p=category/(.+)/feed/(feed|rdf|rss|rss2|atom)/?$'\n

    So, these leads to the following questions:

    1. what is a transmit error:32?
    2. what causes it?
    3. how do I prevent it?
    4. is it related to the server’s inability to compile the .htaccess file?
    5. is there something I can do to make the file compile even with the transmit error?

    There is nothing in the WP Codex on this (at least, nothing that I can find) and nobody seems to have raised a similar problem in the forums – so I have opened a discussion here. One user states that he/she had the same problem with the compile error and resolved this by deleting the permalink entry from the database via their server’s database admin, and then going to the admin page and resetting it on the permalinks screen. I’ve tried that, but it does not solve the problem.
    I’m out of my depth on this problem, I must admit. And my tax return has arrived through the post this morning (joy of joys!), so my mood is not great at the moment. Time for coffee and toast, I think, before I get back to the PFE accounts.

  • WP and Amazon

    Use WP? Post links to Amazon (UK, US or any of the others, for that matter)? Then you need this plugin.

  • WP – complete list of current problems

    • comment notification doesn’t work. It’ll send the notification to any address other than graybo@grayblog.co.uk – totally mystified by that one
    • monthly archives not working – totally mystified. This is, in my estimation, the most serious fault. If I can’t remedy it, I may look at an alternative CMS. Ugh. May be related to the next problem.
    • pretty permalinks not working. Related: .htaccess not updating, in spite of being CHMOD 666. Totally mystified.
    • still haven’t figured out how to get previous and next page links at the foot of the index page and, by extension, the archive pages. This is due to me not knowing enough/any php.

    Bah.

  • PHP question

    I’m stumped. I want to put "next page" and "previous page" links at the foot of each page. I know I should be using posts_nav_link. Where should I put it? My current code looks like this:
    [the main body of the grayblog page]
    </div>

    < ?php } } else { // end foreach, end if any posts ?>

    Sorry, no posts matched your criteria.

    < ?php } ?>

    <div class="sidebar">
    [the sidebar part of the page]
    Help?

    Incidentally, I’ve turned off the anti-spam plugin that I was using because it was generating false positives. Fingers crossed.

  • Cat company

    When I’m working at the table in the conservatory, I often have some company on the sofa behind me.
    Monty, buried under cushions on the sofa
    As you can see, today I’ve been joined by Monty – Treacle has retreated to the other sofa, in the living room. Neither of them are much company, to be honest, spending their time asleep. The only interaction occurs when they get up for lunch.

    Incidentally, Hels and I have noticed that Monty has developed curly tips to his whiskers.
    Monty's whiskers
    Split ends?

  • Doing your own thing

    From this week’s Horticulture Week:

    A survey of 1,000 adults has found 40 per cent now regard their garden shed as a space where they can do their own thing.

    The article does not go on to say what "doing your own thing" actually means. Suggestions?

  • Sad loss of a horticultural hero

    I’m a week late with this, but I’ve only just heard – Alan Bloom, possibly the greatest perennial plants advocate and enthusiast of the 20th century, has died aged 98.
    Alan Bloom was a great influence on me as I came into the horticulture industry. I’ve read most of his books, including the excellent Plantsman’s Progress, which covers not only his background in horticulture, but also his relationships with parents and children, touching on Fenland life. His enthusiasm and passion for perennials, illustrated by the way he developed a large perennial-growing nursery at a time when shrubs and low-maintenance gardens were the fashion, as well as his co-founding of the Hardy Plant Society, were rewarded with an MBE as well as the two highest honours in horticulture – the Veitch Memorial Medal and the Victoria Medal of Honour.
    He cut a slightly eccentric figure. His hooped earrings and long flowing hair marked him out as slightly different from most (rather staid) horticulturalists. He had a passion for plants matched only by his passion for steam power (he collected many engines for his museum at Bressingham, Norfolk). He was also a Quaker and, judging by his autobiography, something of a rebel who was not afraid to stand up against the "perceived wisdom". He did much to popularise perennials, both through his media appearances and also through his development of the "island bed" technique of displaying them, and it is probably fair to say that I might not be doing what I am doing today if it had not been for his efforts in this field.
    There were to be special open days of his Dell Garden at Bressingham Hall this summer for the HPS. Knowing his great age, I had planned to attend in order to meet the great man before he died. Unfortunately, that opportunity is now lost. Instead, a tribute day will be held there on 21 June to celebrate his life in the garden he created, a garden which features some of the 200 or so plants that he bred and developed. Some of those plants are growing at my parents’ nursery, and I’ll be planting one or two in the garden here.

  • WP woes – some resolution

    I’m told that all these posts about my WP woes are boring. Sorry.
    Anyway, following advice and suggestions received, I’ve employed a plugin and some new code to fix the category archive pages so that they now display 500 posts (setting it to 999 posts caused a server timeout). I’ve also added links to the previous and next posts, as well as the home page, to each individual post page, which should make Gert and Brian happy.
    Now I have to add some code so that when you get to the foot of each page of 500 posts in the category archives, you can click a link to view the next 500 (yes, a couple of my categories have that many posts!).
    I have also yet to resolve the non-functioning date archives. Suggestions on that one would be very welcome.

  • For Lord Percy…

    Knockout Greg – playing Blues on the Farm this year.