Meanderings in Blogland

Even in a weak economy, even with old media in a hyper-technological world, sometimes inspiration and hard work pay off. Exhibit A: David Imus. Who is David Imus, you may ask. He’s a guy you makes old-fashioned paper maps. By himself. In his garage. He’s good at it.

A few years ago, a client of mine (Bob Lorentzen of Bored Feet Press) started distributing a line of maps by Imus Geographics. It was a semi-big deal at the time; the maps were/are extra groovy and they’d won some awards. But still, they were obscure and the idea of big wall maps of large areas was very retro. A couple of years passed, and they sold OK, but unspectacularly. Then, all of the sudden, the orders started pouring in. An article on Slate.com extolling the praises of the Imus USA map was the primary instigator. Interviews with a couple of NPR programs, posts on blogs, articles on other sites, a news story on an Oregon TV station, and more continued to build on the momentum.

Imus’ maps are available from quite a few places on the web, but you should get yours from Bored Feet. Yes, you should check out the USA map, but you should also explore the whole line of Imus Geographics maps.

Several years ago, I spent a whole heapa time putting together my family tree. While it took a lot of my time, I didn’t really do anything resembling original research, I just assembled my brother Ric’s stuff, my aunt Beth’s material, notes from various other family members, info from dozens of websites, etc. I put it into a modern gedcom format and created a site for it using PhpGedView. Once the site was up, I pretty much ignored it.

Anyway, last fall, in the Great Web Host Updating Debacle, the site stopped working. For some reason, in the new host configuration, the db script wasn’t working to connect to the database. I was too busy fixing my clients’ sites and doing my regular work to worry too much about it then, but things calmed down a bit at the start of the year, so I resurrected the monster.

Once I got it working, I realized that either my data wasn’t as complete as I thought or some stuff got lost in the shuffle. Information like grandparents’ death dates, which I have easy access to, was missing. So, I started filling the missing info in. And adding pictures and newspaper clippings. And returning to old research dead ends. Even after several years, the dead ends still are dead.

Charles Thomas Yeatts, Stella Susan Ann Barnard, and two of their children

But, my workload hasn’t eased up that much. I don’t have time to fall into bottomless time pits. If any family members out there want to add stuff, it’s pretty simple to set up an account on the site and make changes.

You can visit the site here.

The vast international conspiracy to make lots of really stupid projects for me that I can’t bill to anyone goes into warpdrive…

My usually reliable web host, Verve Hosting, had the bright idea to upgrade their servers. They sent me a note about it, with some of the things I should look out for.

If you are using custom nameservers (nameservers based on one of your domain names) you will need to update the IP addresses for those nameservers.

PHP will be configured with suphp on the new server. This will eliminate the need for permissions of 777 on files/folders that need write access by the webserver. Once all of the sites are moved I wil run a command that will change the permissions of all php files to 644 and all folders to 755. With suphp, any files or folders with permissions of 777 will generate an error message on your website.

Certain php options, for example php_flag or php_value directives, will need to be moved from .htaccess files to the website’s php.ini file.

Outdated applications may not work with the newer version of PHP so please make sure your apps like Joomla, Drupal, Mambo, etc. are updated with the latest version of the software.

The new server uses a different IMAP/POP3 mailserver. For POP3 accounts that leave a copy of read messages on the server, the new server will see these as unread, which will cause your mail app to download the messages again. Unfortunately, there is no way to prevent this. It will only happen for people who leave a copy of their messages on the server, and it will only happen the first time you check your email on the new server.

The migration of websites to the new server will begin at 12:00 a.m on Saturday, October 15th. The migration is expected to be completed by midnight on Sunday, October 16th. The old host1 server will remain online and be accessible until November 14th.

Oh, boy. I’ve got almost thirty sites on that server, and they’re promising various sundry incomprehesible discombobulations. The changeover happened. One of my sites immediately went down entirely. It was one that another developer had started, and I’d taken over. While it uses PHP throughout, the pages all have the .html extension. The changeover messed up the .htaccess file which told the server to treat .html files as .php. The only solution I could conjure up to get that site back online quickly was to rename every single page on the site and change the links within the site. Pooptastic.

I still haven’t figured out how to get the upload scripts in my various WordPress installs to work in this configuration. Actually, that’s one reason for writing this post. Does the upload script work for this, newly updated WP install? I’ll try to upload a new photo:

looking WSW from Mt. Lassic

Well that’s interesting. It doesn’t work on the blogs people actually read. What’s different about this one?

And then, just when I thought I was more or less through the trauma of server upgrades, the same client with the .html – .php problem contacted me. His blog was kaput. All it produced was a database connection error. I tried to login to his control panel. The login didn’t work. I tried to login to my main control panel, to get into his (I have a reseller account). Didn’t work. A quick, panicked scan of the various sites on that server revealed a strange mix of OK sites and database problems. And no way to connect to any of the control panels.

I contacted Verve’s support. They got back to me quickly. Someone had hacked into my account, gotten into some of the sub-accounts, and sent a bunch of spam. I needed to change my master password. I did that. Still couldn’t login. Back and forth with support. Many times. Eventually, after banging my head against the wall all day, I managed to get the relevant passwords changed and logins working and get back to where I thought I was already.

One advantage of payroll jobs over self employment: when crap like that happens when you’re on a payroll, you get paid for your time. When crap like that happens and you’re self-employed, who ya gonna bill?

I don’t usually pay much attention to the ads on my gmail account, but this one caught my eye. And blew my mind.

Keep “Hanoi Jane” off TV

Sign Petition to keep Hanoi Jane off this major TV network!

www.moveamericaforward.org

Nothing says “move America forward” better than wallowing in some forty-year-old, stupid political theatre from a movie star.

Samuel Oliver Bereman, my mother’s father’s mother’s father, left a journal of his adventures in the Civil War. I’ve had “plans” for some time to do a video blog project, following his journal through the South, visiting battle sites, interviewing historians, and profoundly ruminating. Eventually, I’d take the vlog footage and condense it into a two hour movie that I could sell, take to film festivals, etc. Next time I have a few thousand spare bucks and a couple of spare months… oh, well.

While my snarky family members generally refer to him by his initials, family letters refer to him as “Ol”, short for Oliver, his middle name, contrasting with his father, Samuel Emerson Bereman. I’ll use Ol here.

Anyway, a year or two ago, a bunch of my extended family members got together; I was unable to attend. A box was put aside for me with a bunch of Bereman stuff and miscellaneous tidbits from other branches of the family. Among these papers was Ol’s papers documenting his promotions and his discharge from the military after the war. It seemed like these were cool enough to throw up on the web and see if anybody cares.

Ol’s promotion to Sergeant

Ol’s promotion to First Sergeant

Ol’s discharge

There are a number of interesting documents in this box, including newspaper clippings of the deaths of several Bereman cousins and some personal letters. I’ll try to post a bunch of them as time permits.

Sometimes the magic works, and sometimes it doesn’t. I’ve been experimenting with WordPress plugins which connect to Facebook. My first effort was something called Simple Facebook Connect. That one’s a frightful misnomer. If there were any justice in the world, they wouldn’t be allowed to use the word “simple” in the title. In order to use the thing and it’s allegedly fantabulous functionality, one must create a special Facebook App. Fifty-seven WTFs and sixty-three huhs? later, I managed to create an app (or at least I thought I did) and copied and pasted the long strings of jibberish into the correct (?) places. I activated several of the features, and voila! Nothing happened. No FB anything anywhere. I have no idea what went wrong or how to troubleshoot the thing. Somewhere along the way, I even lost track of what I was trying to do exactly. So I gave up on that one, and tried some other plugins.

Next up was the WordPress Facebook Like Plugin. Now that one is simple. It just took a few seconds to download, install, and activate. Now I have like buttons on all the posts that nobody ever reads.

Now, the newest of the bunch: Embed Facebook. Their description says:

Embed Facebook lets you embed various Facebook objects (album, event, group, note, photo, or video) in a post or page. You just need to paste the URL of a Facebook object anywhere in a post or page, the plugin will automatically embed it for you.

Sounds good. I’ve downloaded and installed it, so here’s a test. Here’s a gallery from my new artist page:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.179823632069443.55989.178206532231153

And here’s the artist page itself:

Garth Hagerman Photo & Video
Artist  |  fans  |  View on Facebook

One reason I’m broke all of the time is I spend an awful lot of unbillable time learning new stuff and re-learning not-so-new stuff that I don’t use enough to keep fresh in my crowded little brain.

Case in point: Facebook. I started an FB account a year or so ago, largely so I could figure out how to do stuff for a client. I fiddled with it a bit, solved the immediate problem, and moved on… I thought. It didn’t grab me as being immediately useful or profitable for my own stuff. But old friends started tracking me down, I linked my YouTube account to my FB account, I started posting some photos, I started getting some photo fans, and so forth.

Gradually, I began to realize the power of the giant monster that is Facebook. I realized that several of my other clients should at least have “like” buttons on their sites, even if they don’t want to set up their own business FB pages. So, I went to work figuring out how to use some of the FB widgets, and incorporating them into existing database-driven sites. That was pretty simple once I figured out what the bleep I was doing. But figuring the bleep out took a while. So, it wound up being a total of a couple of billable hours spread around three different clients, and eight or so hours of banging my head on blunt objects.

Today, I started work on a new client’s site. She wants a WordPress site (this is a WP blog) with built in FB functionality connecting to her event’s FB page. Seemed simple enough in the abstract. But, it’s a whole new can of worms, learning-curve-wise. In order to do her site as a credible professional, I have to figure out how to use a new set of tools, using my own WP blog and my brand spanking new FB artist page (Garth Hagerman Photo & Video) as guinea pigs.

So, first I had to start the FB Artist page, then update my blog so it’s running the current version of WP. Next, I install the FB plugins.

At least I get to put some time into promoting my photo stuff.

I want to go camping for weeks and months on end; I want to garden.

I don’t want to bother with money; I don’t want to design my life around money; I want to have enough money.

I want to travel; I want to put down roots.

I want to arise and photograph the dawn; I want to snooze comfortably ’til ten.

I want to march vigorously all day; I want to sip pina coladas at poolside—no, scratch that—I want to sip single malt scotch from a stainless steel flask at lakeside.

I want to live on the cutting edge; I want to be a curmudgeonly fart.

I want to live simply; I want the latest and greatest tech toys.

I crave solitude; I need others.

I want to live forever; when it’s over, I’ll want to have lived.

I want flavor; I want health.

I strive for clarity and simplicity; I revel in contradictions and paradox.

I really don’t know what to do with the data life hands me sometimes. A coupla weeks ago I finished the run of a play. I was acting as Marley, and half a dozen minor roles, in a one-hour adaptation of A Christmas Carol at the Mendocino Theatre Company. It was a smashing success. Why?

I’ve done many shows at MTC. I’ve acted, I’ve stage managed, I’ve directed, etcetera, so forth, and so on. The typical MTC production goes something like this: A bunch of people toil away for months (for little or no pay), trying to squeeze every subtle, meaningful nuance out of an excellent script. The show opens. About twenty or so people a night show up. They yawn. They clap politely at the end, then they promptly forget about the whole thing.

This production started as a staged reading. We’ve always known that Christmas shows are great from a marketing standpoint, but they’re tough to pull off, as everybody is already tooo busy during the holiday season. But people should be able to make time to fling together a staged reading.

The staged reading thing turned into a cartoon snowball rolling down a mountain. We got a pianist. We got cute kids to sing songs to open the show. We choreographed a little dance number. We got nice costumes. We got an elegant lighting design. We learned our lines.

Once the show opened, we has a little show that was… I don’t know… elegant? meaningful?

Whatever it was, it did well at the box office, pretty much selling out nearly all the shows. And people seemed genuinely moved by it, too. But what were the keys to its success? The familiar story? Dickensian magic? The lean, condensed adaptation? The acting?

What lessons is MTC supposed to draw from the show? Stick to familiar material? Short shows? Simple, emotional plays? Keep the staging very simple? Make sure there are always some cute kids in every show?

I’m flummoxed.

But, you can see the show for yourself and derive the formula for theatrical glory. The show’s on Youtube.

It’s odd how people can disappear from one’s life for years and then pop up suddenly…

Back in the late seventies, I was a high school student in Wayne, Nebraska. My parents owned a big old farmhouse which had been divided up into apartments. We rented the apartments to students at the nearby college. Mostly, the renters came and went without making much of a splash in our lives, but one group became friends. We even had an annual air hockey tournament. But the current in the river of time sent us off in different directions.

Recently, one member of that old gang contacted me through my website. He (and another member of the group) is working for a non-profit organization helping orphans in Kenya, the Makindu Children’s Center.

It looks like Makindu does a lot of good work. They have a fund raising event going on now, the Proper Walk. It’s sort of like a walk-a-thon, except the particiants are walking 170 miles across the Great Rift Valley instead of strolling across a US town in an afternoon.

Makindu’s description of their work says that they “… provide nutritional, medical and emotional support, access to basic education, and opportunities for vocational training for over 400 destitute AIDS orphans and other vulnerable children.”

It sounds like they are worthy of greater support from us all.