BrianJarrett.com

I really hate when people hotlink to images on my site. I always download the image then upload it to my own server before I ever place it online.  I’m sure many people don’t even know what they’re doing but ignorance doesn’t change the fact that it eats bandwidth I pay for.  Now you will get this when hotlinking to photos on my site:

It’s a small file, about 3k, so it’ll eat less bandwidth and will provide no benefit to anyone.  If you want to use an image please download it then upload it to your own server before referencing it on your site, forum, blog, or whatever.  You can get yourself a Flicker account or something like photobucket where you can put your own images and then hotlink to them there.

After an excessive amount of hacking CSS and Wordpress php pages I’ve finished the changes to the site design (for now). For the most part it should look pretty similar but now my sidebar and my main content area are truly in two columns instead of the old jacked-up “two columns in one column” approach. I’d been wanting to fix it for some time but just hadn’t.

I also added some cool little arrows at the bottom for previous and next navigation and improved the footer while I was at it. I’m all about increasing my pieces of flair.

I originally based this on the Simpla theme by Phu and then …read more »

Well, I finally got around to writing my first Wordpress plugin. This plugin allows you to integrate the five most recent posts in your phpBB3 forum into the sidebar of your Wordpress blog. The plugin creates an unordered list of links to these posts using the post title as the link text. You can configure the number of recent posts easily within the plugin code. I hope as I have more time to be able to extend and …read more »

Update: The plugin author, Brad, has fixed this issue and has released an updated version.

If you don’t already know Wordpress 2.5 RC2 is out now. I’m now using it but I had a major issue with one plugin: CoppermineSC. This plugin allows me to tie my Coppermine photo gallery into my Wordpress blog. When activated it broke all my other plugins and WP functions. I really can’t run my sites without this plugin so it was imperative that found a solution to this problem. After several days of fretting and research I’ve solved the problem.

When mysql_connect() is called more than once with the same host, user, and password then the connection becomes shared. Wordpress makes the DB connection once and then …read more »

Something screwy is going on with my webserver and Wordpress; I’m not sure what it is but there has been some erratic behavior on the admin side. Overall it works but I think maybe after installing some things and upgrading there might be something that’s not playing nice with Wordpress. [this problem seems to have been fixed with WP 2.5] The only really important thing was …read more »

SORBS is bullshit but the problem is two-fold. First, SORBS will not remove an IP address from their blacklist, regardless of whether or not they’re spammers. For instance, my IP is incorrectly listed by AT&T as being in a dynamic range. It’s not; it’s a static IP. I’ve never spammed anyone, intentionally or unintentionally. That doesn’t matter to SORBS; I’m still on their blacklist.

The second part of this problem is that some mail server admins blindly block all e-mail from any IPs on this blacklist, without doing any verification on their own. This also is bullshit.

The solution is not SORBS. They hide behind a claim that they cannot alter the list. Here’s their pathetic excuse: …read more »

Finally I was able to upgrade my site to Wordpress 2.3 . Initially it broke during the process and I had to restore everything then try again when I had more time. Turns out the BlogStats plugin didn’t work and I had what appears to be a deprecated category function call in my theme (wp_list_cats).

One of the more interesting things with this upgrade is tags. Tags, at least how I’ve implemented them, are sort of like micro categories. I like to think of categories as macro and tags as micro. For instance …read more »

Wow, seems I’ve been busy on the site here. I added a couple new posts, a new page about my skateboarding years, and a new photo album with …read more »

I’ve added some more stuff to the Nitro Music Scene section of the site. I added an issue of the Cornzine (a local ‘zine produced by Dana White, now available online) from September, 1995 in the News Articles section of the site. The issue is located at the bottom of the existing articles. Included in this issue are articles about the scene, some pictures of some of my old friends within the scene and even a couple pictures of me.

I’ve also included some various …read more »

So after replacing my cordless phone, two visits from the phone company to test lines, and hours and hours of testing, troubleshooting, and research, it looks like I’m back online again. After finally switching to another channel on my wireless router (after going through four of them in all) I’ve been connected for over 48 hours straight. This comes as a huge relief after over two weeks of fighting with this problem. In the end I’m glad it’s over and, if nothing else, I’ve learned a little bit in the process. Right now I think one of my neighbors got a wireless router within the past two weeks that was possibly interfering with not only my wireless router but maybe even my cordless phone.

We also now have a wii. We were walking into Toys R Us today to buy Orson a Thomas train table when Traci spotted a guy walking out with one. She asked the clerk …read more »