Upgrade: good news bad news endless loop
Quick FYI for those who still haven’t gotten around to deleting the isoglossia feed from their RSS delivery system: we have grudgingly upgraded to the latest version of Wordpress following a warning from our hosting service that failure to do so within a week (last week) would result in the site being shut down, it having contracted somewhere, the slut, the blog platform equivalent of syphilis.
Oh, like your blog never got an STD.
The good news is two-fold: first, we’ve finally been forced into a positive change we would have happily put off forever, one which should make less likely any further webclap and 2) the upgrade penicillin actually worked, with only an hour or two of unforeseen friggery and relatively no swearing. This good news begets more good news, which is that since our ability to post has been retained where we were fully prepared for it to be lost forever, we now have a new appreciation for it and maybe a new perspective on the whole thing. The bad news, of course, is that the upgrade didn’t really work and now some serious maintenance needs to be done. This bad news generates more good news, which is 1) maybe now I’ll actually get around to doing the work which will make the site legible again and 2) if I’m going to do that I might also finally get around to the redesign (or at least a half-assed update to the look) which I have pointedly been not doing since August. The bad news is that I no longer have the ridiculous government job with almost no responsibilities whose vast oceans of utterly free time with unlimited internet access was responsible, more than anything except maybe Adam’s birth, for the genesis and growth of this site in the first place.
I don’t know when I’ll get around to doing this stuff I used to really enjoy doing, but the good news is that I do know I actually want to do it again, which is the first and most important part of the situation’s resolution.
Stand by, and hope your patience is rewarded rather than the other thing.
That’s nothing but good news from my side of the feed.
Comment by SquamLoon — Sunday 30 November 08 @ 22.37 MST+2.00
We WERE wondering! When we couldn’t pull up the site all weekend! And a holiday weekend at that! But we figured you were doing some Bulgarian-style upgrade and soon all Slovene-type references would be forever banished. But no…Good news, bad news, blahblahblah. At least you are back. And inspired? No? Well, you could always write about when you and M. do or do not have sex. Webclap? Heehee.
Comment by gaoo — Monday 1 December 08 @ 03.00 MST+2.00
Oh good! I do miss your posts.
Comment by juliloquy — Monday 1 December 08 @ 06.43 MST+2.00
Hmph. I’m not going to get excited until I see some tangible evidence that you are once again committed to entertaining me.
My son keeps trying to crawl back into my womb to meet his feisty little brother or sister. Did Adam do that?
Comment by jdog — Monday 1 December 08 @ 10.27 MST+2.00
Yay! Now maybe I won’t get that burning sensation after I comment here.
Comment by Erik R. — Monday 1 December 08 @ 12.24 MST+2.00
A “ridiculous government job with almost no responsibilities [and] vast oceans of utterly free time with unlimited internet access” were pretty much solely responsible for the birth of my own blog too.
God bless the taxpayers for funding our online activities.
Comment by simon — Monday 1 December 08 @ 16.09 MST+2.00
All good news.
What version are you now running? I’m still back on 2.3.3.3.3.3.3.3.3 or whatever because of the friggery and stupidity of that last install.
Comment by jane — Monday 1 December 08 @ 20.57 MST+2.00
Jane: I believe this is version 2.6.5. It seemed to me that they updated the latest version of WordPress between my downloading it and getting it installed, so it may be that by the time I hit ‘publish’ on this post it was no longer the “latest version” as claimed above, but whatever. Bear in mind that the update was from 2.1.2, so it was a pretty major bit of prophylaxis, which helps to explain why I was so prepared for it to fail and why I was so amazed and pleased when it did not.
Shouldn’t your version have a bar over it or something? By the way, the exploit I mentioned targets versions 2.6.3 and below, and involves horrible spammy skank-action hidden in your header.php and various other invisible chancres, so you might want to think about making the move. Then again, if you haven’t been notified of a problem, it’s probably not there.
Simon: I had kind of guessed. *sigh of nostalgia* for a time of great waste/productivity.
Erik: Good luck with that burning sensation. It might be unrelated to this site, though.
jdog: suit yourself; and yes, I think that comes standard.
Juliloquy: And I yours.
gaoo: see previous references to RSS. And sorry, but that is among the founding prohibitions of isoglossia.com.
James: thanks. Glad to hear you feel that way.
Comment by sgazzetti — Monday 1 December 08 @ 21.47 MST+2.00
Mr. Sgazzetti,
Great to read you’re back. Scratching my head as to the lack of free time while at work in Bulgaria; what gives with the new job? Wasn’t there something in the contract stating that after you schlepped your own stuff and your own human beings from Slovenia, there would be guaranteed free time at work to keep your publicity site au courrant (sic)? What’s up with these Eastern Euro folks? Even the cubicle mice here in the States have Internet self-advert time guaranteed.
I’m a primitive; still on Blogger. No fancy views…but no breakdown either. Come back. Come back! To the dark side.
Comment by DarkoV — Tuesday 2 December 08 @ 23.17 MST+2.00
Oh Yeah! Forgot. Have the On-Fire trash dumpsters started appearing yet in your neighborhood, as mentioned by a commenter on one of your first Bulgarian based entries? Will you be providing pix of this urban phenomenon? And gangsters, specifically Bulgarian gangsters!? There was a piece in the NYT a few months back describing them as even more vicious than Russian gangsters and possessing bad breath of Olympic proportions.
Life must be too much more than enough interesting.
Comment by DarkoV — Tuesday 2 December 08 @ 23.22 MST+2.00
No, no burning dumpsters so far, though yesterday I did encounter a smoldering heap of wood and bits of plastic within easy ignition-distance of a rubbish bin, everything else being favorable, so I reckon it’s only matter of time and combustible fumes.
Comment by sgazzetti — Friday 12 December 08 @ 00.15 MST+2.00