OMG ded (sic)

Woah, I’m exhausted. Feeling a little bit spacey here, I can tell you. The four-year-old who lives upstairs from me is allergic to sleeping all night long, and I keep getting woken up by loud thumps. The crying I could sleep through – it’s the intermittent bangs on the ceiling that do it. Nothing I can do about it, though, except be glad I’m not one of her parents! And possibly invest in some earplugs next time I’m at the chemist…

That’s not the only reason I’m knackered, though. I’ve been up to my eyeballs in php, and learning all about WordPress. Which have been fun, but once I start getting into the code and stuff, I forget to stop for, oh, food and breaks, etc etc. What, it’s absorbing! I’m not going to be changing this site to WP – it took me long enough fiddling about getting MT how I like it, and if I went and changed to another blogging system I’d only spend a million years prodding the back end (my Mum thinks that sounds bad, but I have no other way to describe it) and not making any posts. Again! So this site is staying as it is. However, WP is a useful thing to know how to use, and it all meshes in nicely with the PHP I’ve been learning. Hoorah!

So my brain is a little frazzled from several days intense work at that. Good thing I’ve had my knitting to wind me down! I’ve started the two larger items of my Christmas knitting (and the other two I have planned aren’t definite anyway) but I spose I can’t talk about them here just in case. D’oh. I’ve also been working on the other projects that I started recently… that I still haven’t mentioned on here, but deserve their own post when I’m less tired! I really need to make posts for my finished items too. Although actually, I can’t post one thing because it’s for SP11. Oh well, eventually!

Talking of SP11, that’s the other reason I’m tiiiiired. Sort of. I went into town and shopped! Partly for SP things, and partly for other stuff that I’d been needing. I also bumped into C, which was nice cos I hadn’t seen her for ages. And, um. Um.

Losing… ability… to… words… together… string….

$var="sleepyLou"
if(eyes!=open && brain==ded) {
function init(goToBed)
} else {
function init(CAFFEINE)
}

Yup. Think that covers it. *thud*

Blogathoning Are Go!

I’ve signed up for this year’s Blogathon, which is taking place on 28th July starting at 6am PST (which I’m pretty sure is 2pm GMT – hoorah, no early start for me!). In case you don’t know what the Blogathon is, it’s essentially a sponsored 24-hour ‘blogging marathon’. I’m going to make a post at least every half hour for the duration of the ‘thon.

This means I need something to keep me awake and interested, so as I think I mentioned before, I shall be knitting. Won’t that make a change? Specifically, I’ll be knitting away as much of my stash as I can into different stitch patterned squares for a patchwork blanket / afghan. I might also knit mittens or a hat for a bit of a change at some point.

The charity I’ll be blogging for is MDF (Manic Depression Fellowship) The Bipolar Organisation. As someone with the condition, I’m a member, so I can certify first-hand that they do a lot of good work.

So what I need now are sponsors. Basically, if you’re interested in pledging an amount to sponsor me for the event, click on the link in the last sentence and fill out your details. After the event (providing I completed it!) you’ll get a reminder email, and it’s then up to you to follow the instructions to donate the pledged amount directly to the charity. If you’d really rather, you could inform me how much you want to pledge and Paypal me the money for me to donate on your behalf, but my first preference is to do it the way the Blogathon site suggests.

What do you get for sponsoring me, other than a warm happy glow inside? Well…

  • I will of course give huge props to every sponsor (unless you don’t want me to name you at all… I can give you an alias so you’ll know I mean you).
  • If you have a site / blog, I’ll link you in my sidebar and links page here.
  • If anyone sponsors me more than £20, I’ll knit you an accessory of your choice (hat / scarf / arm-warmers / gloves / mittens / something of a similar size), although if you’re outside Europe I might need to send it surface-mail depending on weight.
  • … And I’ll entertain you with my babblings and in progress pics of the knitting, etc etc.

As well as this, I’ll be participating in the fandom_helps LJ group blog, to give me a bit more variety. And to give my hands a rest, because I think knitting solidly for 24 hours is going to give me cramp. And that’s it!

I’ll put up a “Sponsor Me” button at the top of this page when I’ve made one, and I’ll put a running total of sponsors under the Currently section in the sidebar. So, um, pledge something? Doesn’t matter how small an amount. A pound, a dollar, as much as you can afford and feel is worth it. It’s for chariteeeeeeeeeeee!

Upgrade…. success?

Well, things seem to have gone off ok, and I must say I rather like this newer version of MT! That everything did go smoothly, however, is not due to the documentation provided by SixApart. :-/ That’s what’s been making me put this off and tear my hair out for months! But I found a wonderful tutorial at Learning Movable Type, and in the end it took me less than half an hour including uploading everything. Woohoo! Thank you, LMT people!
Anyway, I still have some poking around the new version to do, and I want to explore how the tags work particularly. And see if I can turn comments back on without getting swamped with spaaaaaaaaaam.
I’m actually also thinking about combining the old entries back together with this blog so that it’s all in one again. I’ve seen from the activity log that people seem to be searching for things on this blog that are actually on the old one. Well, I guess I’ll keep thinking about it.

Upgrading, eep.

I think I’m going to have to bite the bullet and upgrade to MT 3.35. I changed the comments back to being moderated but open to all (I’d had them only open to people with a Typepad ID before), and I’m getting spammed to death. I think the newer version is more secure. So here I go. Wish me luck!
(Procrastinating on sewing up that side seam? Who, me?)

Completed Regia socks

Finished Regia socks: click for larger picture! I’m only just getting around to uploading my photos, but I finished these socks… um… a couple of weeks ago now, I think. You will notice that the cat refused to get out of the frame – see below for an even better example of that. *g*
Anyhow, these were made in Regia’s ‘Mini Ringel Color’ shade #5217, which as you can see is nice and bright! I made them with 2.5mm DPNs using a basic sock pattern that I got free with some Opal yarn ages ago, although slightly modified since I made them longer (to the top of my calves) so they’d go well under my DMs. Therefore it needed to be a bit wider at the top – I actually cast on 6 extra stitches and decreased further on down, but I think in future I should just start with larger needles. The finished socks are a bit stiff feeling… not too tightly knitted, but the yarn itself. I think they’ll soften up after they’ve been washed though, as my Opal ones certainly have.
In other news, this time I’m trying posting using w.bloggar – let’s see how it goes…
Now back to the sock pics:

Continue reading “Completed Regia socks”

D’oh!

Well oops – I did notice a couple of days ago that all the posts seemed to have disappeared from the main page, but because I’d been having general computer slowness, I thought it was just me that the page wasn’t loading fully for. So when I came back to it today and everything was still missing, I finally started wondering why. Then I noticed that everything was stopping at the BookMooch widget in the sidebar. Aha! Had I accidently messed up the code in the template? I double checked…. and no. Eventually, I twigged: I had an email from my web host a few days ago telling me that they’d upgraded PHP on the servers. I was using the php include version of the widget. It would seem the two aren’t compatible. So I’ve now changed to the javascript version, and all is well again. Hoorah!
In other news, I’m having a crack at writing this post in ScribeFire. I think I do prefer it to the pop-up Quickpost bookmarklet, but it doesn’t incorporate the “Extended” post second window (unless there’s a way to do that? Anyone?) so I’m not sure how that might work when I want to use that. Hmmm.

Whew!

Alright, I think I’ve got this blog looking pretty much the way I want it for now. Yaaaaaaaaay! Mainly, I’ve been working on the right-hand sidebar. PhpCurrently (which was insecure) has been replaced with Lirae‘s RightNow. I highly recommend that – very simple to install, set-up, and use, and does exactly what I want! *g* There are also a few other interesting scripts on the same site.
Further down I’ve also added widgets from LibraryThing and BookMooch. Boooooooooooks! :-)
Finally, I thought it was about time I double-checked all the webrings were still active, and updated those, and also my BlogChalk and Globe of Blogs listing. Now I’m just going to go through my Blogroll to prune out any dead links there, and I’m done. Hoorah!
(Having said that, however, I do intend to upgrade to MT 3.35 soon. I really should get on that, shouldn’t I?)

You know what?

It occurs to me that I’ve spent waaaaaaaaaay to much time worrying about how this blog is set out, and how the categories work, and blah blah blah. So I’ve been sporadically poking it, and not actually made an entry for nearly a year. Hmmmmm. How clever.
So, I’ve resolved to actually start using this thing again. And here’s what you might find here in the future:
– Stuff about knitting (including pictures, when I have them)
– Stuff about courses I study (nothing on at the mo, though)
– Music and gig reviews / opinions / whatever
– Stuff about the books I’ve been reading, especially now I’ve started using LibraryThing. Look out for the blog widget turning up in the sidebar soon.
As well as getting going here again, I’m planning to start getting more of my photos uploaded to the photo album. But in future all updates about that (except the knitting ones) will be on the updates page / blog. When I’ve finished setting it up proper-like. *g*

Anti-spam upgrades

I’ve been having loads of problems with comment spam, so I’ve been upgrading to the latest few versions as they come out, and I’ve also installed the MT-Blacklist and NoFollow plugins. I’ve set the blog to mostly dynamic publishing, too, which should (a) reduce the load on the server, and (b) solve the rebuilding problems I’d been having. Hoorah!
Back in the ‘real world’, I’ve just started one of my OU courses for this year, and will be starting the other at the weekend. No, I’m not completely insane (only partially) for doing more than one course at once: the music course is a 30-pointer*, and the web design course is a 12-week 10-pointer, which will be followed by two more of the same starting in May then October. Which will give me the standard 60 points for the year, all going well :-) They all count towards my degree as well as the web courses being part of the Web Apps Development Cert.
It’s also occurred to me… I didn’t actually mention on here that I’ve moved, did I? Which is a bit remiss of me, since it was a fairly big move: in September of last year I came back down here to Hastings, the old home town. And it’s very nice to be back, too. :-)
Anyway, that’s about it for now. I should be posting much more often from now on, though, now I’ve got the study-journal thing set up, and this year’s courses have started again.
* 120 points is the equivalent of one year’s full time university study.

Bother

Bah. I’ve had to take the photo album down, cos the script I was using is no longer allowed by my host. Which, considering I found the rec for that script on their forums in the first place, is flipping annoying. It was another customer who suggested it, if I remember rightly, but nothing was said about there being security probs with it. Still, maybe it’s something that’s become a problem since. Anyway, nothing I can do about it. I’ve taken it down, and I shall install an alternative when I have the time. CPG took me bloody ages to install and configure, but hopefully I’ll find a new one that’s a bit easier.

Testing 123!

This is a test post. Repeat, this is a test. This is not a real post. In fact, it’s not even really here, it just thinks it is. Enchilada enchilada enchilada ping. The reason this post is (not) here is because I’m installing Movable Type, and therefore need to make a test post to check that everything is going to line up correctly. Bet it won’t, mind you. Blahhhhhhh.
Testing testing testing. Enchilada, ping!

Just back from Summer School

Just back from my OU Summer School – had the most excellent time! So this is a shout out to my fellow A214-ers, just in case any of them happen to wander this way. :-) See, I made it home without falling asleep once!
I really am going to make this into a study journal. Even though I’m 3/4 of the way through this year’s course already. *cough* I just have to finish the redesign of this site, move the files to the new location and transfer the domain over…. oh, and change this blog over to Moveable Type. I’ll get around to it. Honest.

Long time no blog

Wow. Didn’t realise it’d been quite so long since I’d blogged here. ‘Real life’ has been busy in itself, and I spose I spend a lot of my online time lurking over at LJ at the moment. However, I am still planning that redesign and server move that I mentioned aaaages ago, and I want … Continue reading “Long time no blog”

Wow. Didn’t realise it’d been quite so long since I’d blogged here. ‘Real life’ has been busy in itself, and I spose I spend a lot of my online time lurking over at LJ at the moment. However, I am still planning that redesign and server move that I mentioned aaaages ago, and I want to use this blog for a sort of combined study and knitting log. Which may sound a bit odd, but makes sense to me *g*.

Talking of studying, I’m really enjoying my course, though I have ended up getting a bit behind because of not being well. But I’m catching up again, and hopefully I’ll be back on top of things soon. Fingers crossed! Knitting is also going well – I’m doing lots of it, and I’ve sold a couple of things, which helps, since I’m ever so broke!

Anyway, I should probably go and try to rest now. Sleep patterns are, as ever, completely farked. Some things don’t change….

Plans of all sorts

Hmm. I think I want to redesign this site. However, I also rather want to move it… I have my eye on a rather nice reseller hosting package that would allow me to host all my domains (and some for other people, possibly) for no more than I’m paying for my collected various hosting accounts … Continue reading “Plans of all sorts”

Hmm. I think I want to redesign this site. However, I also rather want to move it… I have my eye on a rather nice reseller hosting package that would allow me to host all my domains (and some for other people, possibly) for no more than I’m paying for my collected various hosting accounts at the mo. However, I’d rather pay the yearly fee upfront, so I need to make sure I have enough for that *and* to pay my bills and buy food (tcha, responsibility, how tedious *g*). So, the redesign might wait until the move. Especially because I’m thinking of changing this to use Movable Type. Hmmmm. The rest of the site will be getting a bit of reorganisation too, I think, to reflect some of the stuff I’ve been up to recently.

And what have I been up to recently? Well, I’ve been preparing for the Open University course that I’m taking this year…. and I’ve been knitting. Yes, me, knitting. *g* Being a bit broke, I decided to re-learn how (I’d been taught at school when I was about six if I remember rightly) and make Christmas pressies for people. So I did, and I did, and they were very well received! Pictures will be forthcoming…. :-) Anyway, I’ve got really quite into it, so I’m carrying on, trying my hand at a few different little projects and finding some amazing bargains on new yarn in charity shops. Hee!

As for the OU course, I’m doing “Understanding Music: Elements, Techniques and Styles”. I’m intending to carry on and take another music course next year, which will then give me a Diploma in Music. From there, as I think I’ve said before, if I’m doing alright at it all, I want to see if I can get my full degree. But for now, I’m concentrating on the one I’m doing this year! The first couple of units should be very straightforward for me, as I’ve studied all this stuff before, but I believe the learning curve is pretty steep – I’m really looking forward to it! :-D I’ve been looking at the online student forums, and it’ll definitely be good to get to know the others in the course that way. Plus, I believe the summer school is in Durham. Eeeeeexcellent! I can’t wait!