Everyone else seems to be blogging about last nights Question Time so here’s my review. Continue reading Question Time: Nick 12 – Chris 12 (Score Draw)
Yearly Archives: 2007
Shared servers
There is a problem having your website hosted on a shared server, which is that you really need to trust your webhost. So I was rather shocked today when installing phpMyAdmin that without configuring the config.inc.php file I was able to login to the mySQL database.
Not only that but I could see the names of every table on my server. Now this has happened before, but any attempts to view these tables resulted in errors, but this time I was able to view any table, read all the content and even edit a random persons blog post (don’t worry, I undid the changes).
Of any security issue this was a big one, I could have gained access to a large number of wordpress blogs, and if I looked I’m sure I could have found a forum with usernames, emails and md5 hashes of passwords.
However I’m not out for “hacking”, so I contacted my webhost and shortly after as password was added to the mysql root.
Breaking news: No Lincoln Eye
The BBC are saying the City’s Christmas wheel scrapped, which may mean that the Pudsey Party in Lincolnshire might want to rename it’s location.
Hopefully BIG can find either a new wheel, or something else to fill the City Square this Christmas.
New Gmail Problems
It’s seems that Gmail has gone through some small changes, extra divs showing background ajax commands, my email address inside the <title> tags, whilst writing emails the Firefox status/loading bar flashes like a disco and some other stuff.
I know it’s changed as I’ve got an Older Version link, however on the What’s New page I can’t see anything and the same goes for the blog.
The problem, I’ve now had Firefox crash on my three times (over two machines) when I’ve clicked on the Spam link (not everytime), and for some reason it doesn’t want to remember that I don’t want this new version. I can’t see anything great about it, and whilst they don’t want to tell me whats new why would I.
Maybe it’s time to downgrade to a UK version?
Hide from all except admin
I wanted to put a WP-Admin link on my blog, but one which only showed to me whilst I was logged in.
So hunting through the WordPress Codex I tried to find something like is_admin(), but couldn’t find it. Then going through all the PHP files I found this function current_user_can(capability) which returns true or false if the logged in user can do that capability. Next I had to work out a capability which only admin could do, but a quick look at the source code showed that it should be possible to enter an integer which related to a level.
So finally I have this on my blog:
<?php if(current_user_can(10)) { ?><a href="/wp-admin/">WP-Admin</a><?php } ?>
Tidy Slugs
I’ve been playing about with WordPress plugins all day, and have created (more like stolen and modified a small amount) Tidy Slugs.
This plugin tries to catch a few of the random stuff that WordPress misses when I make the post slug.
For example if my post title was:
Ryan's Tidy Slugs, WordPress would make a URL of blog.artesea.co.uk/2007/11/ryans-tidy-slugs.html
however if it was:
Ryan’s Tidy Slugs (notice how the apostrophe is slightly more curvy) it would be blog.artesea.co.uk/2007/11/ryan%e2%80%99s-tidy-slugs.html
Very, very ugly!
(OK, you might not be able to spot the difference as WordPress loves to curve the apostrophes, however try creating a post title using the second one).
Made my mind up
After attending the East Midlands Regional Conference yesterday where Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne did an sort of husting, I’ve finally made up my mind on who will get my vote for the LibDem Leadership. Continue reading Made my mind up
They’re back!
And if you’re really lucky I might even throw in a bar-chart!
And the next leader goes
On the way home tonight the radio was teasing with breaking news, what could they mean? I was sure I knew the answer but they weren’t going to tell me until the newsreader got to her piece. It must be that someone was either pushed or jumped. Then at 17.06 it was announced that John Schofield had gone.
Dum di dum di dum di dum
From today you can now listen to the Archers on your MP3 player. It’s on iTunes, or manual downloads can be done via the BBC Website.
Good to see that at least BBC Radio are making their programmes easily available, unlink the TV arm and their dreadful iPlayer.