There used to be an ongoing joke that you knew it was Monday because the Daily Express had a Diana Exclusive on the front page. Then I started to notice that almost every day was Diana day, so I thought about writing a script to cache the front page and then comeback months later and check. So the fruits of my code is this: Daily Diana Express. It goes back to the start of March and has every front cover. A quick scan of all the thumbnails and I have counted that 34 / 178 covers featured Diana, another 20 had the royals (Harry / Will / Kate / Charles / Camilla / Ann), but more suprising and featured in this fortnights Private Eye was that 70 out of 118 (59%) papers since the 5th May have Madeleine McCann on the front page.
So maybe its time to stop calling the paper The Daily Diana Express and instead The Daily Maddy Express?
Category Archives: Web Design
STOP SHOUTING
Hopefully a new line of code in the LibDemBlogs script should stop shouty headlines.
So this is a test.
The BBC goes Two point O
I may have missed this, but I’m sure it’s new. On an article about the CIA and Wikipedia we have this at the bottom:
Does the BBC really need more readers?
PHP Question – Removing tags and content
This is mainly out there to those who code in php.
At the moment LibDemBlogs, strips out all formatting from blog posts, mainly to ensure that cut-off <b> tags don’t end up bolding everything, but also it puts each post on a equal platform.
However over time I’ve noticed an increase use in the <strike> tag. This tag strikes through text and is normally used to later correct a mistake, or imply someone might not be telling the truth. But as LDBlogs removes the formatting, it makes for an odd read.
So I’m trying to completly remove everything between the tags, Google and even myself believe that this should work
$post = preg_replace('/<strike>([^>]*)<\/strike>/i', '', $post);
However LDBlogs is still showing the deleted text. Any other ideas?
Fixed! The code was working, just happened that the bit of the WordPress RSS feeds I was reading had already removed the tags and other stuff, reading the <content:encoded> gives me the original text.
Live stats
I’ve recently upgraded the MyBlogLog stats for LibDemBlogs. This now means that you see today’s most popular stories and not yesterdays on the site, and that I can see which posts were most popular over a period of time, making it a bit easier for Stephen Tall to do the weekly round-up each Sunday on LibDemVoice.
Whilst on MyBlogLog I noticed the option to add your Twitter status, after Facebook this morning it looks like Web 2.0 is getting smaller.
MyBlogLog and Gravatar
Just reading the MyBlogLog Blog and have discovered that they’ve been swallowed up by Yahoo! Hopefully new servers and stuff should mean that they have less downtime and better spam filters. Then whilst wandering about the web I noticed the Gravatar is back up and running, although as much as the claims about servers being better I’m noticing the image display to be a bit slow. However if you don’t have a Gravatar account already get one. It really helps give you a sense of identity on the web when posting on LibDemBlogs or even comments on most blogs these days.
Money :)
Everyone seems to be sending me money at the moment. Google very kindly deposited money into my bank. MessageSpace emailed me a few hours ago to tell me similar news, and checking up on YouGov I’ve finally reached the magical £50 mark (only took almost 3 years). However I believe that it may be a lot longer before that cheque appears through my door.
No, I’m not that mad
Those taking a quick glance at the list of the blogs on the right of LibDemBlogs might be suprised to see Iain Dale listed. However it’s not the blue one, but the yellow one
Page Rank 6
Have just noticed today that LibDemBlogs has made it to a Google Page Ranking of 6.
So now we have managed to join other LibDems including:
Jonathan Calder, Lynne Featherstone, Nick Barlow, Peter Black, Richard Allan and Will Howells
Phishing
As a regular reader of the F-Secure blog I was shocked to see what information was being requested on a PayPal phishing site.
The website not only asked for the CVV code (number on the back), but also your PIN Number!