Chinese New Year 2009

I went to Beeston, Nottingham today to watch the local Chinese community celebrate the Chinese New Year, which this year is the Year of the Ox.

There were lots of performers, including fan dancers, traditional Chinese dancers, Tai Chi demonstrations and a wonderful puppet drama performed by local school children. It was bitterly cold, but in spite of this the event was well attended.

I’ve posted photos I took on my Flickr gallery and on the gallery page here on my blog.

All’s well that ends well

It’s taken a while, but I’m just about back to where I was before this afternoon’s fun. As you might expect, I’ve created a backup of my VPS. I am now back to running Plesk 8, WordPress 2.7, Joomla 1.5 and Drupal 6.9.

Don’t you love technology?

Leaving well alone – shoulda

You know those times when you see ‘update’ and off you go and click only to wish you hadn’t? Well, I had one of those moments earlier today with my VPS and Plesk. Plesk told me there are updates available to version 9, so I thought, why not?

• First mistake (and I should know better) – I didn’t do a backup prior to updating
• Second mistake (and I should know better) – I didn’t research to see if there are any issues that others have found.

So, having clicked update, off it went and updated from Plesk 8 to Plesk 9. The first issue was that it didn’t recognise the license key and refused to work. I re-booted the VPS and that sorted itself out somehow. I then noticed that the left-hand navigation was missing some of the icons. This set me off looking for answers…

Several hours later, I see it’s a wide-spread issue for those of us using Virtuozzo and VPS. It’s borked!

Fortunately, I had taken a backup of the VPS recently (3 weeks ago),  so I decided to restore. First I took a backup of my WordPress database and wp-content directory. I also took screen shots of all of the relevant settings for my domains and email accounts (on the Mac screen print is Mac key+Shift+3 which creates a picture.png file on the desktop – nice).

I then took a backup of the VPS in its current borked state, then restored…

All went well. I have ftp’d my wp-content directory and restored my WordPress database. All is well so far.

Now I just need to go and set up a couple of new domains, email accounts and re-upload all my Joomla and Drupal stuff.

Lesson learned – backup, backup, backup. And I should know better.

My Crafty Life

My Crafty Life

I’ve recently come across a fantastic blog called My Crafty Life featuring the artwork and projects of its author, Dan.

The blog is updated regularly with new projects and ideas, often featuring free template downloads for Craft Robo and Cricut machines. These are normally available from his blog for one week after publication and then can be purchased from his template online store.

Andy Clarke’s Inspired CSS

My latest Andy Clarke purchase arrived from Amazon this morning: CSS Artistry: A Web Design Master Class. The set comprises Andy’s 2006 book Transcending CSS: The Fine Art of Web Design and a new DVD-ROM called Inspired CSS – styling for a beautiful web.

I’ve had the book since it was first published and it’s now well worn. It’s a beautifully produced tome and is packed with inspiration, cool designs and techniques, all based on web standards. So good I’ve now bought it twice [I plan to donate my first copy to the team of web developers I manage at work].

I’ve started watching the DVD this afternoon. I find Andy’s relaxed, but authoratitive style engaging and never dull. He makes what can be a dry, technical subject watchable. I am around half way through and I have learned so much. Tips and tricks that create those ‘ah, that’s what that does’ moments.

The DVD is not aimed at beginners, which is one of the reasons I decided to buy it. I agree, but Andy makes it easy to understand and digest with lots of practical examples. All of the source code is included on the disc, so it’s possible to follow along and play with the code yourself.

The DVD covers:

• Semantic markup
• Typography
• Microformats
• Advanced CSS selectors
• Layout techniques
• CSS3 features

Highly recommended.

Note: this is a DVD-ROM. Requires Flash Player 8 or above and works on Apple Mac and Windows.

Panic Coda

I’ve been a user of Dreamweaver since version 1 and still use it at work from time to time. Having moved to a Mac at home I decided to try out something simpler (and cheaper!) and chose Panic’s Coda, which I’ve been using for a while now.

Version 1.6 introduced plugins and I’ve just updated my software to the latest version (1.6.2). I’m glad to see there’s a growing list of plugins available from third-party developers.

If you’re looing for a reasonably-priced HTML editor for the Mac you won’t go far wrong with Coda.

Cameron Carpenter

I recently bought Cameron Carpenter‘s CD “Revolutionary” having briefly seen him play on BBC2 late one evening on one of the arts shows.

Cameron Carpenter

Cameron is an accomplished player with amazing pedal technique and is apparently an ice skater in his spare time. This might explain his dress sense, which is rather unorthodox for classical music: tight white t-shirt studded with crystals, tight white trousers and white shoes with enormous heels.

There are a number of videos of his playing on YouTube, which are worth watching. I’m not sure why, but the audio is out of sync with the video. This seems to be a problem with many YouTube videos, which is a pity. I’ve included a couple of these videos below. The CD is well worth buying.

Stars and Stripes Forever

John Philip Sousa

Bugler’s Holiday

Leroy Anderson

Read more about Cameron Carpenter at his website and in a recent article in New Yorker Magazine.

Smartphone : which one?

I’ve been in a dilemma…I want a new phone, but which one?

Stephen Fry posted a review of 3 smartphones over on his blog recently and he was pretty scathing about the new Blackberry Storm, so that rules that one out for me.

I’ve read mixed reports about Google‘s first foray into mobile phones, so that’s out.

That leaves me back with Apple’s iPhone. Despite its well-documented shortcomings, it seems to be the best option out there. No video, cut-and-paste, MMS, and so on, but a growing number of third-party applications.

All food for thought.

Five Simple Steps : the book

Mark Boulton

I’ve been a fan of Mark Boulton for a while and eagerly awaiting his new e-book. Good news, it will be available to purchase as a PDF download on 2 February 2009.

Mark has created a microsite over at www.fivesimplesteps.co.uk and you can also follow him on twitter: twitter.com/fivesimplesteps.

While I’m at it, you can read more about Mark’s work at www.markboultondesign.com and visit his blog over at www.markboulton.co.uk. Not that I’m stalking him you understand!

DNS, VPS and PHP Safe Mode

To quote Victor Meldew: “I don’t believe it!”. Having thought all was well in DNS-land last night, I checked again this morning to find that it had all reverted to the previous state.

Why? It’s beginning to annoy me.

I’ve once again updated the nameservers and have fingers and toes crossed. If it carries on, I will have to raise a trouble ticket. Watch this space.

Having installed WordPress the other day, I found I was getting some warnings about SAFE MODE preventing some file operations. I’ve spent a while digging around the net and have found the answer in front of me in Plesk – as usual, a user error!

If you find yourself installing WordPress, make sure you configure your web server such that PHP safe mode is set to OFF. I found a useful link that shows this step-by-step at Media Temple’s website.

Getting there.

Glenda’s Winter Glimmer

Glenda Waterworth

Hats off to Glenda Waterworth. I’ve just watched her latest programme on Create & Craft in which she demonstrates some of the latest range of stamps from her company, Graphicus. In common with Glenda’s other recent recorded programmes, she presents segments alone without the constant interruptions of presenters, some of whom can be very annoying. They shall remain nameless. More please, Glenda.

There is a selection of video demonstations featuring Glenda over on YouTube: http://uk.youtube.com/user/ElusiveImages

Mark Herman

Mark Herman

I came across Mark Herman’s videos on YouTube this evening.

I’ve never heard of him before, but I think he is a talented player.  See and hear for yourself.

“Mark Herman was born on August 25, 1987, and currently lives in Chicago, Illinois.  He has been studying the piano since he was seven years old and began classical organ lessons at the age of 12.  His first introduction to the theatre organ was when he was in fourth grade and was at the Embassy Theatre in downtown Fort Wayne.  This was made possible by the late Robert Goldstine and the local American Guild of Organists chapter’s “Room on the Organ Bench” program.  In 2001, he began theatre organ studies with John Ferguson of Indianapolis, who is recognized worldwide for his skills as a teacher.”

[Unfortunately, the audio is out of sync with the video.]