I Am Not That Stupid

I really hate being treated like I’m an idiot. I really do.

I received a comment on one of my Age of Conan posts yesterday where the commenter effectively stated that he liked AoC and it was great to be able to knock other players off bridges with mounts. Well… okay… It’s not really on topic since I posted about Age of Conan succeeded in the long term. But, when I get a comment on one of my posts that’s only a little off topic, I really don’t mind.

I have this blog set to do follow. I use a plugin that is set to revert all comment links from no follow to do follow after two days. This allows me time to check if a comment is spam before passing link juice on to the spammer. Since I want to encourage commenting from other folks, I think it’s only right to pass on that do follow love.

But here’s the rub. When I get deliberate no value comment spamming, I’ll mark the post as spam in Akismet. This has two effects. First, it removes the comment from my blog and sends it to the trash. No big deal for the commenter really since all they’ve wasted is their time commenting — which if the comment I received yesterday is any indication, it took all of three and a half seconds.

Secondly, and this hurts, the commenters comment, IP address, email address, blog URL, and other relevant data gets added to the Akismet spam database. That means that, if enough of these messages get marked as spam, the offending blogger gets their blog marked as spam. In the future any comments from the offending commenter are blacklisted by Akismet and any blog using that system filters them out.

So back to the story. Yesterdays commenter left a comment that was a little off topic. No big deal. I’m not an ogre when it comes to blog comment relevance — I’ve never played one either– as long as the comment is close. But I don’t like being treated like a fool.

So when the commenter in question comes back three whole minutes later with a new comment agreeing with his previous comment — also slightly off topic by the way — with a different name but using the same identifying information, I can’t help feeling like I’m being treated like an idiot. Surely I’m not smart enough to recognize this attempt at spamming, am I?

Ironically, the blog he was promoting wasn’t all that bad either. If he had left a value comment, he wouldn’t have shot himself in the foot.

Age of Conan commenter, meet Akismet. I’m sure you will have a long and fruitless relationship together.

Popularity: 6%

Update Complete - Now To Collapse

Phew!

The update of Wordpress to 2.6 is complete. Finally. What should have been simple ended up being something of a nightmare.

After I completed the upgrade, which by using a plugin called Wordpress Automatic Upgrade, I loaded up the blog only to find some errors. Okay. I expected that. Dan over at the GamesLaw blog told me that he had problems with the popularity plugin. So I did my homework and found out how to fix it after the install.

Only it wasn’t the popularity plugin that failed. That worked perfectly. It was the actual Wordpress installer that royally screwed things up. Some of the errors disappeared after I updated all the plugins, 2.6 handles that from the blog… mucho coolio. But the categories at the bottom of the page were giving errors.

After doing a bit of checking, and it turns out that I wasn’t the only upgrader to experience this, I found out that WP 2.6 has a new database table structure. Where my categories were once stored in a single categories table, now they were spread out over at least two new tables. And the upgrade didn’t properly copy the categories.

The table had been populated with the categories, but all the names, descriptions and post slugs were missing. This in turn screwed up the functions getting data out of the DB to the blog, causing the error.

In this case there are three choices.

1. Restore the whole blog from a backup and attempt the upgrade again (or leave it as it was.)
2. Delete all my categories (they still showed up in the manage tab) and re-add them. I would then have to edit over 350 posts to re-categorize.
3. Manually go into the database and fix things up.

I chose option three. I had performed a backup before starting — you must always do this — so I had the data from the old category table. I then copied it to a text editor and massaged the data into a SQL update statement. I created one for each category like so: (there were 39 categories in my db)

UPDATE `wp_terms` SET name = ‘General’, slug = ‘general’ where term_id = 1 ;

UPDATE `wp_terms` SET name = ‘Humour’, slug = ‘humour’ where term_id = 2 ;

UPDATE `wp_terms` SET name = ‘Vanguard: Saga of Heroes’, slug = ‘vanguard-saga-of-heroes’ where term_id = 13 ;

…

I then opened up the database administration tool that was provided by my web host, located the Wordpress database, opened the SQL tab and copied in the SQL statements above. At that point I held my breath, crossed my fingers, and executed the statements.

As I said there were two tables to update, wp_terms and wp_term_taxonomy. Both required slightly different update statements, so I made changes for the second table and repeated the process.

So far everything seems to be fine. I’ve got my categories back to the state they were before the upgrade, and I think they are all set against the correct posts.

I’ll tell ya. It was a tense couple of hours. I was a bit scared that I’d mess up the database. Even though I’ve done DB work before, it’s not my forte, I’m a C/C++/C#/Python sort of guy and more comfortable deep in that sort of code.

Now I sort of suspect that part of the reason for this is that I was upgrading from an older older version. I was using WP 2.1 and I think a few of the other folks having problems with this were doing the same. Still, it’s unacceptable. If I wasn’t technical, I’d have been lost big time. The only option would have been to spend hours and hours deleting and recreating everything. Or going back to an old install and never upgrading again.

And on that note, if you’ve attempted the upgrade and are having this problem. Shoot me an email and I’ll see if I can give you a hand working it out.

Man. This post ended up being longer than I intended. It’s time to collapse into a heap. My brain hurts.

Popularity: 6%

Wordpress Upgrade Imminent

Okay. So imminent isn’t really the right word, but I wanted to give you a heads up anyway.

It’s been a few months now since the last upgrade and the Wordpress people always want me to keep my blog software up to date for, you know… security reasons.

Personally I prefer to wait a bit and catch some of the other impressions around the web before I upgrade. While Wordpress is usually pretty tight, they don’t always make the decisions that their bloggers would like. It was the last update, 2.5 I think, where they changed a whole bunch of things around and copped some flak for it.

This time they added a feature to toggle the XML RPC flag (I think that’s what it is called.) If it is switched on it allows a blogger to use an external program to publish to their blog. I use Windows Live Writer, and on the Mac Ecto can be used to write a blog post offline and then publish the post later. However, in WP 2.6, this feature is turned off by default. If I didn’t know about it, I’d be freaking out, wondering why I couldn’t publish a post. Crommmmm!

That’s why I wait.

So, enough of the rambling.

I expect to do the upgrade tomorrow afternoon my time. That will be sometime in the late evening or early am, US time. There’s a bit involved in this: taking backups, making sure plugin’s are up to date, and then actually doing the upgrade and making sure everything is working.

Popularity: 8%

Subscribe To Stropp’s World - It’s Free

Every now and again the question comes up regarding the subscription options that are available here at Stropp’s World.

You’ve probably noticed the two reasonably large graphics at the top of the sidebar. These provide the two methods for reading Stropp’s World other than coming directly to the site.

So what do they do?

Subscribe to RSS

The Subscribe to RSS image will add this blog’s RSS feed to the feed reader of your choice. RSS is an acronym that stands for Really Simple Syndication and works by providing an XML file containing the blog post that is read by another program called a feed reader.

There are two kinds of feed reader. The first comes in the form of a standalone program that lives on your desktop. I use Thunderbird as my eMail client, which has the functionality to add RSS feeds to its own reader functionality. You can also find any number of programs that just act as feed readers and don’t have any other function.

The second kind of feed reader is the web based reader. Example of these are Google Reader (pictured below,) Bloglines, and Netvibes. I don’t actually use Thunderbird as my RSS reader, I use Google Reader after switching over from Bloglines some months ago.

As you can see, I’ve got a lot of blogs listed in Google Reader. You can also get RSS feeds of web forums, and some companies provide feeds of news. I’ve got a couple of MMOG developers news feeds in my reader so that I get breaking news when it happens.

It’s real lucky I am a very fast reader or I’d never be able to read all the feeds every day.

Subscribe to eMail

The other subscription option that I offer is the ability to get blog posts delivered by eMail.

I first looked into this about eight or so months ago when my friend Gitr told me that Stropp’s World had been blocked by his works web filtering software. Bummer!

So in a stick-it-in-your-ear sort of gesture to these killjoy web filtering companies, I decided to provide Feedburner’s eMail delivery service as an option to my readers who don’t get the opportunity to enjoy the quality witty and insightful writing (cough) that appears on this blog.

However, at this writing, there are only four who have taken up this generous offer. I can only imagine that there is a belief that I will send much spam their way, perhaps of the male enhancement or breast enlargement variety.

Such a mistaken belief. The eMail subscription is handled by Feedburner, and it simply provides the eMail version of my posts. If I write three posts in a day, those will be bundled into one eMail and sent at a specific time. I do have access to the addresses, but I’ll never spam to them. Feedburner is also owned by Google, that adds another level of trust.

So Why Subscribe?

I used to have a daily ritual of visiting each blog or website in my favorites list. While I still do that, I find it’s easier to just check the feed reader to see if there’s any new content. That’s also really helpful on weekends when blog posting slows down a lot.

Subscribing with RSS will ensure you get the latest articles almost as soon as they are posted. Subscribing with eMail, as long as you whitelist the address, will ensure you get the articles delivered as well, no messy web filters to deal with.

So what are you waiting for? Subscribe today. It’s free.

If you have any questions, doubts, or other comments about subscribing, drop a comment below. Alternately, you can use the contact form to eMail me.

Popularity: 8%

Justice Has A Name…

and the name that it has, besides justice, is Captain Hammer.

That’s right. The final act of Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog is up at the Dr Horrible website.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this little series created by Joss Whedon. I’m seriously considering ordering a copy on DvD when it becomes available. It’s been a good laugh.

Normally I’m not a fan of musicals, not in the slightest. But I’m a huge fan of irreverence and satire, and Whedon is pretty much a master of those styles. That always came across in Buffy and Firefly, and it comes across here just as much. Whedon also knows how to embed a moral in the story. The tale of Dr Horrible is no exception.

Whedon set out to prove that, even with a small budget (I wonder how small considering the cast and crew though) it was viable to produce something and be profitable from it. I’ve believed that for a few years now and have been wondering when it would seriously begin.

We’ve seen the start of the rise of small web media production houses who are having success with shows like The Guild (soon to start season 2) and many of the machinima productions appearing on YouTube and various other web sites. I think Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog is another move in this direction. Success always leads to imitation, so a successful Dr Horrible will prompt more independent producers to come forward and try their hand.

Popularity: 7%

Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog

Now here is something truly bizarre. Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog is a new media production from Joss Whedon, the creator of Buffy, Angel, and Firefly. It stars Neil Patrick Harris (remember Doogy Howser?), Nathan Fillion (Mal from Firefly), and Felicia Day (the star of The Guild.)

Is Doctor Horrible the future convergence of the intarweb and TV entertainment? Perhaps. This is what Joss Whedon has to say from his Master Plan.

1) Why, Joss? Why? Why now, why free, why us?

Once upon a time, all the writers in the forest got very mad with the Forest Kings and declared a work-stoppage. The forest creatures were all sad; the mushrooms did not dance, the elderberries gave no juice for the festival wines, and the Teamsters were kinda pissed. (They were very polite about it, though.) During this work-stoppage, many writers tried to form partnerships for outside funding to create new work that circumvented the Forest King system.

Frustrated with the lack of movement on that front, I finally decided to do something very ambitious, very exciting, very mid-life-crisisy. Aided only by everyone I had worked with, was related to or had ever met, I single-handedly created this unique little epic. A supervillain musical, of which, as we all know, there are far too few.

The idea was to make it on the fly, on the cheap – but to make it. To turn out a really thrilling, professionalish piece of entertainment specifically for the internet. To show how much could be done with very little. To show the world there is another way. To give the public (and in particular you guys) something for all your support and patience. And to make a lot of silly jokes. Actually, that sentence probably should have come first.

This little film is in three acts, each to be released within a couple of days of each other. Today (the 15th) sees the release of the first 13 minute act which I’ve just finished watching. It’s all free to view, with only one 2 second ad at the beginning. Later, when all three acts have been released, you’ll be able to purchase the DvD. Acts 2 and 3 will be released on the 17th and 19th of July respectively. All three acts will be removed at midnight on the 20th of July. So you have to be quick, or you’ll need to purchase the DvD or download it for a fee.

I’m not going to give anything away, you really need to see this for yourself to appreciate it, but it’s enough to say that Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog is a tale of super-villainy, unrequited love, and heroism set to the tune of a musical extravaganza.

This is one of the reasons why I love Whedon’s work. He takes risks with ideas, and not just ordinary average boring ideas. He works with the wacky. How else could a movie and TV series about a diminutive high school cheerleader who slays vampires ever be made? How about taking a full blooded western, costumes, guns, horses, and all and transplant it to a spaceship? These things would never be made without the sort of vision that also comes up with Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.

Now if we could get someone with the same sort of style, vision, and pull creating MMO games…

Popularity: 8%

iBrick?

It looks like MMORPG developers aren’t the only players in the launch day blues game.

Apple has had a long time to prepare for the launch of the new iPhone, they knew how popular this phone was going to be, and according to some reports have held back sales on the first day to create a ’sold out on the first day’ spin for their future marketing efforts. They’ve been working crunch times to get everything in order. Sound familiar?

Yet apparently the software update couldn’t handle a few hundred million customers attempting to update their newly purchased iPhones with the latest firmware. The result? The final step of the update not completing and that really expensive piece of sexy sexy hardware becoming as sexy as a brick.

I reckon that every MMORPG developer in the free world, and a few who aren’t so free, are jumping up and down with glee at this moment, shouting from the rooftops, "I told you it was hard!"

Except for the devs who’ve just bought a new iPhone.

Popularity: 6%

Ding 43

Ah. The game of life.

Actually this is a little overdue, my birthday was last Thursday and I neglected to mention it on the blog. I went out to dinner with the family, got a few pressies including a DVD box set of the Stooges — Hey Moe, no respect, Nyuk Nyuk Nyuk — and reconvened on Saturday with friends for a movie (Hancock) and dinner at which I received a collective EB Games gift card for a hundred and seventy quid.

Now I just have to figure out what to spend it on.

Popularity: 6%

Happy Birthday Sweetflag

DM Osbon has been blogging for a few years now. Starting with a World of Warcraft blog, he launched the Sweetflag blog one year ago. In the last year he’s written about a bunch of topics that he enjoys, but has decided to refocus the blog back onto games.

Now the usual thing about birthdays is that it’s the birthday boy who gets the prezzies. But DM has turned the tables on this one.

He’s going to be giving away some presents to UK & European residents. He has two copies each of UEFA Euro 2008 for the PS3 and Boom Blox for the Wii.

So duck on over to Sweetflag, wish DM a happy blog birthday, and join the competition.

Happy first birthday Sweetflag!

Popularity: 10%

Firefox 3 Released

Okay. So this isn’t about the MMORPG, Age of Conan, or World of Warcraft, but I figured you might be interested to know that the new version of the Firefox browser, Firefox 3 has been released. I’ve just downloaded and installed it and it seems to be working perfectly. A good thing since it’s been in beta and RC status for a while now.

The biggest problem I had with Firefox 2 was in viewing YouTube videos. If I clicked on a video, embedded on a web page or on the YouTube site, I’d get two seconds of play without audio and then it would stop. The video would keep on downloading but nothing else would happen.

That’s all fixed now. I’ve just tested it out with a few videos, including a Daily Show interview with the evil spammer Scott Richter. (Boy is that guy a moron.) Anyway, I’m happy now that I don’t have to copy the link from Firefox into IE anymore. A big plus.

All of my Firefox plugins seemed to work well too. I didn’t need to do anything other than install.

The only downside is that I wasn’t able to do a side by side install of Firefox 3 with Firefox 2. I installed to a new directory, but it seems only FF3 is recognized. Bad news since I can no longer test updates to my Wordpress theme (or other web site stuff) with the older browser. It’s not really all that big of a deal, but it would be good to have an older version available.

I’d recommend you head out and get Firefox 3 now. It fixes a few vulnerabilities that were in the old browser, and is a damn sight better than Internet Explorer. Well recommended.

You can download it from this link.

Popularity: 10%