Author Archives: Michael

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Textpattern Upgrade Mystery

Upgraded this site to TxP 4.0.2 (or thought I did).

*First mystery:*
When I told my usual FTP client to upload the updated files, *seventeen* of thirty-six simply failed to do so. I knew something was wrong when the main TxP page for writing articles was obviously broken. The old files were still there on the server (you can check the revision numbers right there in each text file).
Sencer and Zem at the “TxP support forum”:http://forum.textpattern.com/ were great, and uploaded the current list of revision numbers to the “TxP FAQ”:http://textpattern.com/faq/ on the _same day._ Great support for a free product.

Eventually, I had individually re-upload the correct files, and most things started working.

Personally, I think this was an FTP problem, either my client or the server let me down. More on this later.

*Second mystery:*
The images were _still_ not showing on the site.

This one was totally my fault. I was supposed to manually upload the site-design images to /images, rather than loading them into TxP. I choose this arrangement so that the markup can be more semantic. For example, background: url(/images/background.gif); rather than background: url(/images/4.gif);

*Third mystery:*
Creating thumbnails of images still throws errors. I’m sure the experts at the forum will help me fix this one too.

So the site is working. On to the content!

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I Learned This … From A Gecko

It occurs to me that not everyone knows Geckos. When you live where I do, they’re just _everywhere._

h5. A funny thing happened on the way to jury duty

Traffic. More than I could have imagined. Four lanes each direction; and four arteries merging into one unbelievable mess. The first nine miles took 45 minutes. A blistering *two* miles per hour.

At one moment, a small head peeked up over the front hood, seeming perplexed. The little critter crept onto the middle of … as if to say “Good morning, where’s the coffee?”

Now, you need to picture the dilemma — surrounded by traffic and probably late for jury duty, it’s not possible for me to save the little guy. But his chances weren’t good, since the traffic would probably speed up at some point, and he might be blown off the car. Rather, I had to just hope for the best.

I almost called this post, “Live today as though will be your last.” But I concluded it was a cliche, and given his end, rather cold.

During this tense drive, I learned (or was reminded of) a few things:

# Life isn’t fair
# Savor every moment of life
# It’s not all about you
# Many things are bigger than you are
# Hang on as best you can
# When it’s your time to go, there’s nothing you can do to prevent it

~Gecko image under creative commons license: “babasteve”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/babasteve/17729540/~

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Chess: New World Champion

You might’ve never heard of “Veselin Topalov”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veselin_Topalov, but he dominated the field of eight of the best chess players in the world at the “FIDE World Chess Championship”:http://www.ajedrezcampeonatomundial2005.com/home.asp?lang=en.

The term “*World Chess Champion*” is …, well, it’s complicated. As if the Chess world has been “split-root” for years, several different people have claims to the title, including Topalov from Bulgaria and also Vladimir Kramnik of Russia (for defeating Garry Kasparov way back in 200). Neither is the highest “rated”:http://www.fide.com/ratings/top.phtml?list=men player, with the top two spots being held by Kasparov from Russia and Viswanathan (everyone calls him “Vishy”) Anand from India.

Speaking of Kasparov, he retired from professional chess in March of 2005 to pursue a career in Russian politics. Since then, the media seemed to lose any interest in chess, and he’s still the only chess player whose name most people would recognize.

However, the realm of world-class chess competition has become more interesting, not less. For coverage, the “Chessbase”:http://www.chessbase.com/ site is the best. New articles appear at least once each weekday, and the journalism is well-written and complete (though they do post an occasional “article” when they release a new product).

Back to the “World Championship”:http://www.ajedrezcampeonatomundial2005.com/home.asp?lang=en, which took place in San Luis, Argentina at the Hotel Potrero de los Funes, from September 27 to October 16, 2005.

Early favorites were Anand, Topalov, and Peter Leko of Hungary, and the speculation as to “who would win”:http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=2643 were ripe.

During the actual tournament, commentary was provided by Nigel Short of England, from “Round 1”:http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=2655 to “Round 14”:http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=2683. Let’s just say his comments are _saucy,_ or perhaps just _tart,_ at least for your average grandmaster.

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