David Naylor: Blog

I have now managed to migrate my blog content and design to Wordpress!

There were quite a few hoops to jump through, but I’ve finally got to the stage where I feel I can invite you over to the new version. In fact, if you’re reading this in an RSS reader you should be automatically redirected to the new version of the blog if you click through.

I believe I have managed to set things up so that all incoming links should redirect to the posts imported into Wordpress. (Which use a different URL scheme than Blogger.)

Here is the link to the new RSS feed.

Should you find any weirdness, I’d be very grateful if you let me know by leaving a comment. Thanks!

Blogger have just informed me that they are getting rid of the possibility to publish via FTP to your own domain/server.

I should be angry, but I’m kind of happy because this is just the kind of push I need to move to some better blogging service or software.

Just like everyone else, I’ve decided to go with Wordpress. I’ve got it up and running, and I have managed to import all my old posts.

The next thing to do is to migrate my design to the new system, and when that is done I’ll implement automatic redirecting from all my old posts.

Obviously I hope to do the switch with as little disruption as possible, but any subscibers I have might need to re-subscribe to a new feed. I’ll let you know when I’m done.

Finally we got our new computer yesterday after waiting two weeks for the graphics card. In fact I gave up on the shop to get hold of the card and ordered it separately over the web.

While installing Windows XP and then Service Pack 2, the computer just rebooted on us for no good reason, and then wouldn’t boot at all.

After a few tries I gave up and had a look inside. The reason was probably a loose SATA cable. After fastening it properly we started again.

Formatting the 1 TB drive took close to 3 hours. A quick format would probably have done the job just as well (without looking for surface problems) but I thought I might as well do it properly.

After installing Windows again, getting everything set up the way you want it takes ages. Service packs, drivers and a million different programs. File endings: visible, system files: visible, start-menu: classic, annoying shortcuts on the desktop: GO AWAY! Disable ten or so unnecessary Windows services. Etc.

Now the computer is beginning to become usable. Our old Firefox profiles in place. Internet access working.

The graphics card, an XFX HD 4890 Black Edition, is a bit on the loud side while gaming, but in Windows it is a lot quieter. Before we got the driver installed for it the fan was spinning away at 100%, which was a bit trying during the three hours it took to format the hard drive.

At the moment my lovely wife is playing Sims 3 at maximum graphics settings with no visible lag at all. Will be interesting to try some of my games later.

This has gotta be the most amazing macro I’ve seen for a long time.

A note to all NoScript users:

The author of NoScript, Giorgio Maone, has in previous versions included hidden code to tamper with Adblock plus if installed, to prevent it from blocking ads on his own website. NoScript claims to be an extension for increased security. This move clearly shows that Giorgio Maone and all of his extensions cannot be trusted.

I recommend you uninstall NoScript and FlashGot if you happen to have them installed. Personally I always found them very overrated and not very useful.

Just to make things clear. Giorgio was confronted about the hidden code and then removed it. Instead he then went on to add a feature which adds all his sites to the Adblock Plus whitelist, without asking the user. (And if you deleted the whitelist addition, it would reappear on restart.)

This has even led to Mozilla revising the rules for extensions hosted at the Mozilla add-ons site.

If you’re thinking what I’m thinking, that this kind of behaviour doesn’t belong in the Mozilla Addon community, why don’t you write a review and let Giorgio and others know what you think.

I’ve been for a week in Paris with my wife. I have around 700 photos to go through and develop, but when I’m done I will post some here. Did a few panoramas of the Eiffel tower, among other things.

Röyksopp released their new album a few days ago, Junior. If you like Yello, you will probably like this. If you have Spotify installed you should be able to click this link to open the album.

My Firefox benchmarking post has just been twittered by MozillaFirefox with 15,000 followers, and a few people at Mozilla.