BG! » Site update

Comments+Pics

Posted by BG! on August 27th 2009 in Pics, Site update

There's now an option to add pics to your comments, you'll find the relevant bit just above the comment-input box.

I trust that you won't abuse the facility.

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Spam Reduction revisited

Posted by BG! on June 6th 2009 in Plugins, Site update

Last month I went into some detail about the measures that I've taken to reduce the amount of comment-spam. Despite all of the protection in force, a few hardy YSMs have managed to get through the barricade. Not many, and not a lot to be worried about.

Nevertheless, there's no harm in strengthening the defences.

The upshot of this is that for the last week or so I've been trying out the WP-SpamFree plugin and I can confirm that it's caught every scrap of spam since installation. It's got a few nice bells and whistles such as logging options and the facility to set up safe contact form (I'm not using this yet), so it's worth a look-see.

Just how long it'll take for the malevolents to figure a way around it remains to be seen, so I'll keep you posted.

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New theme

Posted by BG! on May 23rd 2009 in Site update

Tags: Sloooooooooownessssss

OK, I know it looks pretty much the same as the old one, but this one's easier to adapt and seems to be loading a lot faster than the theme I was using before. Just in case you're wondering, the theme is Mike Little's Journalized Theme Version 2, with a skin that I've copied and hacked to get the colours and placements that I wanted.

There are still a few minor changes to be done before it looks and acts as planned, but I'll have to sort them tomorrow. The "to do" list includes:

Add the link to the contact page Done (there's a link in the page nav)
Add the Copyright and Creative Commons statements Done
Add the Link Badges widget Done
Add the IYA link/logo Done
Add the Comment Ownership statement Done

For now it should all be working fine, but if there are any serious glitches, I'm sure you'll let me know.

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Swabbin’ the decks

Posted by BG! on September 18th 2008 in Just for fun, Site update

Tags: TLAPD

Been doing a bit of tidying up:

All unused tags (created by an auto-tagging plugin that I used for a while) have been deleted;
Quite a few new links have been added to the blogroll dropdowns;
Some other bits and bobs have been added to the sidebar;
All dead links in posts have been repaired or deleted;
Hell, I've even cleaned the screen and removed all of the cookie-crumbs from under the keys!

See you tomorrow, fellow pirates, but only through me one good eye!

Yaaarrr!

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Playing catch-up

Posted by BG! on July 30th 2008 in Astrostuff, Bloggers' Meet, Blogroll, Car stuff, In the News, Plugins, Shiny new kit, Site update, Thanks

Tags: banned, Forum Admin, Jupiter, Optical Vision, Rother Valley Optics, Scope, SGL

The blog's now well out-of-date, so it's time to do a bit of catching up. Luckily for you lot, I'm not a stats-whore, so I'll keep things brief and cram everything into one or two posts so that there's not a pile of individual entries to wade through. Now, where to begin...?

After a weekend-long posting-restriction imposed by the SGL forum admin, on Monday July 14th I was banned. And yes, the ban is justified. After some unjustified comments made by some of the admin, I reacted, broke the rules and got what I deserved. My crime was to react by removing the content from some of my posts. Just mine. No posts by other members were edited by me. The official version is different, and sounds much more sinister - according to the ban screen, I am banned for "attempting to corrupt the SGL database", which is a bit like saying that I've attempted to eradicate all life from the planet just because I swatted an annoying fly in our kitchen. Luckily, there's no sign that I'll be extradited to spend the rest of my days confined to the Guantanamo Bay facility. Anyway, I deserved the ban, and I don't much care that it'll never be lifted, but at least I'll no longer be hassled by some admins who think themselves beyond reproach and who think that they never have to apologise for anything, even when they have been proved wrong. It's sad that they get the good admins (who are in the majority) a bad press.

Talking of things astronomical, I had a bit of a panic a while back when one of the scope mount's tracking-motors packed in. After an online chat with the retailer, arrangements were made for the defective items to be investigated and replaced. Everything's now fixed and working fine, thanks to the great customer service provided by Adam at Rother Valley Optics (retailer) and by Optical Vision Ltd. (importer).

There was a clear night here a week or so ago, so I set up the scope to test out the replacement motors and to let the kids have a good look at Jupiter. They were suitably impressed with the view, seeing clearly-defined cloud-bands on the planet and seeing all four of the largest moons (Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto - the Galilean satellites, after Galileo Galilei who discovered them in 1610). After sending the kids to bed, I returned to the scope and had a reasonable visual observing session, finding M8, NGC 6530, M20, M22, Cr 399, NGC 6822 and a few others. The ISS passed over twice during the session, and there were a few meteors around. I didn't set up for imaging, so there are no pics. Since then, it's been cloudy almost every night.

Regarding other outdoors activities, there's precious little to report. I missed out on the Outdoors Bloggers' Dartmoor Meet because it was the weekend of my birthday and I didn't feel that it would have been right to bugger off for the weekend. Suffice to say that I got loads of nice pressies.

I managed to fit in a drinking session with my friend Dave, who's a casualty of the recent round of redundancies at Thwaites Dumpers. He's taking it well, but there are a few folk I know from there who've been hit hard by the job cuts. I hope that they all get sorted out soon.

Gear-wise, I've been quite reserved about splashing the cash. I supplemented the money that I received as birthday presents in order to buy a SkyWatcher Auto Focuser from Steve at FLO, so that I don't have to faff about twiddling the knob by hand (go on, you make the puns). Even though it's not really auto (it's a motor with a control-box on a curly lead), it's a great bit of kit. Fed up with buying numerous adapters for allowing all sorts of electrical gadgets to be powered or charged in the car, we got a power-inverter so that we can just use the standard mains chargers/transformers instead. I should have bought one of these years ago - I must have spent a small fortune on car-adapters in the last few years. We had a day shopping at Go Outdoors and I didn't get any outdoors gear for myself - that must be some sort of record! Mind you, we spent a small fortune kitting out the other three for our summer holiday.

Blog-wise, there have been a few changes here. A few more plugins have been added, if you're interested they're listed at https://beardedgit.com/?page_id=481. The blogrolls have been updated - quite a few additions, some moves and a few deletions - if you spot any cock-ups, please feel free to let me know. I've a few more changes in the pipe-line, but I'll tell you about them another time.

Well, that's all for now. There's more, but it'll have to wait for later.

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