Data backups are no good if they aren’t available to you irrespective of the location you are in. Today while working on this blog from my house in Chandigarh, I messed up the WordPreess database and had to drop all tables and the content stored within them. I created a new database and installed WordfPress 2.1 effortlessly. Once I finished doing this, I realized that I was in my Chandigarh house, and not in Hyderabad, which is where the backups are stored, stacked neatly in a folder. So now I am left with a clean slate, at least till the 5th of February. So to prevent anything similar happening in the future, I have three options: Don’t play with the WordPress installation: Highly unlikely Blog only while in Hyderabad Doable as I leave Hyderabad for a week to 10 days at most Store data backups online: This is the one I like best and am going to follow religiously. There are so many websites that offer free storage, might as well use them.
All My Bags are Packed I’m Ready to Go
All My Bags are Packed I’m Ready to go Jan 25, 2007 in Personal, Commentary with 0 Comments Finally the day has come for us to go up North, not for good, just a short 8-10 day trip. The motivating factor being to catch the last breath of the cold weather there and meet our families. Maybe, just maybe, catch up with old friends in Delhi and Chandigarh. But would visit Simu’s definitely, His son Zoravar has been through a lot of health related hardships. Have a mixture of thought going through our minds, on one hand we are happy to meet our families, but on the other hand, going home without my mom being there is making the mood very somber. On earlier visits when mom was around, she would make my favorites dishes; Rajma, Paranthas. Halwa and whatever else I wanted to eat. Of course that is not the only reason to miss mom as much as I do. The void created by her demise is one that can never be filled up. Papa has organized a small Havan in her remembrance on 30 January, her first death anniversary.
WordPress 2.1 Up and Running
Soon after the release on WordPress 2.0.7 on January 15, 2007, Matt and Co are out with the much awaited version 2.1. It was due soon enough but not this soon.
Here’s a list of the new features:
Autosave makes sure you never lose a post again.
Our new tabbed editor allows you to switch between WYSIWYG and code editing instantly while writing a post.
The lossless XML import and export makes it easy for you to move your content between WordPress blogs.
Our completely redone visual editor also now includes spell checking.
New search engine privacy option allows you take you to indicate your blog…
Soon after the release on WordPress 2.0.7 on January 15, 2007, Matt and Co are out with the much awaited version 2.1. It was due soon enough but not this soon.
Here’s a list of the new features:
- Autosave makes sure you never lose a post again.
- Our new tabbed editor allows you to switch between WYSIWYG and code editing instantly while writing a post.
- The lossless XML import and export makes it easy for you to move your content between WordPress blogs.
- Our completely redone visual editor also now includes spell checking.
- New search engine privacy option allows you take you to indicate your blog shouldn’t ping or be indexed by search engines like Google.
- You can set any “page” to be the front page of your site, and put the latest posts somewhere else, making it much easier to use WordPress as a content management system. Much more efficient database code, faster than previous versions.
- Domas Mituzas from MySQL went over all our users with a fine-toothed comb. Links in your blogroll now support sub-categories and you can add categories on the fly.
- Redesigned login screen from the Shuttle project.
- More AJAX to make custom fields, moderation, deletions, and more all faster.
- My favorite is the comments page, which new lets you approve or unapprove things instantly.
- Pages can now be drafts, or private.
- Our admin has been refreshed to load faster and be more visually consistent. The dashboard now instantly and brings RSS feeds asynchronously in the background. Comment feeds now include all the comments, not just the last 10.
- The upload manager lets you easily manage all your uploads pictures, video, and audio.
- A new version of the Akismet plugin is bundled.
And last but not the least, as always, the upgrade went off like a breeze. Way to go guys! Keep it up!
Every user manual in the world
For a technical writer, it’s a very heartening to know that there are people who like to store user manuals. Buyers regard a products user manual as “extra clutter” and dump it in the nearest dustbin without even opening it. Smart are the people who hold on to all documentation accompanying a product. eserviceinfo.com is one such smart website that has a database of so many user manuals that you not only find manuals for your own products, but also for every piece of hardware in the entire neighborhood. Looking for the required manuals isn’t too easy though. The manuals are in PDF and split into parts of 2MB, if your manual is greater than 2MB. You might have to browse many a page before you are able to download all parts of the manual. Quite cumbersome one might say. Still, a start has been made; let’s give eserviceinfo.com that at least.
The block of my life
Every now and then, all writers experience a strange phenomenon known as a writer’s block. It doesn’t matter if you are Stephen Kings or Manu Khanna, the chances of experiencing a block are very real and scary. According to Wikipedia, Writer’s block is a phenomenon involving temporary loss of ability to continue writing, usually due to lack of inspiration or creativity.
I think I may be experiencing one right now. I no longer have that insuppressible urge to write, not even for my blog. The cause might vary from.. See what I just said, I don’t even feel like completing this post, what can be worse than that? Henry Roth’s writer’s block continued for sixty years, a day or two is enough to give me the shivers.