Upgrading Mediawiki July 23, 2006
Posted by Andy Roberts in : Wiki , add a commentSince upgrading to mediawiki 1.6.7 I started getting problems when updating large pages, or ones with RSS rendering on them. They returned a blank page, sometimes after saving, sometimes without.
In the end I tracked this down to the php memory limit.
The method for upgrading the database which I was following, was as follows:
*backup everything
*unpack the new softaware over the old
*remove localsettings.php
*run the install script and input the parameters as though for a fresh install
*restore the old localsettings.php
The problem with this is that you don’t benefit from improvements
which have been put into teh new localsettings.php in the config dir.
eg uncommenting
# If PHP’s memory limit is very low, some operations may fail.
ini_set( ‘memory_limit’, ‘20M’ );
So I think a better method of upgrade is to use the new localsettings
file, and copy in any user modifications from the old one.
There’s also the problem with permissions settings on the images
directory but that’s just tedious to reset.
Also, mediawiki 1.7 requires php5 which my host doesn’t seem to be providing, so I suppose I’ll be sticking with 1.6.* for a while yet.
Technorati Tags: wiki, mediawiki, upgrade, php5
BBC Editors, blogs and drupal July 23, 2006
Posted by Andy Roberts in : drupal, blogs and community , add a commentAntony Mayfield writes in Blog and viewer influence on BBC news agenda:
The BBC’s The Editors blog continues to be one of the most interesting and useful media blogs around.
And I agree, if you’re at all interested in the process of journalism and publishing, or in current affairs, then you should subscribe for a while, and read the comments too.
He also discusses the strange case of someone being surprised when they discovered that Newsnight editors were reading about them, he sense that people somehow feel that what they write on blogs is somehow, sometimes a private conversation, and not exposed to the all-seeing eyes of Google and Technorati.
I picked up on that perception because I’ve always thought it central to what makes blogging work, this tension or disparity between a perception of intimacy and the fact of being a very public space. But if it is the illusion of privacy which contributes to making blogs useful and readable, then isn’t this a somewhat fragile basis on which to continue? In some cases, yes. Where the illusion is based on an actual ignorance of who may be reading, then a sudden comment or the addition of webstats may cause a blogger to stop dead in their tracks and rethink who they are writing for. But in most cases I think it is an agreed suspension of awareness of the potential audience which allows the blogger to write less selfconsciously than in say a public forum, whilst being able to cope perfectly well with any unepected exposure which may happen.
I’m currently trying to grapple with this for the purposes of exploring best ways to set up drupal as a community platform, with it’s combination of blogs, forums and other structures.
Technorati Tags: BBC, editors, blogs, drupal
Pensive July 23, 2006
Posted by Andy Roberts in : General , add a comment
It’s the start of the holidays and I’ve celebrated my degree result but I’m in a pensive mood currently due to the failing health of my father and my mother’s distress about it all. A difficult time during which it’s hard to make any firm arrangements, but the priority for the next couple of weeks or so is to be there and help where I can.
Profile update July 21, 2006
Posted by Andy Roberts in : edublog , 2commentsToday I can update my brief portfolio document to include the degree result which has finally been confirmed.
It was a relief that my justified degree title suffix ( IT ) was actually included and I’d like to thank the team who originally negotiated the Ultraversity BA LTR pathway so that people like myself could have the opportunity to become recognised with what has unfortunately become a necessary level of qualification for the kind of work that I intend to remain involved in.
It’s also the last day of my part time pro-rata day job for six weeks, and hopefully forever, so after spending a week with the folks in Cornwall I’ll be taking some rest and recuperation but also working hard on developing my future and brushing up on a whole swathe of technical skills that got left behind somewhere in the rush. In the technology field, learning needs to be continuous and at a brisk pace otherwise you can end up becoming deskilled and rendundant just by working in an environment that rests on its laurels for a few brief years. Of course nobody can keep up forever, but it’s increasingly difficult to find any niche which will ultimately offers even medium term security.
Y2K came and went, the launch of the Euro single currency also went more smoothely than predicted so now we just have the implications of climate change, peak oil and bird flu to prepare for…
Juillet Quatorze July 14, 2006
Posted by Andy Roberts in : General , add a commentToday is July 14th, Bastille day. Greetings to all readers in the jolly old republic of France. “Liberté, fraternité, egalité, ou la mort!”
There’ll be fireworks before the night is out.
“PBwiki down” message July 13, 2006
Posted by Andy Roberts in : Wiki , comments closedNo pictures of a plumber or anything, just plain text on a white background but I like the way service providers try to sound reassuring:
PBwiki down
PBwiki is temporarily down due to an unscheduled networking hardware problem with our upstream internet provider. I’ve been in phone contact with staff onsite and they’re working with an on-call technician from the hardware vendor to resolve the matter.
Last update: Thursday, July 13 2006 at 3:45am PST
Our production servers are located in San Jose, California. You are reading this message on a development machine located in San Diego, California.
Your wiki is safe, and there is no risk of data loss. Our servers are fine but they currently can’t connect to anything outside of their building. Yes, we love you and yes we miss your wiki as much as you do. It’ll be back in a flash.
Thanks for your patience,
-Nathan Schmidt / PBwiki CTO
Apparently I was reading that in California.
Pbwiki is a great service by the way.
Forbidden Word July 12, 2006
Posted by Andy Roberts in : General , 1 comment so farThere is a word which I cannot mention on this blog, or on the wiki.
It begins with an ‘x” and ends with a “c” and is then followed by the suffix “.php” but if I try to write it out in full I will be told:
Forbidden
You don’t have permission to access /blog/wp-admin/post.php on this server.
or
Forbidden
You don’t have permission to access /drupal/blog/node on this server.
A support ticket has been raised, but if it isn’t dealt with by removing the blanket ban on anything to do with remote authentication I’ll have to look for another hosting service for the drupal installation, and that would be a pain right now.
Drupal learning project July 11, 2006
Posted by Andy Roberts in : COP, tools, Wiki , add a comment
Drupal is an open source content management system (cms), with perhaps a lot of potential for distributed communites, online learning and knowlege management. The underlying design appears to be extremely flexibile and modular but there is a certain learning curve involved in installation, setup, configuration, administration and maintenance.
If you’re interested in travelling along that curve together with a few others, then head over to the DAR drupal site, register for a login and start to explore the basic installation which is there.
There’s also a page about this drupal learning project on the DAR wiki.
Technorati Tags: drupal, communitiesofpractice, onlinecommunity, COP2.0,
DARdef July 9, 2006
Posted by Andy Roberts in : distributed research , add a comment
Originally uploaded by Andyrob.
blogging direct from Flickr, thus resolving the problem with the blog api interface after having the same problem with the new drupal installation
Geek Dinner July 7, 2006
Posted by Andy Roberts in : Long Tail, London , 2commentsTonight at the Bottlescrue near St Pauls (Holborn Viaduct), London Geek Dinner.
Some American geezer tell us all last year’s news, so a large attendance is expected.
I’m contemplating whether I feel like it - anyone else thinking of going along?
is an online professional who initiated DARnet 
