January 2007

Blog updated to WordPress 2.1

by Michael Sheehan on January 25, 2007

in General, Open Source

You are now viewing my site on WP 2.1. It was a relatively painless upgrade (following the instructions on WordPress.org)…but I use the term “relatively” very loosly. When I first tried to run the upgrade script, I got an error (that I had seen before):

Warning: main(/blahblahblah/wp-content/
advanced-cache.php) [function.main]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /blahblahbla/wp-settings.php on line 69

where “blahblahblah” was the path within my server. I remember deleting a symbolic link when I was putting the files on the server. Well, that is what caused the chaos. However, it was not easy to figure out how to recreate the link since the item that the link went to, no longer existed.

As it turns out, the fix was very easy. Since one of the files that you do NOT delete is that of the wp-config.php, an old plugin reference was being called, even though it was not in use. What you do to fix is simply edit your wp-config.php file and either delete or comment out the line:

define(’WP_CACHE’, true);

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New WordPress release (version 2.1) and other stuff

by Michael Sheehan on January 24, 2007

in Cellular, Gadgets, General, Microsoft, Open Source, Software

Once again, it’s been a while since I posted. I’ve been deep in “geek-dom” mainly related to Cell Phone. My wife’s old Blackberry (7100t) died so I got a Blackberry 8700c off of eBay and she is now up and running on that! It’s a great device actually. My biggest issues was a little trick that I forgot to do when re-flashing the device from a Cingular build to a Tmobile build. You have to delete the vendor.xml file in order for the install script to work. After that, it installs perfectly.

I, too, have been very involved with my own phone, Tmobile MDA (aka the HTC Wizard). A forum that I am frequently on is the xda-developers forum. So, taking the plunge, I have installed a “pre-release” of Windows Mobile 6 on my device and I must admit, it is really nice. Lots of new feature that are well done. It seems stable and much more reliable than other ROMs that I have installed, believe it or not. More about that later when I have time.

So, I guess that 2 days ago, WordPress released their next upgrade (version 2.1 – Ella, named for jazz vocalist Ella Fitzgerald). There seems to be some really nice improvements that I can’t wait to test out. Here are the highlights, directly from WP:

* 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 queries 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.
* Better internationalization and support for right-to-left languages.
* The upload manager lets you easily manage all your uploads pictures, video, and audio.
* A new version of the Akismet plugin is bundled.

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Fixing a Honda Odyssey Automatic Sliding Door

by Michael Sheehan on January 17, 2007

in Family, General

I’m going a bit away from my usual tech talk on this one but still, it points to how truly information packed, the Internet is. We had a deep freeze last night, rain and then below freezing temperatures. Most of the Country is experiencing that now…but here in California, it is a bit rare to go below freezing (especially in my area). Anyway, as my wife was trying to get the kids off to school, she discovered that our 2001 Honda Odyssey (the “mommy mobile”) power sliding doors decided not to work anymore. The “door” light was lit, indicating an error of some sort.

Armed once again with the power of Google (as well as “unrelatedly” telling my kids that on the Internet, “you can find out anything about anything”), I searched for “2001 honda odyssey doors won’t open” and the first hit had the answer. Here is what fixed it, and I will quote (with a little editing):

1.) Disable the power door switch on the left dashboard.
2.) Remove fuse #13 for 30 seconds or more from the passenger side fusebox. This will reset the door and the clock. Fuse box is located under the front passenger leg area.
3.) Manually open and close both sliding doors.
4.) Restore the power door fuses located under the front passenger leg area.
5.) Enable the power door switch on the left dashboard.
6.) Try opening the sliding doors.

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Apple Front Row, Griffin AirclickUSB and Griffin Proxi – Triple Play

by Michael Sheehan on January 10, 2007

in Apple, Gadgets, General, Hardware, Software

Back in mid-November, 2006, I wrote up how to get Apple’s Front Row to work on older macs using a program and instructions outlined on AndrewEscobar.com. The only disadvantage to the “hack” was that it didn’t magically have a remote control materialize out of the air after installation. The way that I left it on my previous post, I wanted to try Griffin Technology’s AirClickUSB. Well today at the MacWorld Expo, I received one to complete my tests.

First impression of the AirClickUSB, it’s small and white and simple. In the package is a 1″x 2″ remote with 5 buttons (Play/Pause, Forward, Reverse, Volume Up and Volume Down). There is a lock, a slider on the side to prevent the remote buttons from being active and accidentally pushed if it is in your pocket or something. [Click the picture below for a larger size.]

AirClick Remote

Also in the package is the USB dongle. It is about the same length as the remote, but longer and thinner, slightly smaller than a pack of gum, for example. [Click the picture below for a larger size.]

AirClick USB dongle

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My MacWorld 2007 – SF Predictions

January 9, 2007

So, 5 minutes before the Steve Jobs’ Keynote, here are my predictions: – iPhone (PodPhone is what I’m calling it) – Tablet Laptop – 802.11n – new airport extreme following the new protocols – iLife 2007 – Leopard announcement – coming Q1

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WordPress updated to 2.06

January 6, 2007

So, I updated my blog to 2.06…didn’t really notice anything that new or changed about it. According to wordpress.org, here is what has changed: We have a pretty important release available for everyone, it includes an important security fix and it’s recommended that everyone upgrade. This is the latest release in our stable 2.0 line, [...]

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Well…that didn’t last long!

January 3, 2007

So much for my attempt to write 1 review a day…guess the holiday vacation blew a pretty big hole in that one. I will get back to that when I have time. Recently though, I have been tweaking my Tmoble MDA. I installed a new “cooked” ROM on it. But now (and I’m not sure [...]

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