Category Archives: geekspeak

site-related techspeak, computer crap, other technical garble not of interest to the general populace.

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Bullet Journal 2021

I don’t usually take the time to really lay out my bullet journal like some people do; for me, it’s really a physical place to keep my medium-term memory, and I only give passing thought to making it look visually appealing.

This year, though, I must be craving the artistic outlet or something, because I just spent time over several days to design this cover page for next year’s journal.

Hell, I even created a goal brainstorming page. I’ve never sat down and done that before, even though I’ve almost always set yearly or monthly goals.

This year hasn’t been as bad for me and mine as it has for some people… but I still hope next year is better.

ADHD, health & fitness, quantified self Leave a comment

My 12-Year History of Step-Tracking

Last Wednesday, I woke to discover that I’d let my Fitbit battery drain completely overnight: my sleep data ended abruptly at 1:15am.

My Fitbit Charge 2 never quite recovered. Despite following all the instructions I found on all the knowledge bases and forums, the heart rate function remained borked.

Within two days, I found myself online with an AT&T sales rep, purchasing an Apple Watch (Series 5, 40mm).

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Whoops

As previously posted on social media:

I suddenly find myself in search of a new webhost for the first time in FIFTEEN YEARS.

Amazingly enough (my Aunt Sammie would say it’s ESP), I thought to save off a local backup copy of my WordPress database last month, so my blog is not lost.

Micfo never raised my webhosting fees for the entire time I was a customer (which could be one reason they fell behind on their own datacenter payments, resulting in their customers’ data basically being held ransom), so I’ve been overpaying for unlimited storage and bandwidth.

Party’s over.

So, current status: Trying to restore my SQL-based backups and get my blog back up and running. Also realizing that I didn’t actually have the sweet-ass grandfathered-in deal I thought I had.

Update, 10:15pm
I’ve imported every blog entry from my backup, plus the few I’d posted since then (thanks to Aaron pointing out that our RSS reader of choice, Newsblur, had the text cached). I’ve made my theme look pretty seamlessly like it used to (for better or for worse). I’ve imported my blog categories.

Still to do in the near future:

  • import comments
  • upload and relink images
  • reinstall a few key plugins

Considering that it took me about a week of evenings to convert my site from Movable Type to WordPress some eight years ago, getting everything back up and running in a couple of days (including securing a new hosting service and waiting for DNS propagation) really ain’t too shabby.

geekspeak, the ongoing saga of my job 1 Comment

HDMI

This is what it looks like when you really don’t want to move your monitor to plug in a new HDMI cable.

Behind-the-monitor selfie

Working from home for EIGHT WEEKS STRAIGHT OMG prompted me to buy an HDMI splitter for my widescreen monitor. It arrived this afternoon, and I can already tell it’s going to make my situation at least a teensy bit less inconvenient.

Granted, Skype is still going to be confused about where my microphone and speakers are every time I plug in the monitor, but at least I know WTF is going on now, and what settings to change back.

Working on code, data validation, report design, or pretty much anything that I do for work is SO much easier with multiple monitors. And plugging my laptop into a splitter is so much easier than unplugging the cable from the back of my tower — and then trying to plug it back in when I actually want to use my home desktop.

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Backup? Who Needs a Backup?

Me, apparently. I should have taken a backup of not just my WordPress database but also my server files before I decided to update my blog’s theme. The upgrade of the backend database to the newest version of PHP caused zero problems… so I threw caution to the wind and hit that Update Theme button I’d been avoiding for years.

Honestly, I’ve had this same blog design for eight years, and haven’t thought about it much until lately. It’s not like I have a free stretch of time to sit down and implement a new blog design — and it’s not like that’s even close to the top of my priority list. I might carve out an hour to find myself a new pre-designed theme, though.

The only real casualty was my Archive page. It’s completely MIA, because I seem to recall doing something non-standard when I implemented it. Some of my formatting is wonky now, and I haven’t checked my RSS feed (although I think my husband may be the only subscriber, anyway), but whatev.

I wanted to redo that archive page, anyway.