Bluetrait

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Here is another reason not to buy a dell computer.

We decided to sell max's old dell laptop. Unfortunately at the time we didn't have a restore CD. So we decided to install an OEM version of XP Home (and use the license key on the bottom of the laptop). XP installed without any issues (happily taking the CD key), yet when we went to activate online, the key wasn't accepted.

After talking to both Microsoft and Dell (calling dell isn't a quick process) we found out that the CD key that comes with the Dell computers is not compatible with a standard XP install. You MUST use the dell recovery CD. Another interesting thing, is that the recovery CD doesn't even need a cd key! Odd.

So yeah we ended up needing to reinstall windows with the recovery cd which we luckily found.

I finished my last exam yesterday morning. Awesome, five weeks off uni!

Bluetrait 0.4.9 is now out. This version provides some bug fixes over BETA 1 (Think of it as BETA 1 Release 2).

The following have been fixed from BETA 1:

• If upgrading from an old version, the version number in the database is not changed with the upgrade. An error message is triggered saying that the upgrade failed.
• Upgrade will not detect version 0.4.7 as a valid upgrade path.
• You are not be able to log in if the site is install in http://localhost/. You require a fully qualified domain name

The full change log can be seen here.

phpBB 3 BETA 1 has finally been released. I should try it out some time.

• http://www.bluetrait.com/
• http://weblog.lttd.net/
• http://smkz.is-a-geek.net/

Current list of bugs

• You cannot have two posts on the same day with the same name
• It is best not to have a copy installed in both the root domain and a sub domain (i.e http://www.example.com/ and http://www.example.com/testblog/). Although you should be able to have two copies installed, both in differerent sub folders.
• If upgrading from an old version, the version number in the database is not changed with the upgrade. An error message is triggered saying that the upgrade failed.
• Upgrade will not detect version 0.4.7 as a valid upgrade path.
• You are not be able to log in if the site is install in http://localhost/. You require a fully qualified domain name

About a year ago I said that I'd like to release bluetrait, my blogging software that runs this site. Well, today is that day. Bluetrait BETA 1 can be downloaded from here.

I haven't worked out a license yet, although it will probably be GPL as it uses a small amount of code from both wordpress 1.2 and phpbb 2.

As this is a beta release there will be bugs, although it seems to work fine on my site

If you're running an older "internal" release (version 0.4.4 and higher), there is an upgrade script included. Notes for older users:

• For 0.4.6 and below: The function display_comments() is depreciated. Although it is included, it does not work correctly. Please see the included index.php file for ways to output comments. This function will be removed in the next few releases.
• To upgrade, replace all files (not including, bt-config.php/bt-config-sample.php and your modified files i.e index.php), login to the admin panel, run the upgrade script and then clear your cookies.

For support of this version only please use the comment area of this post.

It is now possible to register as a user on this site. As this stage the benefits are:

1) Comment is in a different colour, showing that you are a registered user
2) Contact form with your user name. i.e http://www.bluetrait.com/contact/user/dale/
3) Access to the admin panel which allows you to modify your user settings.
4) Links comments to your account (possible features may including editing your comments)
5) Can globally enabled/disable contact form.

More work will be done once I've finished my exams. If you register in the next few days I can link your old comments to this new account.

My macbook has been running great. Although every now and then it seems to get pretty hot. I check activity monitor to find that both of the cores are running at about 50% load each. Yet no process seems to be taking up anywhere near that much (even combined). I've tracked it down to "Windows Sharing". For some reason, maybe samba has gone crazy or something, but switching off Windows Sharing seems to bring it right back down to a normal temperature. Once you've turned off Windows Sharing you can turn it back on and have no issues. It mainly seems to happen after coming out of sleep. I'll have to try and track down the main reason to the problem. Some software bug somewhere (this is on 10.4.6). I didn't have this problem on my g4 ibook. Although this is really the only problem with my macbook, and it is very minor.

I've changed the way this site handles cookies. From some testing it seems you need to clear your cookies in order for this site to work correctly. If possible you just need to delete the cookies for this site.

Thanks

We installed Vista Beta 2 today, and from first looks it is much better than Beta 1. Although the interface feels like a cross between mac os x and windows xp, it doesn't seem to "connect" correctly. It tries to dumb down the interface, meaning it is harder to some tasks. The User Account Control (UAC) is also a pain. If something requires permission the screen goes dark and focuses on that pop up window and won't let you do anything else until you've answered the question (although you can disable the whole UAC). I like the idea of the UAC but it is poorly done.