WordPress 2.5.1 is Available, and the Reminders are PERSISTENT

I’m subscribed to the official WordPress blog so I know when new updates are released, however, it seems with the 2.5 landmark release, notification of the update appears on every page of the admin interface. There’s no way you can miss it now. Now, we just gotta get automatic upgrades without having to upload and overwriting files manually.

Anywho, 2.5.1 is out and it addresses a bunch of problems people have been having with the coveted 2.5 release. It looks like a 2.5 “redo” release. After browsing through the WordPress forums, version 2.5 has frustrated many a WordPress user, even veterans. I’ve been lucky, I guess, I have yet to come across anything buggy.

Fresh Content is Coming!

I’ve been so busy discovering that I haven’t had time to write everything down!

That’s lie… I’ve actually been busy with school, work, and my birthday as of late. However, rest assured, I have been busy learning me some good stuff I will want to share with you soon!

I’ll file this post under “undiscovered” since I’m still trying to find more free time.

The Obvious Truth About Scientific Prediction

Scientists and “experts” have been saying for years that California is due for another big earthquake. I’m sorry, but really?! I don’t know why we keep seeing news articles about some new research or findings saying California will have a large earthquake by some year. Considering California’s penchant for earthquakes I could tell you that California is due for a large earthquake right now, without spending thousands or millions on research. Now, studies on how to reduce the massive amount of property damage and the loss of life as the result of that earthquake is certainly worth the time and money. Stop predicting obvious things.

P.S. Based on weather patterns, I predict it’ll rain sometime in 2008 in California and that there will be a massive wildfire somewhere in the state where there’s lots of trees. That’s right, I’m breaking that news right here on 365 Discoveries! You heard it here first!

How to Change File Permissions With Dreamweaver [CHMOD]

After using Dreamweaver for 6 or 7 years, I’ve always thought it was ludicrous that it didn’t include a function to change file permissions! Dreamweaver is a fairly powerful WYSIWYG editor with an equally powerful FTP client built in, how hard could it be to offer a simple context-menu option for changing the file permissions!? Previous web searches turned up forum after forum, page after page of people lamenting the same thing.

But, ALAS! LIGHT!

I finally stumbled upon a help page from hosting company that – in couple lines – solved the mystery.

Once connected via FTP, (pre MX I believe) open the FTP log from the Window menu of the Site Window. In newer versions this can be done with the site menu in the side bar or in “dual pane” mode by going to View then Site FTP Log.

In the command line, type:

chmod ### /path/to/filename

Where ### is the numerical equivalent of the permissions you wish to assign.

Where path/to/filename is the relative path to the filename.

For example, the change permissions of a file named readme.txt location in your root folder should be:

chmod ### ./readme.txt
-or-
chmod ### public/html/readme.txt

The path depends a lot on your server’s or hosting company’s setup.

Once your realize (as I did) that the FTP log allows you to send any FTP commands, you’ll be able to do anything your heart desires. Though, that still doesn’t explain why in heck Macromedia hasn’t provided some kind of GUI solution for file permissions.

Note: The methods described above apply to Linux / Unix server systems.

UPDATE: Thanks to an astute reader, Danny, it was brough to my attention that Dreamweaver 8 and above provides the ability to change file permissions with a GUI interface by right-clicking on the desired file and hitting “Set Permissions.” So, those of you with Dreamweaver version 8 and above (Dreamweaver CS versions) can ignore the instructions in the post unless, of course, you like doing things the hard way!

UPDATE, May 1, 2009: Head over here for an updated post with all the above and below tips for CHMODing the heck out of your files.

Splogs Suck

This site has only been up for about a week and already a splog, or spam blog, had gotten a hold of it.

Splogs are “fake” blogs whose content is usually entirely stolen from legitimate blogs. In this case, I wrote a post last week that cited Wikipedia and contained a tag for Wikipedia. I believe this is how the splog in question ripped off my content. Splogs I’ve had experience with will re-post information from any blog that shows up in a Technorati or Google Blog Search feed with a particular tag or keyword.

The splog will attempt to get my content indexed in search engines to generate traffic to the splog’s site which is usually inundated with paid advertising links (read: pr0n).

Often, too, the splog will send a pingback to the original blog. Pingbacks (also known as trackbacks) are used to notify a blog that another blog has cited information from a particular post. The pingback will appear as a snippet of the new post in the comments section of the cited post. This a great feature because it allows easy link trading between bloggers with similar interests, and it gives credit to the original author.

The problem with splogs sending pingbacks are now the sucker gets a link in my comments to his/her rip-off of my post. Fortunately, Akismet is catching on to these and will file it as spam before it hits my blog.

There’s nothing I can do about the bastard stealing my content (except to change the content, or play the sucker), really, but the silver lining in spam blog is that I know my site is being searched and indexed!

Splog in question: http://wikipedia.doorwayblogging.info/ (NSFW)

Panoramic Photos on the Cheap & Easy [AutoStitch]

I’ll being filing this one under “Shared Discoveries” because I didn’t find this program all on my own; A friend of mine introduced it to me a couple of years ago on a trip down Highway 1. For some reason he wanted to take a panoramic photo so I tried setting my cheap digital camera to pano-mode. It’s supposed to make pano shots easier by allowing you to take a photo and then show part of that photo on the LCD screen so you can line up the next shot. However, as everyone knows, manual panoramic shots either with a built-in camera function or later trying to line up those shots in a photo editor are just awful.

So my friend starts taking random shots of this eroding hillside along the highway. There was no rhyme or reason, just snapping shots of the hillside. Then, he ensures me that this program he’s telling me about will be able to take all those photos and make a perfect panoramic photo out of it. I was skeptical, but sure enough, it did!

The program? From the project home page: “AutoStitch is the product of two years of research by Matthew Brown and David Lowe at the University of British Columbia.” And from Wikipedia, “The software uses the SIFT- and the RANSAC-Algorithm. This program differs from others such as photostitch in that it automatically stitches together even unaligned or zoomed photographs seamlessly without user input, whereas others often require the user to highlight matching areas for the photographs to merge properly. The only requirement is that all photographs be taken from a single point.”

In other words, AutoStitch is a free program (or “free-to-try” for non-commerical purposes) that takes a selection of separate photographs and “stitches” them together to make one large photograph. The resulting photograph doesn’t necessarily have to be a traditional panoramic photo. AutoStitch will make sense out of photos taken in any order, location, or size of particular scene. AutoStitch will also perform needed contrast, brightness, color and level image adjustments in order to create the seamless image.

Here I offer a couple of examples of AutoStitch’s work on photos taken by me on a recent trip to Yosemite National Park. Continue reading »