Cricalix.Net

Been putting time in over the past week to migrate UberCon’s web services from our current host to Slicehost.  Half the cost, at least double the performance – well worth it.  Pretty much everything has migrated smoothly, once I added in all the SQL permissions.  I’ll have to do one more walk-through to make sure the site works, at which point we can do a DNS cut-over.

Along the way, we’ll get a forum software upgrade, and an upgrade to our CONGO installation (CONGO is the back-end software that runs our registration pre-con and at-con).  More resources on the hosting server mean we can start working on our long-wanted CMS overhaul and registration overhaul too.  Not sure about the CMS side yet – it’ll probably be a toss-up between PHP Fusion and Drupal.  What would be nice is integrating the forum, the website and the registration for the con into one cohesive community/system.

In the words of Bob Marley,

“Sun is shining, the weather is sweet, yeah
Make you wanna move your dancing feet now”

It’s about 23C (74F) in Warwick, a good breeze out of the east, and I’m stuck inside.  My boss agrees that we should just go on strike, but I think that’d cost me my job.

Somehow, my Wordpress installation has taken to showing double posts for any post I edit or create with the latest installation.  All the existing posts are just fine, and if I’m not logged in, there are no double posts.  This is going to drive me batty until I work out what it is!

It’s been a pleasant two week vacation.  Caught a train and a bus down to Heathrow on the 22nd, and crossed the Atlantic courtesy of British Airways after staring at an Asus EEE 700 series in Dixons (though I’ll wait for the 900 series with the bigger screen and 20 GB SSD).  Did my usual trick of pushing how late I stayed up, with the intent of resetting my body clock and avoiding jet-lag (which worked).  Spent the next few days imaging all of the LAN PCs for UberCon, and catching up on a bit of sleep.  UberCon ran from the 25th to the 27th, where I had the pleasure of being an attendee for once, instead of a staff member – though I still did staff-like stuff since I knew the answers.  Note to self, never go behind the desks at registration or help-desk unless I want to work.

Didn’t shoot too many photos, but got something like 30 of Mr. T. Zahn, so I’ll be checking those in Lightroom when I get home.  Hopefully there’s at least one good one we can use on the UberCon site.  I also need to get his contact details to see if he minds if I use them in my personal (online) portfolio.  Missed the tear-down of the convention by being a lazy sod and sitting in my room reading.  However, I helped pack the truck for the trip to the con, so I think I’m excused. continue reading…