I always provide links back to the source as attribution for the flickr creative commons photos I use. Today I ran into the not so surprising case of wondering what to do, and what the ramifications for, if the original is no longer there? Here’s the case. A dark night in a web that knows […]
cc licensed flickr photo shared by foreversouls
My blog crashed this afternoon.
I was not driving, but with some lucky bits of intervention and guessing, I was able to roll it over and get it back on the road. This was after spending a good chunk on Sunday on a side blog that had gotten hacked (By the way, Donncha’s Exploit Scanner was a crucial key to cleaning up that one, tho it needs a bump to WP 2.9.1).
But today’s episode of “Blog and Order” was a different game. I thought I’d share some of the things I did- but keep in mind that when something like this happens, there is rarely one single recipe; and like most, I try all kinds of things, though the whole box of tricks at the wall and see what sticks.
So I went to my own blog today to look something up (whatever that was, I now forgot), and the page took a long time of just whiteness, and then I got the dreaded HTTP Server Error 500 – which tells you nothing more than some script on your site is borked.
I looked at my resources on Dreamhost (I run a private server, meaning I can restart the server- that did not help– as well as allocated more RAM to the server — at more $$ over month). I could see that the CPU usage had begun climbing well above normal levels around 3:00 AM; but even throwing more RAM at the site, it still would not load pages.
Next I check other sites hosted on the same domain. They are fine, even one that is WordPress. Then I try a non WordPress URL on my site. That also loads fine. This tells me the problem is in WordPress.
I then download the server error log. The last entries are fill of “index.php: premature end of headers” — again this tells me nothing specific except that somewhere in the chain of PHP scripts WordPress loads when it builds you a page, something borked.
By the way- another Mac tip… access or error logs can be huge files, hard to open in a text editor (BBEdit was having issues with my 180 Mb access.log file); but if you open the file on the Console utility, it manages nicely, and even offers a nice filter option when you are trying to isolate a file name or a rogue IP address.
Maybe all of my billions of fans are frantically pressing reload? I let the server sit a while. Then I decide to take it offline- you can do this easily (I do this when doing a manual update by ftp because you have to remove key files in the process–) I have an alternate index.php file I use as a sign to hang on the door (you can see what it says). Everything in WordPress is routed through this single entry point, so some basic HTML:
cc licensed flickr photo shared by ryancr While the blogs continue to bounce more banter on openness and open education, one more oblique suggestion based on the deep philosophical musings of The Gumped One: Open is as Open does.
cc licensed flickr photo shared by hangdog Ah, there is nothing like the smell of serendipity in the morning… One of my favorite things in looking at web sites is finding some secret or some method entangled in the HTML of the source code of the page. I love view source. I love the tags. […]
cc licensed flickr photo shared by clarksworth Holy smokes, it is 2010, and despite all of the dreams (the heck with flying cars) we are still typing on keyboards designed to make typing difficult… so aren’t we supposed to be far into the future where we talk to our computers? Voice recognition and identification software […]
cc licensed flickr photo shared by Photo Phiend I had this fantastic part time job in the late 1980s during my senior year at the University of Delaware- I worked an evening shift at a Dupont lab running samples through an electron microscope. It was a whole new world up close. I never knew what […]
cc licensed flickr photo shared by Roberto Rizzato â–ºpix jockeyâ—„ Facebook resident We need some good ol’ radicals in being cool. You know, the types that have a vision and an ideological orientation that defies the pragmatics of reality. Stubborn, irritating, aggravating visionaries. Today, I fear, being cool is beset with a more moderate spirit. […]
Trying to see if Twitter Tools plugin can actually tweet the URL for this post. Update: Yep, it works, It seems like the Bit.ly url shortener plugin was not working.
My friend Nick in Hong Kong emailed me recently eager for some recommendations to fill up a few screens of his iPhone (I should really send him to the King of Apps, Marco Torres, who I am sure has filled to the max his screens). Rather than trying to page through screens and type names, […]
cc licensed flickr photo shared by cogdogblog
Wow it has been so nice to be lazy, to be spending what feels like more time offline than online. All of the tech todos on my list for the holiday vacation remain undone (the list crumpled up and is burning in the wood stove now). The plan to to the Epic Year End Blog Reflective post? Never drafted. The list of predictions, dreams, resolutions for 2010? Not happening.
But without dropping the intent to do something to wrap the year in a bow, is to say that the 2009 thing that has kept my sanity and sense of purpose on track has been for a second year doing the Post a Photo a Day Thing on Flickr started in 2007 by D’Arcy Norman.
People like D’Arcy and Dean are resilient enough to put their 365 photos into video form; I’m too lazy, so instead use the flickr slideshow embed.
I’ve been at flickr posting since 2004, but this year have felt a surge of re-inspiration for photography, especially after getting back into using a digital SLR and using my new lenses purchased in the summer… I’m trying many new things, angles, low light action and more. The other new driving force is participating in The Dailyshoot, a new “:thing” which sprouted in November 2009. Every day, the site tweets an assignment, and participants merely tweet a reply with a link to their photo.
Since doing this pretty regularly since the end of November, I am finding it sometimes driving the direction of my daily photographic action, and its a secondary photo (not necessarily a lesser one) that becomes my 365 photo shot. But having a specific assignment helps drive my action, and can save me on days when my inspiration is waning.
