Adrian's Blog

Blog

  • Geograph

    A project sponsored by the OS to relate photographs to each grid square.
    How long before somebody finds a way of exploiting / monetising this?
    Geograph.

  • Flip Text Generator

    Something searching for a use.

    http://www.fliptextgenerator.com/

    Uses apparently little-known character codes to invert most text (struggles with capitals).

  • reCAPTCHA for Magento

    Well done Fontis for integrating reCAPTCHA into Magento to prevent SPAM through the contact form and “social” pages. About time!
    Well though-out and integrated beautifully into admin.
    Keys are required from reCAPTCHA andthe extension can be installed through Magento Connect using the extention key on the Magento Extention page.

  • No brown M&Ms

    Randomly browsing, I found the legendary Van Halen rider,  posted on The Smoking Gun. Yes, the “no brown M&Ms” line is there, and intriguingly a requirement that forks are not plastic and have four prongs. Did Eddie Van Halen have some terrible two-prong fork related accident as a child?

  • Free Map Tools

    This site has some super Google Map tools – including Meeting Centre Of Gravity by Postcode and Map Tunnelling.

    http://www.freemaptools.com

  • WordPress 2.7.1 auto upgrade fix

    I discovered last night that the auto-upgrade function to take WordPress 2.7 to 2.7.1 failed – or rather it sat at the “downloading wordpress-2.7.1.zip” message indefinitely.

    At the auto-upgrade is a new feature of 2.7, I had never been able to test this functionality, although I had high expectations of it since the plugin upgrade has worked so well.

    After searching the forums and Google for a while I found bassmadrigal’s solution – modify .htaccess for the WordPress installation in question and add:

    AddType x-mapp-php5 .php

    Works fine, and the auto upgrade of plugins stills works too.

    The science bit

    Using 1and1 as a host requires this directive in .htaccess as detailed in the WordPress codex. It forces the 1and1 server to parse .php files as php5 files (instead of, presumably, php4).

    I had this before my upgrade to 2.7 (OK, technically a re-installation) and unfortunately the baby got thrown out with the bathwater.

  • 1and1 contract secret

    Shhh, 1and1 don’t want you to know this, but…
    … you can cancel or amend contracts at
    contract.1and1.co.uk
    As far as I can tell, this information is not to be found on the admin.1and1.co.uk FAQ or Help pages. I had to complete an online support request to find this info.
    Once you are in, it’s easy – so I have started the process of releasing four unwanted domain names.

    Update 2nd December 2010: the URL has changed to cancel.1and1.co.uk – still not well documented.

  • GS1 Prefixes

    GS1 is the organisation which deals with retail barcode number range issuing; they publish a handy table showing prefix codes.

  • Smoke free signage

    Premises in England are required to display an A5 no smoking sign at all entrances (roundel only for staff only entrances).

    Here is a PDF containing the sign.

  • Magento

    Since I last looked (around 9 months ago, I think) the Magento web store project seems to have shaped up nicely. It is certainly prettier than OSCommerce, but more importantly they have kept the code and the presentation separate using – of course – CSS.

    It is written in PHP, and has a growing collection of add-ins, so I’ll be seriously evaluating it as an alternative to OSC for the Oriental Food Shop.