Welcome back, Wordpress

Posted on December 22, 2008 by Andy Callaghan.
Categories: Internet, Site news.

Well… after a little (make that a lot) tinkering and attempting to make Rails work on Mediatemple.net, I have decided to run all the way back home to Wordpress for my blogging platform of choice!

No more Rails for blogging here at least, but that’s not to say I don’t really really enjoy programming in Rails, I just think that Wp has a lot more to offer than what I can cook-up in Rails with the time I have!

New host, new version, new job, new uni year.

Posted on September 15, 2007 by Andy Callaghan.
Categories: News, Site news, Uni, Work.

A lot is happening behind the scenes at the moment with my life…

I
have been developing a major project for my sister, involving
e-commerce, secure multimedia downloading and streaming, RSS jiggery
pokery – all under a new CMS called MODx (which is fantastic0.

I have also upgraded my host to a grid based server from Media Temple, as my shared server was starting to feel the load.

I
have been working with the Google Maps API, php and the Sugar CMS to
produce an app involving geo-coding UK postcodes… more later.

…and I’m about to embark on my second year of University after passing with just over 66%! WOOT!

New personal code website

Posted on June 20, 2007 by Andy Callaghan.
Categories: Site news.

I'm setting up a new C, C++ and PHP coding website, where I'll be releasing select scripts and programs that I complete.

The first project that has just been uploaded is the Facebook + MovableType Mashup plugin

Please visit: http://code.andycallaghan.com

Visitors up by 300% on last month

Posted on June 4, 2007 by Andy Callaghan.
Categories: Site news.

Woo!

I must be doing something right: Visitors increased three fold from April to May. This may not sound like a big deal, but if my stats keep improving like this, I should be getting upwards of 12,000 visitors a month by next month.

From last month, the most popular visitor origins were as follows:

  1. USA
  2. UK
  3. Australia
  4. Japan
  5. China

Good to see Microplop not banned by the Great Firewall of China just yet then…

Blog on! 

Microplop.com Version 3 – complete

Posted on May 17, 2007 by Andy Callaghan.
Categories: Site news.

If you are reading this on my website, and not on my feed or through facebook then your are seeing the third version layout of Microplop.com – hope you like it. It still needs a little tinkering here and there, but it's mostly complete. Feel free to comment below about what you think, it all helps.

The third version of microplop dot com 

So long, Wordpress…

Posted on March 25, 2007 by Andy Callaghan.
Categories: Internet, Site news.

I decided the other day to ditch WP for Movable Type, when being extremely annoyed at WP's lack of speed and it's amazing ability to fall over regularly on my server. From the offset it was easy to extract my posts out of my mySQL db, using a simple php script.

WP is simply no match for MT. WP is a very good platform to get started on, but thats about it in my opinion. MT pre-builds it's pages from cgi scripts and mySQL so it means that all the pre-processing is done in one big lump rather than whist the person is trying to view the page, slowing WP down.

Even if WP-cache enabled and homepage caching, it simply isn't as good as MT. So, I hope you like the theme, as I'm going to be chopping and changing it from time to time.

Free hosting for open source projects

Posted on March 17, 2007 by Andy Callaghan.
Categories: Internet, Site news.

I will soon to be setting up a new web host off of my reseller server that I own. Since I’m passionate about open source projects, I will be offering completely free web hosting to open source projects. Applications will be done by a case-by-case basis and will be directly handled by me. All accounts will be hosted on a Linux server in the States.

If you’re interested, quickly drop me an email to andy<at>microplop<dot>com and don’t hesitate to comment on this post, and I’ll get back to you asap.

Personal website complete

Posted on by Andy Callaghan.
Categories: Internet, Site news.

I had a spare few minutes the other week so I finished my personal website.

www.andycallaghan.com

Have a lot of fun.

We’ve changed servers: The Epic Tale

Posted on February 21, 2007 by Andy Callaghan.
Categories: Internet, Linux, Site news.

Whey! I’ve finally changed my server over to a US host. It’s an epic story, which i will relay to your in epic form…

In the beginning, there was ukHost4u.co.uk. Microplop.com was hosted there, and all was good…

(Okay, I can’t keep this up, as it’s too difficult! (well it is the Bible I’m trying to copy!) )

I setup a reseller account at a US based hosting company, under a different website name (i’ll release this later, when it’s finished). Then I created private nameservers to use under this new domain, which all my customers would use. I transferred all the data from ukhost4u to the new host, and all was dandy. I did this using cPanel’s backup and restore feature. I could see the site perfectly on it’s IP based name.

I then tried to change the nameserver info on 123-reg.co.uk. All my domains were registered with them, but they didn’t allow nameserver updates. (for me anyway, they never worked)

… so I transferred all my domains over the www.iyd.com (which costs a hell of a lot, especially to a poor lowly student). This sounds like an easy task, but 123-reg refused to give me my EPP auth codes without either ringing their non-existent-50-pence-per-minute number, or by emailing them. After waiting a few days I emailed again, and kept emailing them. After 13 days, they responded to all 9 emails at once, each one getting humorously more and more sarcastic!

Once I got the codes I transferred all the domains over to iyd.com, and was able to change nameserver info.

After all this, the websites weren’t directing properly using the nameserver info:

  • My computer in Reading Uni had no problem viewing any of the sites on some days. On others, nothing was seen -404 errors. And on others, the 123-reg.co.uk holding page could still be seen! Rudeness!
  • My computer at home in Kent, had similar problems but on different days!

This confused the hell out of me! The nameserver settings were all correct, and a whois showed the correct nameservers listed.

After much stress and much changing of settings, I deleted the accounts on my reseller server to begin from the top. When I tried to remake the accounts, WHM said that the DNS zone info already existed so it couldn’t possibly make an account of the same name. When I went to delete the DNS zone from within WHM, it didn;t load for ages (literally left overnight!) – so I emailed my new host for them to complete it for me.

Much to my surprise, they replied 3744 times quicker that 123-reg as they replied and fixed my problem in 5 mins!

So here we are now. All grown up but slightly limping from the hideous experience of changing hosts!

Morale?
123-reg and nameservers: EVIL!

Apologies…

Posted on January 23, 2007 by Andy Callaghan.
Categories: Site news.

Firstly: I’m sorry that i’ve not been posting for a while, uni work has been bundled on me recently.

Secondly: Sincere apologies to anyone who today, and for the last few days have seen or visited a link to pornographic content which was maliciously placed on my website. Bloody script kiddies…