Riba Rambles:
Musings of a Mental Magpie

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:25 AM

It was two years ago today, April 24, 2002, that I made my first public post to this blog, welcoming the readership.

I was too busy with schoolwork and work-work to make much note of my first blogiversary, so I'm going all out this time:

History & Milestones:

Latest Annoucement:

Now, I wish to announce the latest improvement to the website:

None of your existing links to this site will be broken by this change, but you can now also reach them through the more memorable address of RibaRambles.org. I don't know about you, but I get tired of writing and telling people the path to my blog, so I've made it easier.

Now, my RSS feed and existing posts will still link to osmond-riba.org. I cannot use relative links within my posts because they wouldn't work for syndicated readers (what's your default.htm?), so I have to pick one. Also, Blogger will not allow me to use both URLs in the headers or code. So, within my own links, I'll continue to use osmond-riba.org.

But that doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't use them interchangeably.

Other improvements:

Needless to say, this is the reason for my site redesign. No time like one's birthday to make one consider a facelift...

As part of the new domain, I've also gone back and modified several of my earlier posts -- not changing any visible text (yet; I've noticed some old typos that really make my fingers itch), but mostly fixing relative links that no longer relate when accessed from the new site. I've also repaired some broken and bloggered links, moved a number of remotely hosted images onto my own site (to avoid completely losing their context, as happened here), added some convenient anchors, and so on.
I hope this doesn't violate any sacred blogger code of ethics or anything. This weblog is not a pristine archive of my past. [If it were meant to be, Blogger would provide ways to preserve the template when republishing old posts.] So, it only seems right to correct broken links where possible, for all our convenience.

Statistics:

In honor of the event, I've also been going through my old posts and compiling some statistics, which are probably of no interest to anybody other than me. So, click here for the deluge of data.

In conclusion:

Thanks for two great years, and here's looking forward to many, many more.

And remember, if you like what you're reading, the rule in the blogosphere seems to be, say it with links...

Posted by Lis Riba at 8:25 PM

For those who actually read my journal on my website, as opposed to through an aggregator, you may have noticed that things are looking a little different around here.

That's right, I've taken this opportunity to update my site design just a little bit. It's not as dramatic a change as I hoped, because I wasn't able to secure rights to an illustration I wanted to use as a texture. [Hey, I did the responsible thing of asking permission beforehand, rather than violating rights and apologizing afterwards. Still, I think my planned design would've looked really cool.]

Changes include:

• Slight graphical improvements to the UI,
• A photo and "about the author" in the upper corner,
• Google and FreeFind searching availble from my archive page,
• Added a SiteMeter traffic counter,
• Cleaned up things under the hood (HTML & CSS),
• And probably some other tweaks I'm not recalling offhand.

[Among the modifications I considered but eventually rejected, I investigated switching from copyright to a Creative Commons license for my blog. But because I make (what I believe to be) fair-use excerpts from copyrighted works, I'm uncomfortable with the thought that this licensing could risk other people's legal protections. So, I'm keeping the copyright notice for now.]

I still have further improvements in mind, but one can't tinker endlessly, and for now I'm satisfied with rolling this out. I'm sure I'll continue to tweak it in the future.

Because everything on my blog is hand-coded in a text editor (none of those flashy wysiwyg web site design programs for me!) this is largely what's kept me from posting all week. Hope you think it was worth it, and hopefully I can now put this behind me and get back to providing the content which I know is the real reason you're reading this blog.

Comments and suggestions are always welcome.

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:35 AM

A few annoyances I've been experiencing; can anybody offer explanations or advice.

Most important: Logfiles keep going blank! Last week I set up a new website on a Win2K server. Logging is enabled using W3C Extended Log File Format (same parameters as for osmond-riba.org). The very first logfile was fine, but each subsequent day, the file contained nothing but a 64k of spaces. [I waited a full day to see if it would fix itself when it created the new logfile the following day.] Other logfiles on the server appear to be working correctly. I stopped the website on IIS, renamed the bad logfiles and restarted it, and that seemed to correct it until a few days ago, when once again all I had was a huge file of blank spaces. I tried hitting that webpage, and the logfile started showing data again, though the start of the line was partly truncated. That worked okay for a couple days, and then this morning the logfile was back to 64k of blanks -- and I know it had data the night before (starts at midnight UTC). I've checked the event viewer and don't see anything unusual.
Any clue what could be wrong here? I'd like the logfile to work before the site goes live, so I can track site stats, and I don't want to overburden the server admin. [I have admin rights, and generally understand IIS, so should be able to do this all myself, but this has me stumped.]

Added later: even if you don't have any suggestions, if you've ever heard of such a problem before, I'd appreciate that information, just so I know it's not only me.

That's my most urgent issue, but I have two other minor questions. I could probably research and resolve them myself, but maybe somebody out there has access to a speedier answer?

Thanks in advance for any assistance anyone can provide on any of these. Feel free to forward the questions around to other tech experts as needed.

Sorry I've been otherwise quiet here of late, I've been busy with other things. I must've been getting an early head start on this morning's Free Will Astrology horoscope, which says:

The DuPont company has patents on 17 varieties of corn. Yoga teacher Bikram Choudhury has copyrighted and trademarked his poses and breathing techniques. Corporations are acquiring private ownership of fresh water that once belonged to local communities. McDonald's virtually owns the prefix "Mc," and sues new businesses with names that begin with those two letters. In the entrepreneurial spirit of these big thinkers, and by the authority of the planetary gods, I hereby present you Cancerians with full possession of the Dionysian spirit, good for the next four weeks. Now go party harder and smarter than you've ever dared.

I'm not much for partying, but my creative juices have been flowing. You should see the results by this weekend.

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:35 AM

Copied from the LiveJournal libraries community:

rush to a new National Archivist?

"The national archivist is crucial in a democratic society: He preserves our history and makes government records available to the public. He should also serve as an advocate for greater openness. The Senate is required to confirm the nomination, and the last time around, in 1995, the White House nominee was opposed during that process by organizations of historians and archivists (who regarded Carlin as unqualified). This time, the White House reportedly hopes to avoid hearings and instead plans to attach a confirmation bill to some other piece of legislation, perhaps as early as May. This would leave a Republican appointee in charge of not only the 9/11 Commission archives but all other Bush White House documents."

The Bush Administration's attempt to rush the appontment of Allen Weinstein as the new Archivist of the United States (without open hearings and without consulting organizations of archivists) is a really really bad idea....