bajada·net | home of a pixel-stained techno-peasant

Site archives often follow the format of a weblog's front page postings, listing entry excerpts with links to the entry's individual archive page. In some circumstances, this may take up considerable space without adding to the user's ability to quickly scan the archives for a specific entry.

On this site, I have used PHP with Movable Type to create phonebook-style listings of entry titles and their entry dates. I found that this is both aesthetically pleasing and fairly simple to implement. Other ways of implementing the alternating colors include using JavaScript on the client side or using MT plug-ins when the site is rebuilt rather than running the PHP to generate @class@ attributes every time the page is called by a browser.

These other implementations may be published at a later date.

Right. Long time, no write.

I have an excuse, though. Business picked up. No sooner had I wrapped up a major contract than the kids and I were on a train to visit my parents for a week.

Got back, got sick, signed a new contract. I'm loving the work, since it forces me to manage my time.

I've also got a logo and hang-tag design in progress for a friend, and well, I'll be hopping for the next few months at this rate. Hopefully, though, I'll manage to update more frequently.

MySQL went onto OS X without much of a hitch using DarwinPorts, as did updated versions of PHP, Perl, and various modules therein. PostgreSQL seems to be working, but something about Movable Type causes it to not be accessible via ObjectDriver—a stub program I wrote in Perl can access the data in a test database via DBD::Pg just fine, but MT chokes on the same username/password/database combination in mt.cfg.

Math::Pari can kiss my grits. Crypt::DSA made me cry. I despair of ever making sense of that mess of hacks, patches, and recompiles.

ImageMagick can take a hike. I gritted my teeth and installed NetPBM instead. Maybe I'll use the DarwinPorts version of ImageMagick and see if it plays nicely with PHP; other than that, though, I'm sick of it.

I'd hoped to get MT3.01D working in a PostgreSQL environment, but ended up using MySQL for it instead. It's installed, however, and working nicely.

Having root is overrated.

I will confess, I have never installed software on a Unix system before today. (Content management systems don't count.) This is largely because I have never had root access, but never mind that.

I am hating every minute of this.

"So, how long is this going to take?", I asked Matthew as I watched my terminal screen hang a few lines after typing "sudo port install 'ImageMagick'".

"Depends… what's it hanging on?"

"It says, 'Building XFree86 with target World'."

"Um… you're going to be doing that for a couple of hours."

As Marcus would say, "Dagnabbit."

So, on the list of things I ought to do this weekend we have:

• Download and install MySQL, PostgreSQL, and ImageMagick on my iBook.
• Download MT 3.01D, pMachine, Expression Engine, and S9Y to my iBook for later installation.
• Wash, dry, fold, and mutilate massive amounts of laundry.
• Practice reading with Marcus.
• Practice numbers with Becca.
• Clean up hot spot next to the couch.
• Find tiramisu. Buy tiramisu. Eat tiramisu.
• Turn 25.

"Mom, you sound like a snort!"

"Yeah, well, consider yourself lucky that you don't have allergies and bring me a tissue or four."

"Okay, Snort."

Whatever.

"Mom, Mom, the tooth fairy did not come!"

I, in my pre-coffee, just waking up state, exclaimed, "Aw, crumb." I paused to figure out exactly how much of a whopper I wanted to tell. "I'm sure she'll come tonight, I'll bet there was too much noise downstairs for her to come last night."

"Oh, okay. You need to go to bed early so there will not be so much noise tonight, Mom. You and Papa."

"Yes, Marcus."

I am such a horrible mother. Between the excitement of adopting Heather from Spay/Neuter, Inc. and bearings going bad in a U-joint ("Dear, is it really supposed to sound like something's dying under the car?") and giving Franklin (the other cat) a bath and generally riding herd on the kids, making the crucial substitution of money for tooth had completely slipped my mind.

It doesn't help that Matthew, now that he is awake, is sitting next to me smirking and saying, "Bad Jennifer! Bad!".

Marcus: Mom, I had to get Becca wet with the hose because we don't have a swimming pool. If we had a swimming pool, I wouldn't have to use the hose.

On our way back from Ottawa, Ontario, we went through US Customs and Immigration. The line was long, the sun beat down on the car with glaring intensity, and Becca's eyes were feverishly shiny—she was definitely coming down with something.

"And didja purchase anything while you were in Canada that you're bringing back to the US?", asked the inspector.

"Two t-shirts and a stroller," I replied.

I left out the virus that is running its merry way through both of my children's noses. I did not think that joking about a virus would lead to good things. More like guns and tanks and lots and lots of questions.

There are days when all I want to do is throw something in the oven and ignore it for a few hours, and luckily, this recipe lets me do just that. It also feeds a crowd of hungry geeks, with plenty of leftovers left over.

Continue reading "jerked pork sandwiches" ►