Ginny has been bugging me about the problem she’s been having posting to her blog from the iPhone and other third party tools that she uses.

The problem has been narrowed down to a bug in LIBXML2 that causes leading angle brackets “<” to be stripped off of posts when processed through the XMLRPC support in PHP.  I logged the issue in the Wordpress bug tracker, and the consensus is that the problem started manifesting after an automatic update applied by Fedora 8.

Well, to solve the problem I’ve moved Ginny’s blog to a temporary server running in a base Fedora 8 install in a VMWare instance.  Luckily Wordpress stores most of it’s content in the MySQL database (not the images, unfortunately).  A bit of NFS magic to mount the appropriate directory in the virtual system, and it’s working fine.  The server itself only has Apache, PHP, MySQL client, SSH, and a few other bits & pieces to keep it running.  No automatic updates, GUI, compilers, etc.

Once the bug is fixed (either Wordpress, using a different XML processing mechanism, or LIBXML2) I’ll move her server back to the main server.

In the mean time, her blog is going to run in the virtual machine ‘Hobbittown’ (named because it’s small).

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Technorati Tags: election, obama, president

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Technorati Tags: domain, i18n, obama, projects, trademark, vacation, voting, Work

Kind of a busy two weeks … Ginny and I were on vacation.  Because of the cost of our last vacation (England & Ireland), we decided to make this a “Staycation” … basically stayed home and didn’t go anywhere big.

One of the things we wanted to was finish the floor in the smallest bedroom.  This was a project we started about 6 years ago … we had these grand ideas of turning it into a reading room, with a hardwood floor, a nice comfy chair, plenty of book shelves, etc.

Well, the project started out fine … but ended up completely stalled due to problems with the flooring material we chose.

I wasn’t too keen on the idea of a complex floor installation, so we went with a “Pre-Glued” engineered wood floor product from Harris Tarket / Vanguard called “Tap Tight”.  Well, the “Tap Tight” was more like “Pound Loose”.  The pre-glued aspect was quite attractive, as we wouldn’t have to mess with gluing the boards.  Unforunately, this also meant that we had absolutely no ability to dry fit the boards when we were putting them together.  If we miscalculated, we were stuck (literally).  They wouldn’t come apart again to be reset.

Well, the floor project languished for a number of years … but we decided to get the floor finally done.  Since the floor planks we had left were so old, I was worried that they wouldn’t work anymore.  Plus, because we have to hit the boards so hard, once we got to the last row of boards, there isn’t any room to swing a hammer to get the tounge and grove to mate.

We decided to pull out the old floor and go with something else … something that wasn’t pre-glued.  We thought about what kind of floor we wanted and decided to go with a bamboo floor.  Again, it’s engineered wood, so it can be installed without nails.  A few weeks ago we went to Lowes and ordered the product.  It wasn’t too expensive.

About a week later the flooring material arrived at the store … we picked it up and brought it home.  I opened a box looking for instructions on the best way to install the floor, but found nothing.  The boxes contained just the flooring and nothing else.  There wasn’t even an indication of the manufactuerer (Except a “Made in China” stamp on the side of the box).  Both Ginny and I started searching the web to find information on installing it … and then our hearts sunk.  Every indication about this flooring product (”US Flooring”, maybe) indicated that it was shoddy material and to be avoided at all costs.  Suffice it to say that we took the flooring back to Lowes and returned it.

Not ready to admit defeat yet … we went BACK to Lowes and looked at the other flooring they had.  This time we wanted to go with a name brand.  After looking at the products, we decided to go with “Bruce” (a division of Armstrong).  That’s a brand I’ve seen before.  Ginny still didn’t want to deal with Glue, so we went with their “Fold & Lock” system.  Basically, the toung & groove are engineered in a way that they snap together.  They do not, however, snap permanently … so we’ll have the ability to dry fit.  As an added benefit, Lowes had the product in stock.  A quick search through an open box showed that the boxes included instructions too.  We also purchased MDF base molding and quarter round to cover the gaps around the perimeter of the room.

We pulled up the old floor and threw it away (thankfully the garbage service took it all away).  We started to lay the new floor.  It went pretty smooth.  As with most projects, there were a few glitches …

• The circular and saber saws I borrowed from my dad wasn’t going to cut it (pardon the pun).  They were too slow and way too big.  I went to Sears and bought a 10″ power miter saw.  After I took the saw out of the box and started to set it up, I realized that it wasn’t really going to be flexible enough to do the job.  So I returned the saw and purchased the same model that included a slider, so I could cut larger planks.
• One area of the floor needed to fit under some existing molding (around the door) … the instructions addressed this … but it said shave the lip off the leading board and use “the recommended glue” to attach the trailing board in.  Unfortunately they never mention what the recommended glue is.  We called Bruce and asked.  They told us a specific glue to use (Bruce product, of course).  We headed over to Lowes, but they didn’t carry the glue.  Across the street was Home Depot, but they didn’t carry it either.  They could order it for us … but it would take about a week to arrive.  Ginny did some calling around to various flooring stores and we found one that didn’t have it in stock, but could order it from their supplier (who was located in Elk Grove Village) and we could pick it up that day.
• Even though we measured the floor pretty carefully, we ended up being a little short on the material.  We needed one last rank of boards … 12 feet long … but only 1 1/2 inches wide.  This meant we had to buy a whole new box of planks.

After all this work … we also decided to paint the room again … the original paint job, done 6 years ago, was kind of weak … so Ginny decided to repaint with a different color.  I’m absolutely no good with painting, so I left that to Ginny.  I was in charge of the power tools, so I did all the cutting (ruh ruh ruh ruh ).  I cut the base molding and all the floor planks.  Everything does (or will) fit nicely.  Not a bad job, if I do say so myself.

As of today, we need to finish some touch up painting; install the base molding; install the quarter round; and install the carpet transition.

I’m a little worried about the transition though … its going to require that I cut the carpet so it will fit correctly … and I don’t want to botch the job.  This project has already cost more than I hoped it would … and I don’t want to add to the cost by having to replace carpet.

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Technorati Tags: floor, glue, hard wood floor, power tools, wood

I just had to perform a slightly odd form of cat rescue: retrieve Riley from inside the box spring of the bed.

Riley likes to play around under the bed sometimes … playing with the fabric on the bottom if the box spring.

Today he managed to find a small rip in the fabric and make it larger. Once it was large enough, he crawled in and started exploring the inside if the box spring.

Both Ginny and I heard him under the bed, but it sounded kind of odd. He was also meowing in a somewhat odd way. When I looked under the bed, I didn’t see him. I did, however, see a jump in the box spring fabric. A bit of poking quickly identified the lump as Riley.

A quick slice of the fabric with my leatherman gave him an opening large enough for him to leave, but it took a bit if coaxing with some kitty treats to actually get to leave his new hiding place.

I’ll have to patch the rips today so he doesn’t get back in.

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I found this Popular Mechanics pod cast while stumbling around today.  It features Adam Savage, of Mythbusters fame (one of my favorite TV shows), discussing science education and his annoyance with the whole Evolution vs. Creationism debate:

What I do see as a huge issue is a very anti-science vibe. Like I said, the newspapers talking about evolution versus creationism is very much an attack on science as a type of religion—believing that the scientific method is some type of religious belief. And it’s not!

That kind of attack absolutely is damaging science exploration across the whole country. I do think that’s a significant problem. And until we can get our head out of the sand and realize that science isn’t about truth—it’s why this debate about the “theory of evolution” bugs the hell out of me. What scientists mean by theory is very different than what people think.

People want science to give them these ultimate truths. When of course it’s never going to do that.

No scientist will ever even tell you that he’ll guarantee the sun will come up tomorrow because that’s not a scientific statement. He can say it’ll come up because the evidence supports it and he can say he’s 99.99999% sure that it’s going to come up, but something could always happen.

And that willingness to have your mind changed – which is basically what that is – that willingness to change, to see something different based on the evidence, that’s deeply scientific, and it’s deeply creative, and I don’t think enough people realize how creative science is as a field.

What can I say? I agree with Adam 100%.

Popular Mechanics Podcast

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Technorati Tags: adam savage, creationism, evolution, mythbusters

Found this via Mike Wills blog …

I’m registered … have been for quite some time. If you’re not, visit http://maps.google.com/vote to find out where to register. Then, come election day, get off your butt and vote.

As I’ve said to many people … this has been the most interesting election season I can remember.

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Over the past few months I’ve heard lots of stories on the radio about the election and how people are going to vote.  I’ve got to tell you … there are some people that are just so incredibly stupid about how they make their voting decisions it just makes my blood boil.

Please, people, vote for the RIGHT reason … for instance:

• Don’t vote for McCain BECAUSE he’s a veteran … vote for his position on veterans affairs.
• Don’t vote for Obama BECAUSE he’s a African American … vote for his position on minority rights.

The worst example was from a story on NPR’s All Things Considered … during the primary they interviewed some women about Hillary Clinton running for the Democratic ticket … and one woman said that she thought it was admirable that Clinton was running … but it just wasn’t appropriate for her to be president because woman should be subservient to men.  To be fair, they were interviewing people at a conservative church gathering) … but still …  GAAHHHH!!!  What a stupid person.  People like that should have their voters registration cards revoked.

Of course, this raises one of my other pet questions … what’s worse … not voting or making an uninformed vote?

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Technorati Tags: african american, npr, stupid people, veterans, vote

I’ve encountered a weird error in Wordpress … for some reason, when a post is submitted using the XML-RPC api (which is used by the Wordpress iPhone app), any leading ‘<’ symbols on the HTML is being stripped out.

Ginny noticed this a few days ago and I just confirmed it on a test blog.

The content that is posted looks something like this …

p>a href="http://beta.geekyramblings.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/p-
640-480-2fd9116d-5703-4e8b-b72c-2605beab02b5.jpeg">img src="http://
beta.geekyramblings.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/p-640-480-2fd9116d
--5703-4e8b-b72c-2605beab02b5.jpeg" alt="" width="225" height="300"
class="alignnone size-full wp-image-364" />/a>/p>

I’ll have to do some digging to find if this has already been logged or not.

I wish I was more skilled at PHP … I’m sure it’s someething I could sink my teeth into.

Update: FWIW I’ve opened ticket 7771 on the Wordpress tracking system on this issue.

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Technorati Tags: bugs, iphone, wordpress, xml-rpc

In an effort to criticize John McCain’s economic policies and his apparent unwillingness to support “buy American” restrictions including Harley-Davidson motorcycles for the Secret Service, a group of American-made hybrid car owners and Harley riders rolled into downtown Grand Rapids, MI on Tuesday to support Barack Obama. The only stipulation for participation? Hybrids had to be American made, meaning no Priuses allowed.

- No Priuses Allowed at Hybrids & Harleys for Obama Rally

Darn, wish I had known about this before … would have been cool to roll along with in my Ford Escape Hybrid (built in Kansas City, MO).

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Technorati Tags: ford escape, hybrid, obama