Furth and Fortune blog by Will Murray

I’m very glad that I am not more prolific! I just changed from a date-driven permalink structure for this blog to a “slug” based one. That means that instead of addresses based on dates like this: http://willmurray.name/blog/2005/07/12/29/ (the first post in this blog), now you will see addresses based on the topic of the message like this: http://willmurray.name/blog/msg/maintaining_your_pc/

Even though there are some WordPress plugins that help keep track of updated permalinks, they rely upon slugs (that’s the message topic), and I didn’t use them in the past. So I had to write a rather complicated Apache .htaccess file to redirect all of the 88 older addresses to their shiny new addresses. If I didn’t do that, Google would lose track of everything, and any visitors following old links would end up with a 404 error message (file not found).

If your blog is hosted on an Apache server with mod_rewrite installed and you are interested in knowing more details about how I got this to work, please leave me a comment. If you’re running on a Windows or Mac server, I don’t think my method will work.

So why go to all this pain? I’m planning on making the upgrade to the new WordPress 2.5 within the next day or so, and I want to fix a few things that have been bugging me for a while. My old permalink structure was one of those things. I figure it’s best to work out old bugs before bringing in any new ones.

As you can guess, that means that there will probably be some hiccups in the blog as I continue to make changes to it over the next few days to weeks. If things look funky, check back in a few hours or contact me if it’s urgent (hopefully that page won’t be affected since it’s not part of the blog itself).

Thanks for your patience and understanding!

Tags: Apache, debugging, mod_rewrite, redirect, updates, upgrades, WordPress

I’ve consolidated several empty categories, rearranged the rest, and added several new categories to my blog. I know this broke at least a few incoming links. To find out more about the changes, please read the full article.

An article titled ‘Millennials’ buck IT security policies got me to thinking about some of the differences between the millennials, workers generally age 28 and under, and their non-millennial counterparts. Business managers are scared of the changes these young professionals are bringing to the workplace, and generally do not respect or understand just how differently the world is viewed by them. These changes don’t scare me, and I’ll tell you why after the jump.

• Sacramento Kings lost…Again… Why do they keep trading the good players (and coach) away? #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

Tags: Sacramento Kings, Twitter updates

A funny thing about accents… you never really hear your own. I took a little online quiz to see if I have one. Naturally, I do, though it’s a pretty neutral one. Find out which after the jump.

It appears to be an ordinary day at the food court in your local mall. You’re calmly eating your Hot Dog on a Stick, when suddenly something strange happens… The cashier needs a napkin. She breaks into a musical number asking for one, and before you know it, the whole food court comes alive with singers, dancers, and very surprised customers. Enjoy the charming and humorous thrill that is: “Hot Dog on a Stick, the Musical”

• @Fungible: So you recommend Horton for theater, DVD, or Starz? #
• Spent most of the day in Citrus Heights working. Ready to head home now. Yay! #
• @Fungible: Do you have kids? #
• is driving home now. #
• @Fungible a dad #
• @Fungible a dad? What a concept! The stories I could tell your kids. j/k #
• I hate it when the alignment on my touch screen gets outa whack & it hits enter at the wrong time. #
• Going to eat dinner and watch “Flushed Away” now. It’s good to be home! #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

Tags: movies, Twitter updates

• @chrisbrogan – I use StumbleUpon’s Firefox plugin to mark something to share. I use Delicious’s FF plugin to prompt me when I bkmk something #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

Tags: Delicious.com, StumbleUpon.com, Twitter updates

• Anyone else having Google Reader problems? Navigation loads, but no feeds appear. Been going on for about 1.5 hrs since adding a feed. #
• Dang! Thought my computer was possessed! Very strange sounds and talking quietly in the background. No ads. Was @chrispirillo’s live stream! #
• I’ve had a page on @chrispirillo’s blog open for over 1hr, but didn’t hear the quiet live stream over my music and the ambient room noises. #
• As suspected, it appears the feed I most recently added was giving Google Reader problems. I unsubscribed, and GR is fine now. Yay. #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

Tags: Chris Pirillo, Google Reader, Twitter updates

• 1 Fire Eagle invite gone; 3 still available to give to those interested in developing under that new API (not for casual users yet) #
• I’m home from work. The 2nd thing I do is check Twitter (1st was grab food). I think I’m officially addicted now. #
• @mkrigsman and @problogger – at least you don’t have jets flying overhead practicing for an upcoming airshow at 6:30am. Ugh. #
• @mkrigsman and @problogger – that is, it’s now 6:30am, and they are practicing in the dark for an upcoming show. #
• @mkrigsman – I’m in Sacramento, CA #
• @mkrigsman – It’s crazy, too. They annoyed a lot of people last year practicing mid-day. 6:30am will probably make it worse. #
• @mkrigsman – Maybe the military thought fewer people would notice if it’s still dark? Military intelligence = oxymoron? #
• @mkrigsman – All kidding aside, I love the air show and the pilots are amazing! I look forward to it every year. #
• I find it interesting that e-mail from Linspire still ends up in junk e-mail after repeatedly white-listing the sender & domain in Outlook. #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

Tags: FireEagle.yahoo.net, junk e-mail, Linspire, military, Outlook, Sacramento, Twitter updates

• Off to the SacSBUG meeting in Natomas #
• Door was locked and had to wait for someone to exit. Grr. #
• Funniest comment: Karl — People who go to conferences with “Swag Hoovers” to suck up all the free swag the vendors give away. #
• Good meeting. Time to go. #
• Funished at client. DVD firmware >4+ yrs out of date caused crashes. #
• Heading to Wal-Mart. What to do for dinner at 11pm? #
• Impulse buy: McDonalds 2 Fish Filets for $4 made as a double w/ lettuce & tomatoes #
• Tasted pretty good! Lowered carbs/cals eating only half the bun (open-face) #
• Now on to Wal-Mart for groceries. 24-hr shopping; love it! #
• I hate waiting for the cash registers to roll over to the next day. #
• I think it took longer to check out at Wal-Mart than it did to shop. *sigh* #
• Heading home from a long day. #
• @jeradhill – Feel free to take a look at the site I did for my high school’s reunions for inspiration. http://aghsreunions.com/blog #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

Tags: SacSBUG, shopping, tech support, Twitter updates, Wal-Mart

• @JasonCalacanis: In my case, I got tired of seeing one side of conversations. W/ you added as friend, the timeline makes more sense. #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

Tags: Twitter

• @chrisbrogan: FriendFeed is very cool. I like it and feel it’s currently the best of its breed that I’ve seen so far. #
• @audaciousgloop: It sounds like you have some custom plugin code that doesn’t check if the plugin is installed before it tries to run. #
• @audaciousgloop: Did you get any errors with all plugins disabled and the default WP theme? If not, reenable and see if probs arise. #
• @audaciousgloop: A trick I use for my various blogs is one core repository of WP plugins and themes. Then I use symlinks to the repository. #
• @audaciousgloop: Then I only have to update plugins and themes in once place. Of course any bugs hit all at once, too. Eek. #
• @Scobleizer / @TechCrunch: making too big a deal out of 1 interview. Give her a break! I couldn’t be as bad as reading about it all day. #
• @audaciousgloop: No problem buddy. Happy to help if/when I can. #
• @audaciousgloop: Symlinks are "symbolic links"… think of them as shortcuts to the actual directory. If you have shell access, they’re gr8 #
• @audaciousgloop: If your host uses Linux/BSD/Unix and you have shell access, login and type "ln –help" for details. #
• @audaciousgloop: I should just do a how-to blog entry on WP using symlinks, eh? #
• @audaciousgloop: I’m migrating ZenPhoto themes over to use the same method, but a bit trickier than WordPress. #
• @audaciousgloop: Alright then. Consider it a sample of my tech writing skills for your company. I’ll let you know when it’s done. #
• @audaciousgloop: Here you go: http://www.allogro.com/main/2008/03/09/51/ Pls forgive the formatting. Didn’t realize the theme was so ugly. #
• @loiclemeur: Agreed. Social software (outside of work) will become very "in"; tho work will probably still frown on it. #
• @loiclemeur: Probably will result in yet another digital divide. Those who socnet and those who don’t. (Like e-mail vs. snail) #
• @audaciousgloop: Obrid shows errors after registering: Warning: opendir(/home/obridco/public_html/templates/profiles/Obrid) [function.ope… #
• @audaciousgloop: Not sure how good of a platform it is based on that. Yikes. #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

Tags: Allogro, FriendFeed.com, Linux, Obrid, plugins, symlinks, theme, WordPress

• @audaciousgloop: Thanks for the Tweetscan.com tip (even tho it wasn’t directed to me). The search results as RSS is a nice feature. #
• Just finished watching The Last Mimzy on On Demand. It was a fun ride.Heard enough buzz the end wasn’t a surprise, but still good. #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

Tags: movies, Tweetscan

• @strawpoll alcohol I rarely drink alcohol much anymore anyway. Caffeine is sometimes critical to starting the day! #
• @jkusters @Fungible: Thanks. She came home 2nite a new kitty. Much like she was months ago. Early renal failure. New special diet. Ok tho. #
• @ncoutlander: It’s great to see you using Twitter more. #
• @Fungible: Sweet tip on http://truly-free.org/ I’m sure publishers aren’t happy, but like pirated music, it prolly won’t hurt profits much. #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

Tags: alcohol, caffeine, feline CRF, special diets, strawpolls