Ack!

After a full week’s work, I did manage to get my webserver up and running again, complete with upgrades, so djwudi.com, hanscomfamily.com, and geekmuffin.com are all active again, and starting to regain content.

I am still having one issue, unfortunately. I’ve tried to install both Image::Magick and NetPBM (two image-processing libraries), but for some reason MovableType isn’t seeing either. This means that when uploading images to the MT install on my server, MT doesn’t give the options to resize the images, automatically create thumbnails, etc. Everything else is working beautifully, this is the only aspect that’s still giving me issues. Grr.

The other downside is that I’m now facing RSS overload, as I haven’t paid any attention to NetNewsWire for the past few days. I’m currently looking at 691 unread posts to go through. Yikes!

Now on LiveJournal – me!

I only found this out a short time ago, but it appears that the online journaling site LiveJournal has limited support for picking up RSS feeds. As it turns out, someone added Eclecticism to their list of available feeds — so if there are any LiveJournal users who stop by here at any time, you can add me to your ‘friends’ list by adding [woody_eclectic].

I just wish there were a way for me to figure out who all had me added. According to the information page, there are three LiveJournal users who have me in their friends list. I know who two are…but who’s the mysterious third?

Maybe I’ve got a secret admirer.

Ooooooh.

iTMS Link Maker spewing popups?

It looks like the extra code that Apple supplies when creating links with the iTMS Link Maker is causing pop-ups to appear in some browsers. This is the text of an e-mail I got tonight, and the response I gave. Has anyone else seen this happening, or are there any other ideas of what might be going on? Are new updated versions of IE that have been patched due to the Eolas lawsuit already in the wild?

On Saturday, Oct 18, 2003, at 19:14 US/Pacific, Owen van Dijk wrote:

Hello Michael,

Through a link I stumbled on your weblog. Suddenly I got a popup saying if wanted to install the “iTunes detector” from Apple. I have never heard of such a plugin, not on a PC ( I use windows xp, ie6 ) and not on a mac ( I am also the lucky owner of a powerbook 12\” :) ) could you please explain what this plugin does or why it is embedded in your site?

Wow. Good question.

First off — I’m really sorry about a pop-up showing up! I had no idea that would happen (and, to be entirely honest, I’m not entirely sure why it happened…but I can guess).

With Apple’s release of iTunes for the PC and the revamping of the iTunes Music Store, they’ve made it easier to link directly to items inside the iTunes Music Store. There are two ways of doing this — either with a simple link (like INXS Need You Tonight), or with a more complex link that’s generated using their iTunes Link Maker.

When you create a link with the iTunes Link Maker, it generates two snippets of code — one for the link itself, and one to put in the head of your html page. According to Apple, “The first text box on this page contains code to include in the HEAD section of your HTML (once per page) to detect if iTunes is present or not. This will cause your links to behave intelligently if iTunes is not installed on the user’s computer.” Since I added a link to the iTMS at the bottom of my page (down with the Amazon links), I also added that snippet to the page.

My guess is that that’s what causing the popup to show up on your browser. I’m not entirely sure why you’re getting a popup asking for confirmation, unless it is related to the recent changes being made in IE due to the Eolas patent suit against Microsoft (though I wasn’t aware that they’d actually started distributing changed versions of IE yet).

In either case, that’s something that I don’t want my visitors to have to deal with, so I’ll be taking that code out of there. Thanks much for letting me know about it!

The offending code has been removed from my pages, along with the iTMS link that I had in the ad box at the bottom of the pages. Bummer, but as long as the simple style of linking works, I’ll be able to play with it whenever I want to.

Bayesian spam filtering for MT

There’s another option in the fight against weblog comment spam now that looks on first blush to be an incredibly effective solution — implementing Bayesian spam filtering on MovableType.

The advantage of this plugin over other solution (e.g. blacklist) is that after certain amount of training, it requires little and no maintence. Training is also similar then importing and exporting blacklists. In addition, it takes whitelist into consideration, not just blindly ban a host or subnet. (This is useful for those who has the misfortunate of been near a spammer). It also consider the whole content, including URLs, IPs, common words, etc into consideration.

The disadvantage is this plugin is that the AI engine is only as good as you train it. If you don’t put in some initial effort to train, it don’t work well. Secondly, if you train it wrongly, you get wrong results.

Looks quite impressive, and I’m planning on implementing it for my hosted sites once I get MT set back up again.

testy.littleville.com

I’ve been having an odd problem that I’ve noticed in the past, but am just now starting to attempt to track down, in that my server keeps insisting that its domain name is ‘testy.littleville.com’ rather than ‘www.djwudi.com’. Here’s a copy of the nslookup results for djwudi.com…

Server: dsl231-041-022.sea1.dsl.speakeasy.net
Address: 216.231.41.22

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: djwudi.com
Address: 216.231.44.57

…and one for the nslookup results for the server’s IP address…

Server: dsl231-041-022.sea1.dsl.speakeasy.net
Address: 216.231.41.22

Name: testy.littleville.com
Address: 216.231.44.57

I spent some time trying to track down where that particular domain name was coming from (configuration files on my server? oddness with speakeasy.net, ZoneEdit [who handle my DNS services ], or MicroMax Information Services [who I registered my domain through ]?) with no luck until I did a whois on the littleville.com domain and got the following:

Domain Name: LITTLEVILLE.COM
Registrar: NETWORK SOLUTIONS, INC.
Whois Server: whois.networksolutions.com
Referral URL: http://www.networksolutions.com
Name Server: NS2.SPEAKEASY.NET
Name Server: NS1.SPEAKEASY.NET
Status: ACTIVE
Updated Date: 11-mar-2003
Creation Date: 23-jul-1999
Expiration Date: 23-jul-2008

Odd, as I haven’t ever dealt directly with Network Solutions. So, at a loss as to whether or not there’s anything that I can do to solve this, I’ve sent a plea for help with all of the above information to both Network Solutions and Speakeasy.net. Hopefully this gets resolved soon — it doesn’t seem to cause major issues, but it has bit me a couple times during my setup process, and I’d be much happier if my machine knew what its name was!

Update: Turns out it was a simple tweak on Speakeasy’s end:

Speakeasy controls the reverse DNS entries on all of its IP space. When an IP is reclaimed and assigned to a new customer the reverse IP is not updated to the Speakeasy standard.

I have made the needed changes to reflect your domain.

These changes will take effect and begin propagating during our next nameserver update/reload. This happens six times daily, at 11, 3 and 7 pm and am pst.

By the time I got home and found the e-mail, the change had gone through, and my server now correctly identifies itself as djwudi.com. Rock on — thanks, Speakeasy!

Slight IMAP issues

Work keeps progressing on re-creating the djwudi.com webserver. Last night’s project was setting it up as a working mailserver using sendmail and IMAP. Much progress was made, and I’m just facing one last issue that I can’t resolve, and if there’s anyone out there who might understand a bit more of this end of things than I do, assistance would be greatly appreciated.

I have sendmail and IMAP working for the most part — I can send mail from the server from the command line using the mail command, the server is receiving e-mail, and I can log into the server via IMAP using Mail.app from my G5 to check my e-mail in the account that I set up. However, I’m having no luck in sending e-mail ~~through the IMAP connection~~ from my G5. Every configuration setting I’ve tried just results in an error of one sort or another (either the server refusing connections or (null) errors after sitting and waiting for a while). At this point, I’m more or less stumped.

The steps I went through last night to get the mail side of things set up (so far) are detailed on my rebuilding djwudi.com post. If anyone could give me some pointers, I’d greatly appreciate it!

Update: With a little more work and some pointers from Phil, I got it. Rock on. Progress!

Public / Private / Secret

Triggered by a recent tech gathering that has caused a little bit of ruckus due to it’s perceived “invitation only” nature, Danny O’Brien ended up touching on a subject that I found fascinating: the difference between our “real world” conversations and the conversations we have through our websites, and some of the key differences between them.

In the real world, we have conversations in public, in private, and in secret. All three are quite separate. The public is what we say to a crowd; the private is what we chatter amongst ourselves, when free from the demands of the crowd; and the secret is what we keep from everyone but our confidant. Secrecy implies intrigue, implies you have something to hide. Being private doesn’t. You can have a private gathering, but it isn’t necessarily a secret. All these conversations have different implications, different tones.

[…]

On the net, you have public, or you have secrets. The private intermediate sphere, with its careful buffering. is shattered. E-mails are forwarded verbatim. IRC transcripts, with throwaway comments, are preserved forever. You talk to your friends online, you talk to the world.

This is why, incidentally, why people hate blogs so much. My God, people say, how can Livejournallers be so self-obsessed? Oh, Christ, is Xeni talking about LA art again? Why won’t they all shut up?

The answer why they won’t shut up is – they’re not talking to you. They’re talking in the private register of blogs, that confidential style between secret-and-public. And you found them via Google. They’re having a bad day. They’re writing for friends who are interested in their hobbies and their life. Meanwhile, you’re standing fifty yards away with a sneer, a telephoto lens and a directional microphone. Who’s obsessed now?

The first part of the article is about the tech conference, so you’ll need to scroll down about halfway to get to what I found to be the interesting section of the article.

While I hadn’t analyzed it at all, I think on some level I’ve always approached this weblog knowing that it resides in that hazy area between public and private. While it’s certainly public by virtue of being available on the ‘net for anyone who stops by or finds their way here through Google, it’s also in many ways private — it’s primarily about me, my life, and what I’m going through or thinking about in the world around me, and as such, of interest primarily only to friends or people who know me.

But because of the online mix of public and private, I’ve generally tried to find a comfortable middle ground in what I post and what subject matter I choose. While the tone of what I write here is generally of the “private”, conversational tone, there are certainly conversations I’ve had in the real world that I would be hesitant to post here — not because they’re “secret”, but because put in a “public” forum and taken out of context, they can be seen in a far different light than they’re intended. As an example, describing a friend as “the only person I know who’s so flexible he can put his foot in his mouth with his head up his ass” might be (and was) amusing to my group of friends and even to the person in question, but were that posted here, out of context and on its own, the intended humor might not be seen.

I think I’m rambling a bit now — it may be a bit soon after waking up to really dive into this. Still, Danny’s post fascinated me, and it’s worth turning over in your head for a bit.

Rebuilding djwudi.com

This is going to be my repository for keeping track of what I do to install and configure the djwudi.com server. As such, it’s likely to be filled with all sorts of geeky bits of no interest to anyone except me. Feel free to ignore it. :)

20031015 2315: Install OS X 10.2

The first bit is fairly obvious.

Installation options: all localization options, extra applications, etc. are off. I’m installing merely the core OS and the BSD subsystem. As this is now going to be a dedicated server, rather than a combination server and workstation, I don’t need the extra goodies such as iTunes, iPhoto, yadda yadda yadda.

20031015 2352: Reconfigure home network

Apartment Network

Something’s going goofy here. The G5 sees the ‘net fine, the G3 suddenly isn’t. Odd — it did last night after a fresh system install with the same settings. Going to have to track that down soon — hopefully it’ll cure itself after a reboot, as I’ve got some more installations to go. In the meantime, my current network setup is shown in the graphic.

[Update:]{.underline}

Figured out the ‘goofyness’. When entering the DNS servers, make sure you get all the numbers entered correctly. It helps.

20031016 0019: Install developer tools

All options (including the BSD SDK, which is off by default) are on.

20031016 0054: Install all necessary software updates from Apple

Installing: IE 5.2.2 Security Update, Mac OS X Update Combined 10.2.8, QuickTime 6.3, Safari 1.0, StuffIt Expander Security Update 7.0, and Java 1.4.1.

Not installing: iMovie 3.0.3, iPhoto 2.0, iPod Software 1.3, iPod Software 2.0.1, iTunes 4.0.1, or iCal 1.5.1.

20031016 0202: Fine-tune initial setup

Adjust all system prefs to taste (Energy Saver needs to be set to never go to sleep), enable file sharing, web sharing (Apache), SSH access, and FTP access, verify that the webserver is responding (it is, though nothing’s there yet), nod in satisfaction, yawn, and go to bed.

20031016 2319: Set up and configure sendmail

Most if not all of the following commands need to be executed as root. All usernames, domain names, and variables listed below as are I set them for my server. If anyone else is going through this page as a reference, your variables will need to be adjusted for your system.

  1. Start sendmail automatically at system boot^1^.
    • Edit /etc/hostconfig: change MAILSERVER=-NO- to MAILSERVER=-YES- and set HOSTNAME=-AUTOMATIC- to HOSTNAME=djwudi.com
  2. Make sendmail play nice with Mac OS X’s permissions^2^.
    • cp /usr/share/sendmail/conf/cf/generic-darwin.mc /etc/mail/config.mc

    • Create the following script, save as /etc/mail/update, and make it executable (chmod g+x /etc/mail/update or chmod 654 /etc/mail/update):

      #! /bin/sh
      
      if [ /etc/mail/config.mc -nt /etc/mail/sendmail.cf ]
      then
          echo Regenerating sendmail.cf
          m4 /usr/share/sendmail/conf/m4/cf.m4 /etc/mail/config.mc > /tmp/sendmail.cf
          mv /etc/mail/sendmail.cf /etc/mail/sendmail.cf.old
          mv /tmp/sendmail.cf /etc/mail/sendmail.cf
          /System/Library/StartupItems/Sendmail/Sendmail restart
      fi
      
    • Edit /etc/mail/config.mc and add the following line just after define(PROCMAIL</code>&hellip;: <ul> <li><code>define(confDONT_BLAME_SENDMAIL’, `GroupWritableDirPathSafe’)

    {=html}
    <!-- -->

  3. Run the update script:
    • ./update
  4. Tweak netinfo per Apple’s suggestions^2^.

    • niutil -create . /locations/sendmail
    • niutil -createprop . /locations/sendmail sendmail.cf /etc/mail/sendmail.cf
  5. Define hostnames to accept incoming e-mail for^1^:

  6. Edit /etc/mail/local-host-names and add:

    djwudi.comgeekmuffin.comhanscomfamily.com

      </li>
      <li>Restart sendmail:
        <ul>
          <li><code>ps -ax | grep sendmail</code></li>
          <li><code>kill -HUP xxx</code> (where <em>xxx</em> is the process ID of whichever sendmail process ends with <code>-q1h</code>)</li>
        </ul>
      </li>
    </ul>
    
  7. Set e-mail aliases^1^.

  8. Start NetInfo Manager.

  9. Unlock it.

  10. Click on / > Aliases.

  11. Create a new folder (leftmost button or, in the menus, Directory > New Subdirectory).

  12. Rename the new directory webmaster.

  13. Insert a new property (in the menus, Directory > New Property).

  14. Download and build the IMAP server^1^.

    • curl ftp://ftp.cac.washington.edu/imap/imap.tar.Z > imap.tar.Z
    • uncompress imap.tar.Z
    • tar xf imap.tar
    • cd imap-2002e/
    • make osx SSLTYPE=nopwd SSLDIR=/usr SSLCERTS=/etc/sslcerts
    • mkdir -p /usr/local/bin
    • cp imapd/imapd /usr/local/bin/imapd
  15. Configure the IMAP server^1^.
    • Set up the security certificate:
      • mkdir -p /etc/sslcerts
      • openssl req -new -x509 -nodes -out /etc/sslcerts/imapd.pem -keyout /etc/sslcerts/imapd.pem -days 3650
      • Follow the prompts and insert the correct information when required.
    • Set OS X to answer to IMAP requests over SSL port 993.
      • Edit the /etc/inetd.conf file and add the following line at the end of the file:
      • imaps stream tcp nowait root /usr/libexec/tcpd /usr/local/bin/imapd
      • Restart the inetd daemon:
        • ps -ax | grep inetd
        • kill -HUP xxx (where xxx is the process id of inetd)

At this point, sendmail works for sending messages from the server, and I can log into the IMAP server and check my messages using Mail.app on my G5. Unfortunately, I can’t figure out how to send mail from a machine other than the server — any settings I use result in errors of one sort or another. For now, I’m going to stick with what I have, and come back to tackling IMAP at another day.

20031017 1039: Continue to configure mail services

  1. Allow djwudi.com to catch mis-addressed email^2^.
    • Edit /etc/mail/config.mc and add the following line just after where we added ‘DONT_BLAME_SENDMAIL’ earlier:
    • define(LUSER_RELAY',local:djwudi’)
    • Rebuild and restart using the update script (./update)
  2. Allow relaying from trusted hosts^2^.
    • Edit /etc/mail/access to include my G5 by adding the following lines:
      • 216.231.44.207 RELAY
      • dsl231-041-022.sea1.dsl.speakeasy.net RELAY
    • Compile for use with sendmail:
      • makemap hash /etc/mail/access < /etc/mail/access

And that solved my problem from last night where I couldn’t send mail from my G5. Rock on — I’m learning things bit by bit. Fun!

20031017 2137: Finalize tweaking sendmail (for the moment)

  1. Tweak the sendmail update script to ease work down the road^2^.

  2. Add the following two ‘if/fi’ commands to the script shown above (20031016 2319 item 2). Running the final script will then check to see if the sendmail.cf, aliases, or access files have been updated since it was last run, and if they have, it will rebuild and restart sendmail.

    if [ /etc/mail/aliases -nt /etc/mail/aliases.db ]
    then
        echo Updating aliases
        newaliases
    fi
    
    if [ /etc/mail/access -nt /etc/mail/access.db ]
    then
        echo Updating access
        makemap hash /etc/mail/access < /etc/mail/access
    fi
    
      </li>
    </ul>
    

20031017 2206: Set up user accounts.

If you don’t know how to do that without bulleted and numbered steps, you probably shouldn’t be reading the rest of this webpage. ;) In any case, there are now user accounts for myself, dad, and Kirsten on the server.

20031017 2235: Start tweaking the webserver.

  1. Enable SSI^3^.
    • Remove the # characters (uncomment) the following two lines in the /etc/httpd/httpd.conf file:
      • # AddType text/html .shtml
      • # AddHandler server-parshed .shtml
    • Find the Directory directive for /Library/Webserver/Documents and add Includes to the end of the Options line.
    • Save httpd.conf and restart Apache.
  2. Enable PHP^4^.
    • Edit the /etc/httpd/httpd.conf file and uncomment the LoadModule and AddModule lines that handle PHP.
    • Add the following two lines (I added them just underneath where we uncommented the SSI AddType lines):
      • AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
      • AddType application/x-httpd-php-source .phps
    • Save httpd.conf and restart Apache.
  3. Allow serving SSI and PHP files by default along with HTML^5^.
    • Edit /etc/httpd/httpd.conf, find the DirectoryIndex line, and add index.php and index.shtml to the end of the line. Now, when no filename is specified, Apache will default to each choice in order — first looking for index.html, then index.php, then index.shtml.
  4. Things that I’m not going to play with yet, but will come in handy later: Custom Error Pages, .htaccess information, and password protecting directories are all covered in the document referenced at footnote 5.

20031018 0013: Back up a bit and go for better upgrades!

Well, here’s a nice find. I was poking around for other good Mac OS X apache/perl/php/sql etc. resources on the ‘net, and happened across Server Logistics, who offer pre-compiled OS X .pkg installers for Apache 2 (rather than 1.3.27), PHP4 with more added extentions, Perl 5.8.0 (rather than 5.6.0), [mod_perl 1.99_07], MySQL 4.0.15, and a few other packages that I probably don’t have a need for.

So, it looks like my next step is upgrading all of those packages. At least I discovered this while I was still fairly early on in the installation and configuration process!

[Update:]{.underline}

Okay — all of the above listed software packages have been installed on the server.

20031018 0211: Install MovableType

  1. Download MovableType^6^.
  2. Install MovableType following the provided instructions^7^.

20031018 1432: Whoops

Well, during the MovableType install process, I realized that I needed the DBD::mysql perl module installed to allow MovableType to talk to the MySQL database. A few hours of playing then convinced me that the one downside to the Server Logistics MySQL package was that it used non-standard installation locations, which caused issues with getting DBD::mysql installed. I fought with it for a while, until I got to the point where it was easier to just give up.

My next approach was to remove the Server Logistics MySQL package, and replace it with another one that I’ve used in the past^8^. However, that installation apparently didn’t like some of what was left over after removing the prior installation, and it told me to kiss off. Not in so many words, of course, but that was the result.

So, just to be on the safe side, I’m starting over. OS X is re-installing (again) now, and I’ll go through everything I’ve detailed above (again). At least this time it’ll be easier, as I won’t have to muddle my way through figuring it all out again. I’ll set everything up the same way I had been, only using the MySQL package I’m more familiar with instead of the new one that caused me issues.

Ah, the joys of geekdom…

20031019 1258: Starting over again

So, I started over. Yesterday got OS X installed and updated. Today so far, I’ve installed the OS X developer tools, and set up and configured both sendmail and imapd. This all goes much faster since I thought to write it all down the first time!

Now I’m at the point where, the first time through, I started tweaking the webserver setup, only to get distracted partway through by finding the Server Logistics packages. This time, I’m going to start by installing their packages (except for the MySQL package), then install MySQL from the package I’m more familiar with, then continue on and see where things go from there.

20031019 1451: Last few installs before MovableType (I hope)

  1. Install lynx^9^.
    • The downloadable installer puts lynx in /usr/local/bin/ rather than /usr/bin/, and isn’t seen by the default shell after an installation. I solved this by creating a symbolic link to lynx (ln -s /usr/local/bin/lynx /usr/bin/lynx).
  2. Install wget^11^.
    • Same caveats as with lynx.
  3. Install ncftpget^12^.
  4. Update CPAN^10^.
    • perl -MCPAN -e shell
    • Follow the questions at the prompts. All defaults should be acceptable.
    • Once setup is done, at the CPAN prompt, type install Bundle::CPAN
    • After CPAN updates, type reload cpan
    • (Optional: at the CPAN prompt, type r to get a list of installed modules that have been updated. For any modules that you want to update, just type install [module name] to update them to the most recent versions.)
    • At the CPAN prompt, type install Bundle::DBI
    • At the CPAN prompt, type install Bundle::DBD::mysql
  5. Install Image::Magick^13^.
    • Well, that doesn’t seem to work (at least according to mt-check.cgi). Moving on…
  6. Install Fink^15^.
  7. Install NetPBM^14^.
    • Well, this is nice. The OS X binary package for Fink now comes with a GUI application for managing Fink packages called ‘Fink Commander’. Using that, installing NetPBM was a single-click operation, and I’m now installing the Fink package for Image::Magick also, to see if that works any better than my first attempt did. One way or another, I’ll have image manipulation available for MovableType!
    • Image::Magick threw a fit because I don’t have an X11 window manager installed. No biggie, I’ll just go with NetPBM.

20031019 1636: Install MovableType

  1. Download MovableType^6^.
  2. Install MovableType following the provided instructions^7^.

Footnotes/References

  1. O’Reilly Network: Setting up a Site Server with Jaguar
  2. O’Reilly Network: Configuring sendmail on Jaguar
  3. O’Reilly Network: Apache Web Serving with Jaguar, Part 2
  4. O’Reilly Network: Apache Web Serving with Jaguar, Part 3
  5. O’Reilly Network: Apache Web Serving with Jaguar, Part 4
  6. MovableType.org: Download
  7. mtinstall – Installing MovableType
  8. Marc Liyanage – Software – Mac OS X Packages – MySQL
  9. Lynx text based web browser
  10. Installing Perl 5.8 on Jaguar (scroll down to ‘Testing Your Installation with CPAN’)
  11. Apple – Downloads – Unix & Open Source – wget 1.8.1
  12. NcFTP Software: Download
  13. Marc Liyanage – Software – Mac OS X Packages
  14. Fink – Package Database – Package netpbm
  15. Fink – User’s Guide – Install

Mayday! Mayday!

Back in August I described my experience level as “somewhere between ‘power user’ and ‘geek’ — in other words, I know enough to be dangerous, but not enough to get paid for it.” While it was said somewhat tongue-in-cheek, it’s come through with a vengeance this week — especially the dangerous part.

What started as simply trying to install a MovableType plugin has, thanks to my own bumbling incompetence, rapidly devolved to the point where I may not be able to resurrect my server to its prior state without starting completely over from scratch. While I haven’t lost any information from any of the three sites I hosted (the sole consoling factor to any of this), I have managed to utterly and completely destroy all the various little connecting pieces of software that tied it all together.

Something in the old httpd.conf file (the configuration settings file for the Apache webserver) was causing issues after the system reinstall, to the point where CGI executables weren’t running, and Apache itself was sometimes refusing to start up. I’ve just reverted to the default httpd.conf file, and I’m going to need to go through the old and new files line-by-line, enabling features one by one, until I find whatever setting(s) is (are) causing the problems.

MySQL needs to be reinstalled. Once it’s reinstalled, I need to see if I can find the old MySQL database that MT was using, and then see if I can get the new MySQL installation to access it. If I can’t, then MT won’t be able to access any of the old posts, and we’ll have to start over from scratch there.

Perl is missing various libraries that MovableType uses. Off the top of my head, the Perl -> MySQL bridge that allowed MT to read the MySQL database that stored all the weblog entries for six (?) weblogs strewn across the three sites; and the image processing libraries that allowed MT and the Gallery photo album software on the hanscomfamily.com site to automatically generate thumbnails for uploaded images. There are probably more missing too that I just haven’t run across yet.

In other words, to borrow an old military acronym, everything is currently FUBAR.

What I really want to do right now is call in “sick” to work so I can dedicate the day to working on the system. Unfortunately, neither my bank account nor my slightly overdeveloped sense of responsibility to my job will let me do that, so things are just going to have to stay the way they are for the moment.

The worst thing about all this is that it’s not just my own site. If it were only my own personal playground, than while it would certainly be frustrating and aggravating, at least that way I would only be causing issues for me. However, since I have been hosting the sites for both my family and a friend, I’ve now managed to knock them offline too. Bleah. Not a good situation.

Anyway. Whining about it here isn’t really going to do much other than let me vent my frustration for a bit. Work beckons, and then this evening, I’ll be diving back into everything to see what else I can break.