Category: Activities

1. I’ve been playing around with SQLite on my linode. The database generation script runs twice as fast as when I use MySQL. But I’m having one major problem with the update script – it’s probably due to the Perl DBD::SQLite, rather than SQLite itself, but if I insert into a VARCHAR column using


my $wptInsertStmt = $conn->prepare(qq{
INSERT INTO wp_test
(id, datasource_key, tpa)
VALUES (?, ?, ?)});

$wptInsertStmt->execute('abc', '111', 555);
$wptInsertStmt->execute('1E2', '222', 123);


the ids that look like numbers get interpreted as numbers, so that ‘1E2’ gets inserted as ‘100’. Both MySQL and PostgreSQL versions of this code get it right. I suspect I’m going to have to convert the code to use bind_params, which will bloat the code and lead to problems if I get it wrong. It also appears I have to close all my prepared statements.

2. I hereby officially declare THE DEATH OF THE FLOPPY. I was using a floppy to transfer files between my development machine and my test machine. But the shutter on the floppy I was using suddenly stopped working. So I got another floppy, and after a transfer or two, I started getting I/O errors on the new floppy. So I grabbed another, and the same thing happened. That’s when I realized that when the spring sprung, it probably fell off inside one of my floppy drives and is still wreaking havoc on every floppy I used since. Unfortunately I couldn’t find my USB drive, so I had to beg one from a cow orker. Even if it is at home, I’m thinking of buying one or more new ones. They’re certainly cheap enough.

3. The LUGOR mailing list today is full of the plaintive crys for help from a guy who seems to be doing web design for a guy who doesn’t seem to have gotten the idea that a corporate web site should be about content, not craptactular toys. The first request was for information on how to put an animated train running around the borders of the web page. Evidently the boss is a dentist who has toy trains running around the office, and he thinks this would transfer well to his web site. The other, equally brain dead request was for putting automatically translated versions (ie Systrans or Babelfish, not human translated) of all of his web site up and automatically directing people from those countries to the “translated’ version. Can you imagine what a great image you’d give to people in non-English speaking countries subjecting them to Babelfish versions? Especially since you’d be automatically redirecting them there, even if they spoke English. I told him to look at Engrish.com and imagine people all over the world submitting his site to the local equivalent of that site.