If anyone reads this, I'm still here!
Real life takes over sometimes!

I managed to set up Perl on my webserver and get that working, mainly just to see if I could get some of the scripts that I used on the old version of the site (many years ago) working on my server. They duly did after getting Internal Server errors because I hadn't changed the 'shebang' line that tells the script where to find the Perl executable.
My printer I bought way back in 2000 died last month and I now have another which I need to install soon.
I have been sorting out the MySQL queries for the admin part of this site too, and just need to write the php part for it. Its gonna work a bit like wordpress or blogger's admin, displaying a page of 10 or so posts with the option to edit or delete them.

The last couple of days have been spent sorting out various old web pages I have created over the years. The problem is, they are all over the drive in different directories. So I am putting them in to the main directory of the webserver. I think I still have some work to go to get them completely organised.
I also managed to get the old version of the site which uses server side includes, to run on the server. For some reason i have never been able to get this to work before, despite it not being that difficult to set up.
I've added changed the calender slightly to the title tag for the link to any posts contains the date and how many posts were done on that day. I had to get get my MySQL book out to figure how to change the query for that one.
The next step is to get the haloscan comments into the database, but regular expressions are a right pain in the jacksie. I use a program called Regex Buddy to try and create my regexes because they are difficult to do. Even using that I still cant manage to fully understand them.

This blog now contains a nifty little php calender I have written, just like wordpress.
If a day in the month has one or more posts, that date shows up in bold with a hyperlink on it to take you to that days posts. Only it doesnt... yet..It just takes you to the posts for that month. But I am working on that bit.
I need to work on the blog selector as well, maybe convert the past posts to html links as I have lost what ranking I had on Google. I was on the first page at one point!!!!

Yet another blatent abuse of copyright thinly disguised as a humourous celebrity lookalike.

Its bat-biting Brummie Ozzy Osbourne and a woman from the XAMPP website (XAMPP is similar to Wampserve).
On the subject of Ozzy, this is funny!

Other news, well, I've stopped using the Norton/Zone alarm combo i have used for yonks now, because Norton reduces the computer to the pace of a snail.
Also, the two are incompatible. I only found that out last year after renewing subscriptions for both. Now I'm using Kaspersky internet suite which seems good so far.

Well, xmas has come and gone, and its Feb already. I've just installed WAMPSERVER on my PC. In one fell swoop I have now got a better dev environment than I did before with Apache 2.2.6, MySQL 5.0.45, and PHP 5.2.5.
I have been using Foxserv up to now, but needed to upgrade and spent hours yesterday trying to upgrade all the individual bits. Apache 2.2.8 worked with the latest PHP release and the latest MySQL worked, but PHP couldnt talk to PHP. Rather than keep trying, I took the easy option and went for wampserver. Which appears to work... so far.
I have exported the Black Coffee database and re-imported into phpmyadmin on my machine and it works.. something that the foxserv installation didnt do :-)
Now I can start working on the blog script a bit more, and a few other bits and peices I have planned.

After feeling like crap all week, I was wondering if I should still meet up with friends down the pub or have an early night. I decided on the pub, although ended up on water after a few beers as getting pissed when your ill isn't good.
We ended up going to a night club. Now because of the smoking ban, a lot of people say clubs smell worse because there is no smoke to mask the other odours there. Well, its true. The place smelt like smelly feet and body odour combined. It was pretty gross!
And there were poor sods climbing the walls, dying for a fag. They had to queue for ages to get outside for one.
I'm just glad Im a non smoker.

That last post was #300!! Which means, since starting the original blog in 2001 and amalgamating a couple of other blogs into the database, that my blogging count is pretty lame really (roughly about 50 posts a year).
Oh, and the bowling and all that was on the sunday night.. Its too early for even a couple of beers right now!

I have a stinking cold, which is sods law as I have taken a few days of work as holiday.
But what better way to deal with a cold than a good flame war on a forum, folllowed by a game of ten pin bowling and a couple of beers, followed by rejoining the flame war, completely ripping a couple of racist idiots to bits (although, to be fair, they did a bloody good job of that themselves as their arguments were so full of holes ;-) ).

Its been a nice weekend weather wise, so I managed to get a bit done in the garden. I planted a grapevine to grow up some trellis a few years ago, and whilst pruning it back (it had seriously overgrown) I found the first crop of grapes. They still have to ripen though, as they are sour. Due to the sun and rain, the lawn has grown a lot, so I still have that to do.
Tonight, I have started on the new admin page for this site as the current one is a bit of a bodge, just designed to allow me to add posts and nothing else. The new one will allow me to edit and delete posts.
Also, thanks to Father Mack for sending me the mobile file upload scripts. Since the flood, I have suddenly got an interest in mobile blogging and will hopefully get a page to allow me to add posts and upload images from the phone. But first things first...