There is a great plugin for WordPress that gives you a way to collect statistics on visitors to your site. It is all useful stuff like who is linking to you, or if someone comes directly through a search site like Google you can learn the search terms that led them to your page. You can find out how many people have visited each page and a lot more.

Every time I update or change my theme, I forget to put the required line in the theme footer.php file (or whichever has the closing </body> tag in it, if this file does not exist for a specific theme).

I did it again last week when I uploaded a theme update that wrote over my previously edited footer.php file. I forgot to put <?php wp_footer(); ?> into the file. I went a whole week with no stats and didn’t notice because I was doing other, more important things like hanging out with family and building a new web server.

Anyway, it’s back. I don’t know if anyone has been reading this blog for the last week since my daily visitors average is zero right now, but I was averaging somewhere in the 200 people per day range before, with spikes into the thousands on occasion, thanks to StumbleUpon. We’ll see if the numbers come back up.

Go ahead and laugh. I am.

I changed the location of my rss feed. If you were previously subscribed, please update your reader to look at http://matthewhelmke.net/feed instead of the previous url.

I apologize for the inconvenience.

I still have some sites housed over at GoDaddy, but I’m not sure they will last there beyond the month that I paid for. SMF and Drupal seem to be running okay over there, albeit slowly. I couldn’t get my Wordpress installations to work the way I wanted them to, so I have already moved them off.

I bought a slice of a server from Slicehost (referral link spam here) and built myself an Ubuntu server that I can configure however I want to configure it. It is a little more work (fun, though), but I think it will be well worth it.

As you can see, permalinks (aka pretty urls) are working again. It wasn’t my configuration that was causing the problem on GoDaddy’s server, as it is working perfectly here.

I’ll still use GoDaddy as my domain name registrar, as I have had a very good experience with them for that service. I would recommend them for that as well. Unless things improve with the speed of the sites I have left over there, they will likely all be moved off before the end of my paid-in-advance month is up.

This is the first time I have done a major migration of multiple sites from one web host to another. I have moved working sites from my laptop, where I like to develop and test, to a server, but I have only done that one site at a time, and only with new sites.

I just moved several domains and complete sites, each with mysql databases and tons of files. Wow, was that a lot of work. It was fun, though. For about half of the sites, which just use basic configurations, the task was easy. Three didn’t work at first, until I realized that the new host (GoDaddy) uses a different Apache configuration and mod_rewrite rules.

The troublesome sites were using “pretty urls,” or “permalinks” on WordPress, which a quick Google search revealed use rewrites that have a history of being troublesome on the new host. Well, none of my sites are monetized, and I’m not losing anything, so I disabled the feature on the sites back on the original host server, then did a new backup and database dump, and migrated them again. This time all was successful. If I get free time later, I may do further research to try to get that working again, but for now, it isn’t a big deal to me.

My friend, Jono, is asking why those of us who do so have chosen to use Ubuntu and be a part of the larger community. For me, it was a simple combination of two things. First, great software. Second, great philosophy.

The software is the easy part to explain. It works. It works well. It is open source, and there is a wonderful amount of freedom in the mix.

The philosophy is what drew me specifically to Ubuntu, rather than any other of the fabulous free/open source software distributions out there. The community code of conduct is unique in the tech and software world, and it clearly and concisely encodes a lot of my own personal thoughts. If you treat people with kindness and respect, you can accomplish far greater things, and there is little that is more compelling to outsiders than a diverse group choosing to overlook sometimes great differences to work toward common goals.

When I first tried the software, I needed help with a couple of things. I asked, and people went way out of their way to assist. I stuck around to say, “Thank you,” by doing the same for others.

I’ve created a new web site, just for fun.My wife is a high school teacher (with students ages 14-18) and the idea for the site came from some of them. They are all on a school break and won’t hear about the site until sometime in January, and I would like to give it a good workout first. If anything breaks or is buggy, I would prefer to find out now.

You are invited. The primary audience is students ages 14-20, but anyone who likes casual, clean chat and some fun flash games is welcome and invited to check out Exploding Squid (dot) Com. It won’t replace Facebook and so on, but I think it has potential for some laughs. If you are interested, stop by.

I received some stickers from Creative Commons today, and I like them very much. They have black graphics on a clear plastic circle. There is one problem. The laptop I wanted to put one on is also black.

Anyone know where I can get a plain white circle sticker with a 1 1/2 inch diameter (about 6.4 cm)?

I recently bought a new computer from System76 with Ubuntu pre-installed, because I want to support companies who are supportive of Free and Open Source Software. This was my experience.

Before I ordered the machine, I spent some time reading several pages of questions and answers from their support forum, housed at the official Ubuntu Forums. A quick disclaimer: I am an administrator for the Ubuntu Forums.

Later, I emailed their support team with several questions. They responded quickly and answered every one to my satisfaction.

I also compared configurations and prices with several other Linux pre-installed retailers such as Dell, ZaReason, Los Alamos, and R Cubed, each of whom offer products I think look good. In the end, I liked the price and performance specs of System76’s Pangolin Performance best, and decided to order it.

Of course, I was not content with the default configuration, even though it looked quite nice, so I bumped up the specs a bit. Here are the details, including the price paid.

System76 Pangolin Performance (PAN-P4) = $1,049.00
Bluetooth
Display Resolution 15.4″ WSXGA+ Super Clear Glossy LCD (1680 x 1050)
Video Card nVidia GeForce 9300M GS 256MB DDR2
Hard Drive 320 GB 7200 RPM SATA II
Hardware Warranty 1 Yr. Ltd. Warranty and Technical Support
Memory 4 GB - DDR2 800 MHz - 2 DIMMs
Operating System Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) 64 Bit Linux
Optical Drive CD-RW / DVD-RW
Processor Core 2 Duo T5800 2.0 GHz 800 MHz FSB 2 MB L2 (35 Watt)
Gigabit LAN (10/100/1000)
Wireless Intel Wi-Fi Link 5100 - 802.11A/B/G/N Up to 300 Mbps
Built-In Webcam

The computer was delayed a little. I emailed to ask what was going on and was answered within the hour with details. After a few days, I was given an apology for further delay and a free shipping upgrade to the next quicker option. That was nice, and the communication was very well appreciated.

When the system arrived, it was well packaged and everything arrived in perfect condition. All the cables and such were there. In all, the shipment included the laptop itself, with battery, an AC adapter, a telephone/modem cord, a Windows-focused manual that came from the whitebox manufacturer (Clevo, I believe), two nicely produced documentation sheets from System76 for getting things up and running and learning how to use the laptop’s features within Ubuntu, and a nifty polishing cloth for cleaning the glossy screen and shell.

The colorful sheet to the right of the picture includes a simple three step process for getting started. First, you plug the system in and turn it on. Second, once the computer boots into an OEM install of Ubuntu, you create your main user account. Third, you enjoy your system. The back side of the sheet includes instructions for installing a special driver package that System76 provides to ensure that you get the full hardware capability of your laptop. The process was quick and painless.

Here we are, up and running. I like to put clear adhesive backed plastic (that’s shelf paper, for you Americans) on either side of the touchpad on my laptops, as I have been known to wear through the finish on them in the past. This also gives me a place to put my Ubuntu business card with my contact info.

I am pleased to report that following these instructions results in a computer that “just works.” The 3D graphics, including Ubuntu’s fun Compiz visual effects, the video camera, Bluetooth, wireless internet, suspend, hibernate… In fact, everything I have tested works with no configuration needed, other than to personalize the experience! Now, I haven’t used the fingerprint reader, and have no plan to do so, so I should caution readers that I don’t know whether it works or not.

*EDIT: I just discovered that the System76 driver bundle includes everything necessary for the fingerprint reader to work, tested it, and can confirm it works beautifully. Wow!

I was concerned at first since the computer came with the 64-bit version of Ubuntu, and I have only used the 32-bit version in the past after having trouble with the 64-bit version in a much earlier release a couple years ago. I have had no problems doing anything with it that I wanted to do.

In short, I have built my own computers in the past, bought Windows computers pre-built and installed Ubuntu over or alongside that OS, and bought an Ubuntu pre-installed computer from Dell for my wife. Each method has its benefits. However, I have to say that this was the easiest and most enjoyable experience I have had.

I have used Drupal to administer sites for years. It is flexible, powerful, and relatively easy to use. The one area of Drupal where I have been weak is theming. Generally, I have used contributed themes, maybe modifying colors, logos, and other simple things.

The one or two times I felt ambitious and tried to read through the documentation in order to learn how to create my own theme from scratch, I either got distracted by life, or found myself getting tired of the search and wishing I had all of the information I needed in one place to learn how to create a theme.

This week, I have been reading a book on precisely this topic called Drupal 6 Themes.

The book has impressed me. It is well-written, using clear language, useful diagrams and figures, and a logical progression of ideas. It starts with the basics, talking about what a theme is and defining its components. Then, it moves into the details of modifying the default themes. Up to this point, I didn’t encounter anything new to me, but I was only up to chapter two.

Starting with chapter three, the book reveals and clearly describes each of the files and elements that make up a theme, using both the default PHPTemplate engine as well as other options. Later, the book teaches how to use and master this template engine to create your own custom theme, including how to create custom looks for specific pages, modules, and more.

In between the two, you learn how to download ready-made themes, contributed by the Drupal user and developer community, and modify them for personal use, knowing how and where to look for usage restrictions to avoid problems.

Finally, the book ends with some very useful appendices that show where to find every css file and what it affects, and other useful tooks and kits for developers.

This book has saved me a lot of time, and is well done. If you are responsible for a site powered by Drupal, you may find it useful as well.

I have written two books using Creative Commons licenses and contributed to two others. I also use a CC license on this blog (see the blogroll and hover over or click on the CC image for details).

I first learned about the group while reading a book by Lawrence Lessig, and was convinced. If information is not free to be disseminated and reused, it cannot be built upon and our research will begin to stagnate.

I like the idea of others being able to use and build upon my work, and I think the copyright system has gotten out of hand. Of course, I like to be paid for my work, but I will risk sacrificing a little money for the sake of information being free (and I don’t actually think I have lost any money anyway, but rather have sold more books with the CC license).

I read on Andy Oram’s blog that Creative Commons needs some help. I did something, and I hope after you see what they are all about, you will find yourself willing and able to help them as well.