Site Maintenance

Hey guys- it’s been over a year since Alain redid the site, so I want to do a quick and small fundraiser to send him some money for all the time and energy he has spent fixing the site and keeping us up to date. If you are so inclined, please hit the paypal jar.

Many thanks in advance.

**** UPDATE ****

AND WE ARE GOOD.

Anything you send now will be spent on hideous window treatments to piss off Suzanne or maybe this couch:

QUICK Site FundRaiserPost + Comments (52)

Folks,

Just  a head’s up – I’ll be working on the site off and on today. After the fiasco yesterday, I’m going to take calm, measured steps. This will be less dramatic as I will be doing the updates myself instead of trying to clean up a mess.

I am working with the wonderful folks from Hosting Matters to sort out some rights issues when we try to roll back changes. It is possible that the site might go down for a few minutes; this might be necessary to ferret out the lurking issues with the restore process so that it never misfires again.

Hopefully the site won’t go down, but once I update the theme files, the site will temporarily be “vanilla” until I apply our customizations. That should just be a matter of minutes except that one of the main parts of the theme seems to have changed so our normal customizations result in a blank page. Obviously this won’t do, so should you see this happen, take a deep breath and try again. I’ll have a backup copy of the file at issue ready to drop back in should something happen, but going into this with the painful lesson of yesterday should help limit the likelihood of an incident.

After my profuse thanks for their help yesterday and after I pointed out that I gave them a nice plug for their help, Hosting Matters pointed me to a great deal they offer – the Social Media Special

It’s for new customers and offers a site with unmetered resources and a free domain for the first year for $8.16 a month.  It’s a great deal, and they are a great host. When my current hosting plans wind down later this year, I’ll be moving to them as their support and expertise are fantastic, and their reliability and pricing are awesome.

So, if you’re looking to setup a new site or move off of nickel-and-dimer-hosting companies, please check out Hosting Matters.

Updates Ahead: Planned But Bumps LikelyPost + Comments (33)

‘Morning to all Juicers and a fond “have a great time” to those going to the LA Meetup later today.

I am performing a few quick updates. I have not yet fixed the Read More function but will check to see if/what the theme support folks have to say if I get a chance later.

More pressingly, valued failed-candidate Baud reported that the mobile site is/has been flaking, and someone else also reported this. I just renewed the license which had just expired, and am going to update it, WordPress itself, and a few other plugins in a few minutes.

This should all go smoothly, but should there be a hiccup or two, please say two curses at Alain, and the site will be OK. I have made some notes from the post late last week, but for anyone else, please feel free to report issues, ask for features, etc. I’m not promising to fix them all but will see what I can do over the next few days.

Here’s praying for a miracle tomorrow and that we somehow avoid the dystopian future rushing towards us all.

Quick Site Updates IncomingPost + Comments (72)

Folks,
I just fixed an issue that made some comments disappear for a user or two. And that made me want to reach out to everyone so that I can improve your Balloon Juice commenting experience.

So – when/if a comment disappears or goes into moderation, please use the contact form to send me a note and let me know:
1) Your nym
2) the time the comment was made
3) the words used
4) the email address you used with your nym for the comment

I’m finding that comments that disappear don’t really disappear – they trigger the blacklist and go into the trash. Which gets filled up with real junk and then emptied. This is triggered by keywords; some made things go to moderation, some to the trash. If you let me know what you said, I can try to fix this annoying issue.

So really, it hasn’t been FYWP some of the time, it’s been poorly-constructed blacklists to stop spam and assholes, mostly assholes.

ETA: Omnes/Steeplejack/Adam, I think I fixed the issue from yesterday but should you re-encounter it, please let me know!

Additional information: I removed sheeple last night; I just removed Watson. So both should work now. Rejoice!

Quick Tech Note Regarding CommentsPost + Comments (40)

Folks, the update hit last afternoon and it was pretty undramatic. There are likely a few issues here and there, so please use this post to report them. I will be working on other things this morning and early pm, but will check this post before I consider my work done.

There is no guarantee that I will fix everything or do what is asked, but I will see what I can do for things that make sense or are truly bad. Thanks to all for your kind words and help in identifying remaining issues.

ETA: Back button is fixed and HTML help hidden for now. I know there are a few small issues to solve on the mobile site too, but since most users access the desktop site, it’s my priority right now.

Update Done: Use This Post To Report IssuesPost + Comments (96)

Folks,
The updates are all done, and there’s still some customizations to apply and some font/design tweaks. Mostly stuff you won’t notice.

So, this post is here for you to report issues. I’ll make another post tomorrow morning to get the day crew’s answers as well.

I have addressed many of the issues reported in the previous posts, but many are not yet addressed. Some will remain unaddressed at this time.

Most importantly, due to the great help of the Hosting Matters team, we’ve now fixed the update mechanism to take care of some pesky file permission issues and built a failsafe so future updates will result in at most a 5 minute permission limbo.

Tonight/tomorrow, I hope to go back in and retro-add Adam’s National Security posts to the new Silverman on Security Quicklink category, and I hope to convert many past recipes into the new widget.

I may or may not respond tonight to comments in this post, but they will most assuredly be read and considered tomorrow!

Updates Done, Please Report Issues You EncounterPost + Comments (62)

ETA: Site was updated with the excellent help of Hosting Matters’ excellent support folks, our procedure is fixed for the next time. I’ve still lots of tweaking to do. Recipe widget coming live soon.

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I’m still puttering about trying to figure out why the Read More links don’t create the anchor like they’re supposed to, but I will be launching the updated files, new plugins, etc. shortly.

I’m using a software repository to apply changes already working on my test server, but last time I did this, there were some permission issues. If they re-occur, I will note them and will have the Hosting company fix it as that is out of my control. Their script, made after the last update/twitch, resets permissions on files, so finger-crossed, there should be no issues.

Worst case scenario, the site is wacky for five minutes.  Hopefully that won’t happen.

Once the new files are all good, and the dust settles, there should be a few welcome tweaks:

1. A recipe plugin to make using them, copying them, finding them, etc. much easier.
2. Adam has his own “Silverman on Security” section from Quicklinks.
3. Bare link issue should be solved.
4. This should mean that editing comments going into moderation is solved. If not, speak up!
5. I made the video add force HTTPS so no more security warnings about mixed content. This may break some work-arounds, so if it is an issue, make sure you’ve adjusted your filter to https
6. Fixed mobile site icons being “vertical columned”
7. Once main site updates hit, I will update the mobile sit and plugin so that will be a bit later this pm.
8. Amazon ad will be added to mobile site and I will make a few tweaks to it.
9. Blogroll opens in same window because if it forces a new window, many devices block popups. So error reports galore, not to mention bad user experience. Deal with it or shift-click to open it in a new window/tab!
10. Looking at adding CAPTCHA or such to Contact FrontPager form; we’ve been getting too much crap.
11. Arrow controls on main site – there are hovering arrow controls to jump to top/bottom and prev/next post on the main desktop site.  They are great tools, so please use them if you don’t already.
12. There are no arrow controls on the mobile site but you can us links to jump to comments, and there are visual controls for next/prev post.  The one thing missing is arrow to jump to top of screen, but for mobile devices, there are simple built in shortcuts:
    1. iOS: double-tap top of screen and it will jump to top of browser page
    2. Android: There is a simple technique. I was wrong, the technique I read about was BS. There is no jump to top outside of some apps that you can get, but I can’t recommend them as I do not know them.  Apparently you can swipe to top of window much faster in Android than iOS. I will get some solution soon for the mobile site.
13. I plan a few slight font tweaks and such, but that’s pretty much it.

Hope the changes are good to you all, but please feel free to use this post to complain, troubleshoot, etc.  I hope to push the changes about 3 Eastern. Be well.

ETA: The site is secured using HTTPS, using an SSL certificate from the Let’s Encrypt initiative. I have one Opera user reporting some errors about the certificate authority, but I am mentioning this in case anyone else gets weird certificate notifications.  We’re legit, and I suspect that the Opera version is old, or that the list of CAs that install is using is outdated but not updated.  Similar issues may occur to users of other older browser versions or OSes without recent builds. But please do report any SSL/certificate issues.

Prepare For Turbulence: Site Update Rolling Out SoonPost + Comments (52)

Folks,

I hit a snag or two (one involving the “reply” button not appearing!) and I don’t have enough free time today to get it all fixed and pushed out. Normally, I’d do it over the weekend, but with family coming into town soon, I won’t have much free time this weekend!

Thanks for your understanding.

ETA: Betty – sorry to temporarily bigfoot you, I put this in the past so as to encourage your post! :)

Site Update Postponed Until MondayPost + Comments (4)