I’m having this REALLY weird issue where flash content (Youtube, blog badges, etc) doesn’t display except when it is near the top/bottom of the Firefox window.
– source

This has been happening to me since I switched to the Mac. It is annoying beyond words, but it doesn’t happen on every site using Flash, and until today it wasn’t an issue on my web site (the player for Utterz audio posts is flash). My own web site not displaying 100% accurately on my own computer is utterly unacceptable. I decided I had to solve the problem and stop just putting up with it. The solution is so easy, and so far I haven’t noticed any negative consequences.

Go to about:config, set extensions.adblockplus.frameobjects to false.

Now if I could find some way to set a default post title in Wordpress, I would be a totally happy camper. The search for an easy solution to that problem is ongoing.

Just a few Livejournal related things I wanted to point out to any of my LJ friends who may not have seen them yet:

An article in C-News, a Russian IT news outlet, about the recent dropping of basic accounts.

An interview with Anton Nosik, the head of SUP’s blogging division in the original Russian and a translation I ran across. I, not speaking or reading Russian, have no idea if the English translation is accurate, but if it is, it’s pretty damning. I ran the Russian through a few translation programs, which suck historically as properly translating Russian, and the translation I linked to looks like it may be accurate … and pretty damning.

I really do my best to have nothing to do with companies I decide are unworthy of my attention, and Livejournal has been one of those companies for a while now … and it’s been getting worse. I’ve only maintained by LJ due to have good friends there and wanting to make it easy to keep up with them and for them to keep up with me, but going forward, I don’t know if I can, in good conscious, continue to use LJ at all. I guess if I lose friends over it, I lose friends over it. There just seem to be an unending stream of crappy things going on at that company, and I am beginning to feel like I want no part of it at all anymore.

One thing’s for certain: I won’t be paying them for an account anymore when my current time expires.

Registration for Just Orb is currently locked. I have been dealing with what appears to be loads of spammers registering for my site. It hasn’t done them any good, of course, because I have all manner of spam-blocking stuff that keeps the comments from getting posted, but it’s annoying all the same. I deleted a bunch of accounts today, and I am pretty sure I didn’t delete any actual human beings who actually want to read my web site. If I did, I’m sorry. Registration will be open again soon, and you really aren’t missing anything anyway. I’ve been doing all my major griping in public posts lately.

Also, I have had to remove the contact form for Ask Orbie. This is also temporary, and it’s also directly related to spammers. I’m tired of getting 100 emails a day from my web site with the subject “Ask Orbie” and not a one of them is a question. Some of the previously mentioned now-deleted memberships have email addresses matching ones used in the Ask Orbie spamming. Once again, their efforts do them no good, because the only person who sees those emails is me, and I don’t fall for spam.

Crappy spammers … always messing up good things.

I have decided that when I put up the new site redo, I am going to totally wipe the membership rolls. Anyone who is interested will just have to sign up again. I am really sorry about this, but so many people have signed up recently, and unless they comment or otherwise contact me, I can’t tell if they are even real people or not. The registration process is going to be a little different when the new site goes up too. It’s not going to be a free-for-all. I’m going to have to take a little more control of the situation and be a little more involved in who gets to read the filtered stuff and who doesn’t. Starting with a clean state sounds best, but I will be trying to transfer the memberships of those of you who I actually do know. I just don’t know if I can do it, because it may be a little complicated. I am not a database wizard, not by a long shot.

Anyway, new site will probably be up in about two months. Sooner if I get off my but about working on it.

Something has to be done about the user list at Just Orb. It’s enormous, there have been a bunch of spammers or bots signing up lately (a new exploit going on?), and as usual, one thing leads to another. So here’s what is happening at Just Orb:

I have put a fresh install of the latest Wordpress in my sandbox. I am putting in plugins and looking for new ones. The newest WP has a lot of new functionality. It’s time for a fresh upgrade of my blogging practices as well as my software.

Once I have the background functionality I want, I am going to do a complete redesign of templates and make them work with widgets. Widgets have been out a while now, and I haven’t been using them. It was too much trouble to retro-fit my themes and whatnot.

After I get the sandbox version working and looking the way I would like, I am going to back up my old install and databases at Just Orb and then … delete them and start completely fresh. Won’t that be exciting? It’s been years since I did that.

Now, I am going to try to save some of the user logins. If I recognize your name or email, I am not delete you from the database before exporting the user list. I am sure to miss some people who should not be deleted, so I will apologize in advance for anyone having to sign up again. Really, it’s not anything personal. You might be a lurker, or you might not have commented in a long time, or I know you by another user name elsewhere, so if you find you cannot log in and you should be able to, please, please do sign up again!

Obviously, this is a very long list of things to work on, so there is no way I am going to get it all done in a few days. I just wanted to give everyone advanced warning and a little heads up that there’s going to be some major updates and changes around here likely in the next few weeks.

I’m going to install a few more plugins at my sandbox, and then I have to get on with the real life part of my day, which may be long. That list just never gets shorter!

I’ve been playing around with my web site. I think nothing is broken. I’ve decided I like tweeting Twitter to make the shortest of all possible posts, no matter where I am. I have had the latest one on the sidebar for a few months now, and last week I started trying the daily-digest post of all my tweets. It catches them at an odd time, and it posts them weird, so I don’t like that. Now I am going to try having each tweet post by itself as it’s made. I don’t like the way the posts are getting titled, but I think I can live with it for now.

Heaven forbid anyone should ever have to wait longer than a few minutes to read the things that pop into my head while standing in line at the grocery store or while watching a Godzilla movie in the middle of the night!

Actually, all I am doing is a brain dump to remind myself I was having a brilliant moment, in my own opinion, of course, or to keep me from smacking whatever or whoever it is that is driving me insane. Lives have been saved by my ability to instantly tell many people how completely stupid someone is being in my vicinity! Epiphanies have been had!

Too bad you don’t get to see all the photos I take! Masterpieces every one! No kidding!!!

Well, anyway…

I’m not entirely happy with the way the tweets have been integrating into my blog (and to the locations it gets posted elsewhere), but it’ll have to do. I’m trying to tighten up the back end and get everything set, because this month I get the new Photoshop Elements, and I’d guess there will likely be a complete makeover at my web site. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

I need to do am archives dump too. It’s been way to long since I cleared everything out and started over. Maybe it’s time for that too.

But not today! Today I am going to go paint some clay faces and write on my canvas!

We have been suffering an internet outage. Well, it wasn’t and isn’t completely out. It’s just moving so slowly it might as well be non-existent. Time Warner is out working on it now. A line got broken somewhere, and all the traffic is being rerouted, which means bottlenecks. Wah!

Not that I had much to say anyway, but I do usually catch up on comments, emails, and stuff on Monday. Once it doesn’t take 15 minutes for a single page to load, I’ll be doing that.

Just wanted to let everyone know I am not sitting here dying from a migraine or something. I headed that sucker off, had a great lazy Sunday, and today, since the internet is messed up, I have been outside enjoying the sunshine.

Just to let everyone know, it’s going to take me a while to get caught up on email, blogs, comments and whatnot, and I have a few other things going on out in the real world right now, so I can’t really devote too much time every day to doing that (though I would love to sit here all day for a few days straight and get it all done). My first priority really is to make some posts to my own web site that consist of more than 120 characters or less and post some photos. Then I want to try to catch up on what all my on line friends and regulars reads have been up to. My email inbox is so full it terrifies me, but I will eventually get to that as well.

Patience may be a virtue, but I want to be caught up right now!

The last post until I go crazy enough without my computer to fire up my old one or beg some time off Lin on his, and I find I have nothing to say. Too tired and grumpy, and I need to get this computer in its box.

Just a reminder to the people who read my babbling on my web site, I have a Livejournal where I sometimes make audio posts from time to time. I may make one later today. Or not. I’m grumpy, and we have friends coming over later, and did I mention I am grumpy?

So, anyway, in case I don’t get a chance to say it later:

Happy New Year!

And here’s hoping My Precious isn’t away for too long!

I thought, since it was so cold this morning and I am therefore moving very slowly, I would spend my early morning hours trying to solve the problem of sending photo posts using MMS to my blog. It appears to be possible only if I want to jump through a thousand hoops and hack my phone. The whole process made my head hurt. Not easy enough, so maybe that won’t be happening any time soon, at least not until I am employed and earning more than $6.99 a month and can pay Lin to add web access to our phone account. Seems like a lot to spend just so I can send photos to my blog, because I can’t really imagine surfing the web on my cell phone much.

I did try to do it with the built-in AIM service on my phone, but it apparently won’t let me send photos from my phone, though you can send photos when chatting on a computer. Maybe I just don’t know how to do it. Perhaps there is some code or whatnot I need to know. Thinking about it makes my head hurt worse, so I am going to stop thinking about it for a while.

Speaking of which, if you happen to use AIM to chat and want to add me, my screen name is IMJustOrb. This is no guarantee you will ever actually hear from me, but since I have it on my phone now (free too), there is always the possibility I will find myself stuck somewhere and bored to tears and decide to open it and chat. You never know.

Karma is biting me in the ass a little at the moment as I attempt to post the story about Second Life. I am going to get it sorted out, because Karma, in this instance, owes me this one.