Monthly Archives: April 2011

Gallery 3 for photo site

I have used Gallery 1.x http://gallery.menalto.com for years on my site and it always worked well for my needs and sat inside my old PostNuke CMS.

I had tried to upgrade to Gallery 2 at some point but failed.

Now that I really do need to upgrade I have found that the Gallery 3 has been out and stable for some time, but the upgrade process requires G1 -> G2 -> G3 as there is no G1 ->G3 path.

So I am currently working on a Gallery upgrade.

Migrated my old G1 install to my dev server and modified the config so that it would run correctly.

Installed Gallery 2 and tried following the migration instructions. This included a need to Activate the URL Rewrite plugin. This gave me some grief as it would not go past the ‘configure’ option. Until I realised that I need to ‘tick’ the select box ‘Force’ in the PathInfo screen when clicking on Save. This forces the save despite the system not correctly detecting the PathInfo success.

Next I installed Gallery 3 and that is a real improvement over the convoluted process for installing in G2. They have taken the lead from WordPress with the really simple install process. Enabling a migration from G2 to G3 is running and from there I’ll be looking to start doing some themes and plugins.

The purpose is to get my toy car collection visible and start updating as it has not changed in 5 years!

Backgammon on iPhone or iPad

I am intending to review all my iPhone/iPad apps and try to get myself more productive on both. But first I need to comment on the Backgammon game I have been playing.

Trivial Technologies Backgammon via the iTunes store for the iPad and iPhone.

I’ve come to the conclusion that there is something fishy in its dice rolls. While I cannot say that it is statistically impossible for the rolls to occur, it must be statistically improbable!

The most recent case was a clear gammon game for myself with the computer hanging around on the bar and with more points sitting around than was feasible for a win. I have one back marker sitting on the #1 point for the opposition and one more remaining from the umm, (not sure how to describe this) #12 point (where we start with 5).

The only point not covered in my home area is the #6. The computer rolls a double 6 and plays it around the board to hit my two remaining markers and put me on the bar. Not even 1 “cannot move” because it was all blocked. Sheesh!

The Achievements are a bit weird though. I am certain I have won some 64 point games in Easy, Medium and Hard but still have yet to get the achievements. I got all the rest except for 50 Easy games!  Funny that I have been able achieve Winning 50 Easy Games without playing them!

Still enjoy the game!

See this game reviewed at iTunes AppStore.

 

 

 

 

Automysql Backup deleting old files

I was looking for an update to Automysqlbackup that would allow me to delete older files and keep down the disk space being used. The daily and weekly directories are rotated in version 2.5 that I have used for the last couple of years, but the monthly are retained in perpetuity.

Sourceforge has version 2.5.1-01 as the latest from 2010 which I grabbed to see what has changed.

While Mark over at his MySQL Fanboy site has also made some updates to Automysqlbackup to add some deletion options. The download link in his post is broken, but you can find his updated Automysqlbackup script in his Files area.

Now, just to be sure of what I was working with I ran up BeyondCompare (the excellent comparison tool that I have used for years) to see what Mark had done to Automysqlbackup and what the new version held.

To start Marks version is based from the July 2010 2.5.1-01 Sourceforge release and he has updated the version numbers as he added features, currently 2.5.3 released Jan 2011. Except in the script proper at line 511 where it is still v2.5.2. I think it could be added as a constant in the settings at the top of the file which would ensure consistency.

There are a few other changes he has made including directory chmod’ing of 700 to the directories that it makes. Again I’d prefer to see this, if it exists, not to be hard-coded but driven by a setting that can be modded at the top of the file like:  PERMISSIONS= ‘0700’  or 0770 as I would prefer.

Now the bit I was interested in was the retention of older files.  The new version from Sourceforge has added monthly rotation settings which are hard coded into 2.5.1-01 as 5 months.  Marks 2.5.3 provides two new constants that allow for the selection of periods other than 5 months or weeks.

In the end Marks changes dont really help me, so I am sticking with the 2.5.1-01 version for the moment. However some of the features he has added may be useful in the future so the time I spent today was not wasted.