Ross Goodman

Author: Ross Goodman

  • WordPress 2.7 Upgrade Woes

    As usual the WordPress upgrade was a flawless experience. It ran with no errors.
    I’d love to say that my site is working perfectly, but it’s not.
    I have this weird error where the visual editor does not work.
    If I click on the “Visual” button, then the text editing box shrinks down until you cannot see it.
    Click the HTML button, the same thing happens.
    The only thing that I can get to work is; from the user settings, disable visual editing, then the HTML editor works as expected.

    History

    I used the wp-upgrade addin to automatically upgrade, no errors, but no visual editing.
    I then did a fresh install, on the same host, using the same database, just with a different table prefix. Everything worked fine.
    I then backed up all of my files, deleted the old site, copied the new one in it’s place. I then copied the relevant folders back from my old site, wp-content.
    Same result, no visual editor.

  • Restaurant Review – Thai Lemongrass – Glasgow

    This was the last thing I imagined i would write about when I set up this site but….

    Elaine and I were out shopping in Glasgow last weekend and decided to treat ourselves to a nice meal out. We were walking past the Thai Lemon Grass and thought we would give it a go.

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  • Security – TrueCrypt – Encrypt Your Files

    I was recently asked by a customer what steps we take to secure their files. I always use TrueCrypt to encrypt all customer files. This is an overview of how you can use TrueCrypt.

    TrueCrypt gives you the ability to store information in a hidden partition that is secure from prying eyes.
    Just as importantly the software is easy to use, being almost seamless in use.
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  • Oracle Design Tool – SQL Developer Data Modelling

    On my most recent project I am again designing another data warehouse solution.

    My tool of choice for data modelling has always been CA’s ERwin DataModeler http://www.ca.com/us/products/product.aspx?ID=260

    This is great, but we run into problems when trying to reverse engineer an existing database as this means that either my laptop has to go onto the customers network; that’s never going to happen. or the customer has to buy a copy of ERWin to use on their desktop.
    My most recent customer is a dedicated Oracle customer using Database, Data Guard, RAC, Forms, OBIEE, Answers and on and on.

    The obvious choice would be Oracle Designer. I have not used this in a few years but the last time it took me two days to get it installed and configured.

    A quick search pointed me to an early adopters release of SQL Developer Data Modelling, you can find it here : http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/database/sql_developer/files/releasenotes525.htm
    Here are a few of my thoughts:

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  • The luddite is leaving the building !

    Despite my working in IT and also “enjoying” technology, our kids being typical kids and having a PC each and an unstoppable curiosity, Elaine has never shared our passion.

    Last week Elaine tore the ligaments in her left foot so has not been able to hit the shops at all and has been forced to stay at home with her feet  up. Over the space of that week she did her first Asda shop online.

    Last night, with no prompting Elaine had the laptop out and was shopping unaided !

    The coup de grace was the next question:

    How to I get the BBC iPlayer on the Wii to work again !

  • 100 Pushups – 6 Weeks To Christmas !

    It’s funny how your mind works, someone told me today that there were only six weeks until Christmas and my initial thought was of the six week challenge to do 100 consecutive pushups !

    One Hundred Pushups
    One Hundred Pushups

    I faltered previously at week fix then subsequent events have meant that I have not been in the mindset for restarting this.

    Tonight I went back and restarted at week 3, level 2 …… and failed.

  • My Latest Toy

    I treated myself to a new toy for my camera.

    DSCN0239

    Cactus Wireless Triggers

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  • OpenID

    With the latest release of the WPOpen plugin for WordPress OpenID has “started working again” for me on this site.

    I have re-enabled this functionality in case anyone needs it, I know that I prefer to log in this way !

  • Celebrating the Life of Emma Berry Goodman

    Celebrating the Life of Emma Berry Goodman

    18th April 1991 – 7th September 2008

    Emma Berry Goodman
    Emma Berry Goodman

    I’d like to thank EVERYONE for all of their gestures of kindness and support.
    It lifted my heart to see everyone at Emma’s service wearing bright colours as was her wish.
    Many people have asked for a copy of the tributes that were read during the service so I have posted them here:

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  • Crystal Xcelsius – Filtered Rows From A Filter Component

    This is really obvious with hindsight but it took me ages before “the penny dropped”.
    Most of the time I find myself using the “Filtered Rows” option on my selectors.
    The main selector that I want to use is the “Filter”, but strangely this does not have the option of filtered rows.
    What I have resorted to doing in the past is to use multiple selectors:
    A date drop down list box filters the rows from “Raw Data” sheet to the “Monthly” sheet.
    A product drop down list box filters the rows from the “Monthly” sheet to the “MonthlyProducts” sheet.
    A customer drop down list box filters the rows from the “MonthlyProducts” sheet to the “MonthlyProductsCustomers” sheet which now lists all of the sales made for that combination.
    The filter component could do that, but this component assumes that there will only be a single row in the output. As soon as you have multiple rows in your result set then you can’t use the filter component.
    Ahhh, but you can with a little lateral thinking; that’s what Xcelsius is all about.
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