July 28, 2010 | Getting P2 to Auto Update

On certain servers that do not run PHP 5.2 or higher, the Auto Update feature of the P2 WordPress theme—which was recently implemented by FrakMedia! Productions for internal communications between all its workers—does not work. A quick run-down: the P2 theme is for micro-blogging. It is basically micro-blogging meets Twitter meets web forums, on Red Bull.

Now, “auto update” means that whenever you post something it will show up automatically (using AJAX and JSON), so you do not have to refresh the browser page.

In internally testing this, FrakMedia!’s PR coordinator Jon recently pointed this out to me, and I set out to find the problem. And it has a solution, which is highlighted in this thread on WordPress’s support site. It fixes the auto update problem when it comes to posting new threads, but it doesn’t deal with updating when replies to threads are posted.

So, you only need to fix one file. That file is p2/inc/ajax.php and need to be modified thusly:

1. At line 4, add:

require (ABSPATH . WPINC . ‘/class-json.php’);

define('DOING_AJAX', true);
@header('Content-Type: text/html; charset=' . get_option('blog_charset'));
require (ABSPATH . WPINC . '/class-json.php');

2. Starting at line 207, we need to change how the JSON encode is called. Here’s the block that you’ll need to make the changes to:

nocache_headers();
echo json_encode( array(
    'numberofnewposts' => $number_of_new_posts,
    'html' => $posts_html,
    'lastposttime' => gmdate('Y-m-d H:i:s')
) );

The following highlighted lines (lines 207 and 209) are the changes that need to be made.

$json = new Services_JSON();
nocache_headers();
echo $json->encode( array(
    'numberofnewposts' => $number_of_new_posts,
    'html' => $posts_html,
    'lastposttime' => gmdate('Y-m-d H:i:s')
) );

This solves the issue with auto updating any newly started threads only, not any replies to said threads. That’s the next step.

3. At line 318, remove this line:

echo json_encode( $json_data );

And add this block of code:

$json = new Services_JSON();
nocache_headers();
echo $json->encode( $json_data );

Once you’ve saved the file and uploaded it to your server, or edited through your WordPress dashboard’s editor (Appearance -> Editor), then this problem will be fixed. Simply refresh your browser, and start making things happen.

Important Note: As with any other theme, whenever you install an update from the publisher for said theme you will be overwriting any changes you made to the code. So make sure that you modify the code again after the update to reproduce the modifications noted in this article! Do keep in mind that should the files from said update be totally recoded, the above code may or may not work as intended. (The lines may not be there or may have moved to an entirely new file, for instance, and other fun stuff like that.)

January 17, 2010 | Apart from one’s self, the enemy of humanity is progress.

As usual, if you are reading this on Facebook, please go to my blog directly as this blog entry has video embeds. Thank you.

I was scouring Youtube the other night and stumbled across a rare interview that Patrick McGoohan (the titular tour de force behind The Prisoner) did in 1977. It is in four parts that run about 40 minutes and the quality is what you’d expect from a VHS recording, but it is an interesting look not only behind-the-series itself but on McGoohan’s views of society in general.

A warning for those of you who haven’t seen The Prisoner: there are spoilers here regarding the series’ finale—actually, finale isn’t the right word to use regarding The Prisoner‘s last episode, so let’s just get that out of the way right now.

Anyway, for your consideration…

I do happen to agree with McGoohan’s assertion that progress, or what passes for progress, is the most dangerous issue that humanity faces. There are many valid points here that are worthy of debate, such as his observation that there has not yet been a weapon created by man that hasn’t been used. We already know about the ciphering of the citizenry—with everyone assigned with a number (or, in today’s world, countless numbers)—and we know of the horror of nuclear and, to a lesser extent, biological weapons. Ergo, we should all be very fearful of what is to come, unless we take care and control of our actions as a species.

You may not agree, but at least watch the above videos, and feel free to discuss as I intend on writing more on these topics in the future.

Be seeing you.

January 3, 2010 | Battlestar Connectedness

Today’s blog post was to cover my thoughts on the closing of a local bookstore. Those thoughts shall be relegated for a post tomorrow, a post that will already be written sometime shortly after I’ve posted this one.

So let’s begin. I awoke this morning to find that a core theme of mine manifested itself. I’ll give you five cubits to figure out which theme it is.

One was in the form of a private message from the Quorum, The Colonial Fleet‘s message board; I received a message from one of the kind prop replica makers there, who went out of his way to thank me for creating the Battlestar Wiki. It made my morning when I read it, if only because it is a testament to a resource that I and many, many people worked on over the past five years to create and maintain.

The second was the discovery of a very interesting fact. It is a fact that was revealed when I posted yesterday’s blog about the Battlestar schwag—Dr. Kevin Grazier was never given a copy of the Battlestar Galactica Cast & Crew Yearbook.

It is a discovery that disturbs me a bit, seeing as I had received one with thanks to my friends at NBC Universal, Propworx, and the former Battlestar production office in Vancouver. When I received my copy, I had been informed of the following: it was one of the last copies up in Vancouver not given to anyone, and that everyone who worked on the series received one. Given this information, I’m a bit distressed to just find out more than a year later that Kevin seems to have been overlooked. Honestly, my involvement on Battlestar is not to the extent of Kevin’s and, let’s be honest, he had far more to do with shaping the show than I (or anyone connected to the Wiki, really) ever did.

So before I received a copy, Kevin should have received one. That would have been logical, fair, and… look, the human factor throws all that out the airlock. Whoosh!

I’m not blaming anyone for this oversight, because these things do happen. However, since we know that the issue is present and I feel that it should be corrected, I’m going to at least open my mouth about it—if only in the hope of the right person at the right place, and at right time, becoming aware of this and having the power to fix it.

So, for those of you who read this and have any worthwhile connections at NBC Universal, please make it so that a book ships to Dr. Kevin. There might be an extra one lying around somewhere. Also, if someone is thinking of selling their copy, please strongly consider sending it to Kevin.

Let’s make this happen. Call it a late Christmas present, if you’d like. So say we all.