It’s Always Something

By Jennyjinx | Published: March 16, 2011

Helloooooo. Didja miss me?

I don’t know if you noticed yesterday, but my site was down. Like all day. I was having some serious issues. Someone at some time found an old, unused directory of mine and somehow put some code in that bad boy– which generated over 800 pages of bullshit spam.

Here’s what happened:

I went into Google Webmasters1 and was checking out my links. I’d seen a site that offered to tell me how much I’d get if I sold this site and, well, those are always fun. Then that prompted me to check back into my Webmasters panel for the first time in a long time. Anyway, I’m looking over the stats and see some crazy fucking keywords. Google thinks I talk about banks and loans and mortgages? What the fuck? So then I look around the panel. I found a shitload of internal links going to an old directory2. I go into the directory and delete the file that I thought was the issue. You know, the only file in the directory.

Don’t you know that file regenerated? ARGH! So, I go in and change the code in it, then change the name of the parent directory3. I go back in to see if the piece of shit re-regenerated and fuck me. All those files that were previously hidden from view were right there. Oh my god, there were so many of them. Select all-> delete. Then I waited and all was still gone. But wait! What if there was hidden code in another file? That’s a lot of flippin’ files.

Damn it!

I go into my phpAdmin and export my data. Except I didn’t want to export some plugin data so I uncheck it. Apparently, I also unchecked the comments, but not the comment meta data. *ahem* Oops. Anyway, I dump the database. All gone. Buh-bye, Fab Jinxed, and any bad files hidden therein. Zapped it all. As you can see, I did have backup files of the important stuff4. I didn’t save any plugins or any of the old themes, though. I happily deleted all that shit. The entire time I was wishing burning, dripping gonorrhea in that spammer’s eye.

So, I get a new install of WP and put that bad boy up. Then I go to import all the data. Damn me, I exported it in .sql format. Much hair pulling and wailing did commence. I kept getting freaking errors. Dur. Of course, they did. Because I was trying to create tables that were already there. But I wasn’t really sure what I should delete or leave or whatever. And then would WP recreate them or would that fuck up the install too? I tried a bunch of different things and then about gave up. By this time I had to get ready to go for a meeting with my new boss5 so I had to put it aside for a while. Came home in a fantabulous mood and then it hit me. The solution!

How to Import WordPress When You Messed Up and Exported a .sql file

I don’t know if this was the easiest solution, but it just popped in my head and when solutions do that– to me — that means I need to hurry up and solve that damned problem.

I created another database, imported all the tables, then one by one I moved the tables over. I deleted the tables I needed to replace in my WP database, then when into my “I so messed up” database and over they went. For those that might want an better solution than that: check a single table (wp-posts, for instance), then go into the “Operations” tab. Click “copy” data (or whatever it’s called– I can’t remember), make sure you pick “from [the current database] to [the WP one]“. Hit the go button and you’re all set! Do that for each table. Again I’m sure there’s a much easier way to do that, but this is what I managed to figure out.

There’s no help for the comments, though. They’re all gone now. Into the nether. Awww… Don’t worry, you can see how many people have commented on each post because I didn’t forget the comment meta data.

Oh! You know what else I didn’t copy over? My post and sidebar image files. Yup, just deleted them willy-nilly. Luckily for me I had a really old backup– Google cache. Hallelujah! *Doin’ a happy dance…shakin’ my butt.* Everything’s ready to go.

So, now I’m in the process of having Google take all of those files out of their index. And I reported the motherfucker that was getting paid off those links. Piece of shit had all those pages linking to each other and then had each one linking to his site– which was set up like the ones that Matt Cutts hates so bad. A bunch of crap thrown together– literally, none of it made any damned sense– and surrounded it with Google Ads. I reported it for two reasons: 1) Fuck that asshole little pubic louse and 2.) I wasn’t the only one who had hidden sites pointing to him. I checked. I’m going to be writing emails tomorrow, I think. Or not. Google will probably email them or something. Why should they believe me?

I don’t know how these buttholes got in, but I have a really good idea. And I’ll be keeping a better eye on that. I can’t believe I missed 800+ pages. What the fuck? I don’t know how long they were there, but now they’re far away.

Anyway, then I decided to play some more with MySQL. I have a local install on an external hard drive, thank you so much Xampp. I was inserting tables, editing data and trying to decipher the manual6. I get all excited when I do something that is pretty basic, but which I was too afraid to do before. So, yeah, technically I was working on a site today– it just wasn’t my theme. I did fix the pagination on the index page. That’s something, right?

  1. Remember, I’m a stat whore. [↩]
  2. I should’ve deleted that a long time ago, but for some reason I didn’t do it. I deleted the database connected to it and every other damned directory. Just not that one. [↩]
  3. These things are often tied into the file via the directory name. [↩]
  4. The theme files [↩]
  5. Information will be provided in a private post. [↩]
  6. That shit’s hilarious, you know, because my brain was fighting me the whole way. I’m pretty sure I didn’t remember anything. [↩]
Posted in Adventures of Jinxi, Meta, Oopsie | Tagged , , | 28 Comments

Cause I’m a Fangirl and I like to Play

By Jennyjinx | Published: March 11, 2011

Today I spent a lot of time looking at different plugins and code and even found some fun WordPress drama. Happily I added some code to my functions.php and fucked up my related posts majorly bad. That means I have to fix it. I like that. I like fixing my code.

So, while I was out and about I paid attention to some things on various WordPress powered blogs. I looked at their design, of course, and their functionality. Then I looked at their source code so I could suss out what kinds of plugins they might be using. I’ll confess: I’m not very good at that part1. I love Chrome’s “inspect element” function, but even this poor browser seems to get all kinds of wonky when I open way too many tabs2.

Anyway, I ran across a couple of sites that were just way bogged down. I mean one even managed to hang Firefox, with only one tab open. I was like “WTF?” But Firefox has been acting really shitty lately, so I’m chalking that experience up to that. Ok, I lied. I’m not. It stalled Chrome too. I was going to tell the blog owner, but then I got over it. Who the fuck am I? I mean, they might want their front page link to single post comments to be broken and way too many external scripts to try to load at the same time. I will advise here, though, that I know from experience that sometimes there really are too many plugins. Especially if there’s one that has even a single line of fucked up junk stuck in the code.

Ok, that’s my bit o’ wisdom for today. I’m working on getting a new theme up here and possibly working on a portfolio site3. I found out today that WP-Footnotes has been taken over and an updated version was finally added to the Codex sometime last summer. I almost lost my mind when I saw that. As I said on Twitter, I love that plugin. It’s my favorite. I’ve been using it forever and a couple of days. I think Live Comment Preview is the only plugin that I’ve been running longer. I’m addicted to footnotes, what can I say?

What? You didn’t notice?4

I did leave a comment to someone else that they should consider installing both the Footnotes and the Live Comment Preview (though LCP looks a lot better without the Gravatars enabled) because they are so bomb-diggity. Especially if you’re going to manually add footnotes5 The comment preview is cool and it’s use is apparent for most people. I had the WP-Edit Comments thing for a while, but between that Nicole chick6 and SouthJersey PUMA coming in with their drive-by/editing nonsense I had to disable that bad boy. It seems buggy on all the other blogs on which I’ve encountered it anyway.

Then I found out about Jetpack.me. It’s newly released and is absolutely fabulous. I already had most of the plugins that come bundled in it7, so I just replaced them with Jetpack. Hellz yeah. I could’ve used the ShortCode Embeds thing before, though. Like when I was busily fucking up my links and archives pages. Yes, I liked fixing them8, but c’mon! This would have been cake had I had that plugin. You probably won’t see the Twitter widget here, though. Sometimes I get Ambien drunk and then tweet and, man, that gets ugly.

Kelly asked me if I liked the “After the Deadline” feature of Jetpack. At the time I couldn’t answer. I hadn’t tried it. But I just did.

After the Dealine Screenshot

I like it. It, of course, underlines all my little idioms that I like so well. Then you click on the red line and a little box pops up to offer suggestions on how to fix your errors. While you’re doing that, you’re unable to change the text9. When you can select an option or hit the “edit text” button and go back to your work. It’s nice. I suggest to Kelly (and whoever else) to go ahead and install the Jetpack.

I should probably get around to fixing my own shit now. I need to figure out why my uploaded images are all wonky and that related posts issue isn’t just going to go away. I was having fun today though and I’ve only got until Monday for all the messing around I can handle. I just need to stop getting so damned distracted by every damned thing.

By the way, it was raining all day today and then we went under a flash flood warning. Not an hour later it started snowing and now we’re under a winter storm warning. Ohio weather is definitely never boring.

  1. I just like to pretend I like code. Woo hoo! [↩]
  2. You’d think I’d stop doing that, right? Pshaw. [↩]
  3. I have nothing to put there. I just really want to play with some jQuery. [↩]
  4. Apparently you haven’t noticed them on my whole front page and every single post for the last few years. I’m just sayin’. [↩]
  5. Which is a huge pain in the ass if you’re using inline links. [↩]
  6. Copyright thing [↩]
  7. And for some reason it touts shortlinks as a feature, but I have shortlinks on my 3.1 install. I don’t get it. [↩]
  8. Because I had to learn how to fix them. [↩]
  9. I can see me fucking that up. Big thanks to Automattic for not letting me mess up my posts. [↩]
Posted in Adventures of Jinxi, Geek Side, Meta, WordPress | Tagged , , | Comments closed

Um, excuse me? Pt. II

By Jennyjinx | Published: March 9, 2011

Updated:

Warning: This post covers more of my story during my pregnancy with Gabriel. It’s in response to people who would just love to poke holes in my narrative. I decided to give those people more material to poke. Good luck to them but they should expect that I’ll just lash out. I’ve still got a lot of anger in me about this. All I need is somewhere to point that anger. So, they can bring the snide insinuations and the underhanded questions. I’m not worried.

For my regular readers: no need to read this really. I know you care and I know you understand. This is for the benefit of the doubters. I wrote Pt. I almost 4 years ago because of some asshole. And now I’m writing this for the same reason. Imagine that.

Yesterday I wrote my first diary on Daily Kos. It was a spur of the moment thing and I didn’t even bother to proofread the damned thing1. I tweeted it and a few hours later it was on the rec list2. I expected comments from people who either didn’t agree with my decision or would decree that Gabriel was even a person. I’m used to that. It’s a hard situation to be in and it’s pretty much impossible to understand if you’ve never been in it. So, I open up my email this morning and see this:

Subject: DKos article!

Message Body:
Hey, question on your article. You state “I just asked that they induce labor so I could birth him. No.”

Then, “The only hospital I could find to help me was 85 miles away and there was no way for me to go there.”

So there was an option for you about an hours drive away to get done the procedure you wished.

Why, exactly, was going an hour away such a difficulty — something that “there was no way for” you to do? — especially given the enormity of the situation?

Just curious! [emphasis added]

I love when I get stuff like this. First, it’s written in such a way that is supposedly disguising the author’s disbelief. But there’s that little bite at the end. That word that exposes her3 true reason for sending me that email is “exactly”. Second, I’m not a dumbass. I’ve seen this kind of thing before. So, I’m going to do Pat and her buddies (because I have no doubt that she’s in the middle of a discussion about this and decided she was badass enough to ask me this question4 ) a favor by explaining– in detail — what it’s like to have no fucking money and not being able to drive 85 miles away.

I should publish my response email first:

Because I live in a rural area with no way to get there. An hour and half away (speed limit is 65 out of town, 55 in town, by the way– not including traffic in Cleveland) isn’t such a long trek when you’ve got adequate transportation. It’s the other side of the world when you don’t. Guess I could’ve hopped a horse and buggy, but they don’t allow those on the highway. The point of it is that we couldn’t do it, but the end result was the same– except with a lot more suffering. Our caregivers were aware of our financial status.

Are you curious to the cost of the cost of the procedure, too? Because insurance doesn’t cover elective abortion.

I could’ve had a Dilation & Extraction, too, because that part Akron is closer for me. But I was told– in graphic detail — what that entailed for my son. That was not an option for me. I’m sorry if that decision causes you confusion. I hope you never have to completely understand what dealing with those issues feels like.

The point is I shouldn’t have had to find a way to a hospital an hour and half away. There’s a perfectly good medical facility practically sitting in my back yard. I expected to be cared for with dignity and respect. I made a choice and was denied. The staff at the hospital was “morally opposed” to helping us. Not because they cared about my child or my own health. They didn’t give a shit about us. They didn’t give a shit about my son. That is the point.

Jennifer

Cleveland is further than an hour away. The hospital is actually an hour and half away if there’s little traffic. Minor detail, but whatever. Now I can get to Shaker Heights in an hour because now I drive like a maniac. In 2003 I didn’t have my license5, so I wasn’t driving anywhere. We also didn’t have decent transportation. There are no buses, no trains and, honestly, have you tried to pay for a taxi ride 85 miles away? But this isn’t really the point, is it? Pat doesn’t really care how I could or couldn’t get that far away (though she apparently thinks it’s right across the street. Cute, huh?). Her point really is that I wasn’t really denied the treatment if it was available 85 fucking miles away.

Update:
This response from the disbelieving Pat just landed in my email:

Oh, I don’t doubt your suffering, it sounds terrible. I was just
surprised you or your partner didn’t have a car. Or more accurately,
neither you nor your partner had and a friend, collegue, acquaintance,
or family member that had a car and could drive you there. I mean,
the service you wished to consume is offered, and there was a slight
barrier to acquiring it, I just find it hard to believe there was no
way for you to get there. You make it seem like there was zero
option, when there was.

And I also find it difficult to believe that a pregnancy with your
complications would be considered “elective” by a facility that
performs abortions. I’m just trying to understand your situation
beyond what you present as the case!

Thanks,
[emphasis mine]

You know, I’m half-tempted to go through my traffic logs and see if this person hasn’t been on my site previously. I can swear I recognize her disdainful tone from somewhere else. Here’s a lesson for those who want to learn: when someone finds something “hard to believe” and just wants “to understand”, they don’t really. That someone is adding artificial sweetner to a bold-faced lie.

I will happily argue politics with a random internet troll. I will argue whether “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” is the best television program of all time. I will not argue about what my family and I endured during my pregnancy with Gabriel. That’s not up for argument. Want to argue abortion statistics? Sure. Want to argue the validity of choosing early termination? Sure. Want to argue about the most traumatizing part of my entire life? Fuck you. Nope. Not happening. You can take your fucking disbelief and stuff it straight up your ass. Move the fuck along if you just can’t wrap your little mind around my family’s ordeal. There’s that amazing thing on your browser– up to your right — that looks amazingly similar to an “x”. Click it. Guess what? No more having to worry your little psyche over how it’s possible that there are people out there that can’t get 85 miles away from their home. Imagine that! Woo hoo!

End Update

Now, I’m going to tell you the treatment I received at the hands of my medical team after they found out my baby was terminally ill. This is a possible trigger for some. For those that care about me, it might make your head explode. I lived through this, it damaged me and it happened. Stop reading now if you feel that this could ruin your entire day.

Follow me down the rabbit hole >>

  1. As per usual with me. [↩]
  2. The community recommends it and it’s put on a list in the front page sidebar. Lots of eyeballs. [↩]
  3. I’m going with her because I feel like it. [↩]
  4. I can practically see the “Well, I’ll ask her. I’m not afraid.” Heh. [↩]
  5. Why is none of your business, thankyouverymuch. [↩]
Posted in Internet Drama, Kids, Politics, PSA, Slap Upside the Head | Tagged | Comments closed

Saying Goodbye to Gabriel

By Jennyjinx | Published: March 8, 2011

Someone wrote a diary at GOS about a mother who wasn’t allowed an early delivery of a baby with a fatal fetal diagnosis. That, of course, triggered my memories and feelings about Gabriel. So, I wrote a comment. Then someone else said that more stories like that needed to be told. So, I wrote my first ever Daily Kos diary: “And Then He Died“.

It’s part of Gabriel’s story that deals with the doctor denying me an early delivery. It’s a little graphic and I allowed my heart to enter into the story. Don’t read it if you could be triggered.

This is an issue that is more than just aborting unwanted pregnancies. This is about more than caring if a child is suffering while in the womb. This is about more than a choice to end a pregnancy.

For Danielle, and for me, this was about allowing us the choice of how we said “Good-bye”.

I’m not repeating the story here again. I’ll dig up the link for my story if you want me to. Or you can use the handy-dandy search. Or you can go over to the GOS and see what I had to say there.

Posted in Kids, PSA | Tagged , , , | Comments closed
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