general
Dec 29, 2008
Upgraded to Plone 3.1.7
Last night I bravely decided to upgrade claytron.com to the latest Plone release. Luckily I already converted it over to a buildout based install a couple months back. This was pivotol in my speedy migration effort since it allowed me to switch products in and out so effortlessly.
This site is fairly simple since I'm only using a couple add-on products. Quills is the primary product I use. The old site was running Plone 2.1.4 and Quills 1.5 RC3. I tried to go directly to 3.1.7, but the portal_migration failed. Rather than try and debug that nasty error, I decided to migrate to the latest 2.5 release first. This was a complete success!
Next, I updated the buildout with all the Plone 3 compatible versions of the products. Then changed the plone recipe to point to the latest 3.1.x release. After that, I ran the buildout and started the site back up. Now it was time to try the portal_migration again. It blew up again, but with a less painful error. Quills 1.6 and above no longer uses a custom workflow and therefore made something unhappy. All I had to do was set the weblog types back to the default Plone workflow and try again. This was a success!
Next up was the Quills migration. This is automatically run while quickinstalling Products.Quills in the portal_quickinstaller. No issues here either. There are some Quills artifacts that have to be removed by hand including the quills_tool, RPCAuth, blog archive folder and blog drafts folder. Also, I didn't like the way the beta of quills.app handled the addition of the portlets to the weblog. It's currently creating a new 'category' of portlets by interface that has no way of managing them through the Plone interface. I posted a hint on the Quills dev list on how to remove them via a debug session.
Lastly I needed to update my custom theme. I moved all my main_template customizations into custom viewlets. Any template overrides were re-integrated using z3c.jbot. Then I removed my Install.py in favor of a GenericSetup profile. That was it! Now I'm ready to upgrade to Plone 3.2 when it gets released in the not too distant future :)
Now that I'm on the Plone 3 series I was able to quickly install CacheFu via an egg. That should help my site's performance quite a bit out of the gate. I also installed the python markdown package and added the transform so I can write in plain text anywhere in Markdown, then copy paste into the site. Thanks to tomster for evangelizing it, I was sold after reading the philosophy and synopsis. This post was written in Markdown, and hopefully many more... :)
Oct 03, 2007
Here kitty kitty kitty
Cat macros are pretty damn funny. Especially when combined with other internet memes like PostSecret. I was playing around with skitch and decided to modify a cat macro to make it funnier...
Jun 28, 2007
A lost treasure
There was a little poem I wrote a couple years ago that I thought I'd lost due to a backup malfunction. While backing up some old jam session and song idea projects I happened to stumble across it.
a golden tongue not full of words after nine one may wonder why eel etch the sky get your twelfth ear through the tube rome intense hiss desertNot the greatest poem ever, but greatest title....maybe.
Jun 12, 2007
Randomly precise thoughts
I haven't blogged in a while. Time is not permitting. Went camping last weekend and tried out my new hiking boots. They kick much ass. Aircraft aluminum lacing system was an excellent idea. Listening to The Joggers right now. Good shit. Isn't cake supposed to have a rarities album out some time. I just bought a bunch of other music from eMusic and iTunes. Hopefully just as pleasing. I'm searching for a new car. My eye is on a Volvo 850 wagon. If i'm lucky a '97 T-5 with low miles and a low price will show up soon. I should upgrade this site to use Plone 3.0 (but i'm not sure if Quills is ready for that). /terminate rambling.
Oct 31, 2006
i just bought a house
The first house I stepped into is the one that I bought. Here is what it looks like:
It was completely full of junk. The basement was in utter chaos. The stench of thirty year old canning jars has removed from the property. The animal stained carpets have been lifted. It now lies bare and ready for a new awakening.
Hopefully I'll be able to move in some day. More pictures to come from the renovations that are ongoing. Right now I'm busy writing this entry on my new blackberry pearl. Google maps is the greatest invention ever.
Aug 13, 2006
I want a Nixie Clock!
I had no idea such a think existing until a few days ago when I was cruising around Flickr. I ran into a series of photos by a guy who was creating some fantastic stuff. And one of his pictures was of his Nixie Clock. It's a clock that uses special tubes that can show digits like this
It's really a beautiful thing. I have had a love affair with the tube for audio purposes and now for telling time too. I think that would look nice in my living room. Don't hesitate to head over to this site and buy me one.
Jul 18, 2006
What the hell is wrong with Pitchfork?
Pitchfork has really jumped the shark in the past year or so. Why do they waste their time to write a track review of a Paris Hilton song. They give it one and a half stars which in itself is retarded. Why give it any stars. You know it's going to be trash. I guess they are just trying to draw in a different crowd to their flash ad infested website. And this isn't an isolated incident with the Paris Hilton song.
Another example is their new love affair with Lil Wayne of all people. Here is what they have say about his 2005 effort Tha Carter II:
Wayne dabbles scatological throughout ("Dear Mr. Toilet/ I'm the shit"), sometimes even elaborately so ("You niggas small bubbles, I burp you/ I'll spit you out and have your girls slurp you")
What the hell are they smoking? They should seriously think about setting the pipe down and checking themselves into a clinic. They must have put an ad into the bubble gum pages looking for a new reviewer because of stuff like this. Again another review of trite pop bullshit and they give it one star. What is the point of this? On the same page they review a song by Rick Ross and give it three and a half stars. But you know that's a load of crap when you read the description.
Contrary to hater-instincts, we here at Pitchforkmedia Inc. don't get righteous boners every time a rapper mentions cocaine in a song (Lil Wayne excepted)
I just don't understand this infatuation with Lil Wayne. They need to hire some new Hip Hop reviewers that have a clue. But even if they are falling off they are still on top of a lot of good happenings in music. So I'll continue to visit until they start giving Paris Hilton songs three stars
Jul 02, 2006
Germans will love this...
Two of the most insanely stupid videos I've ever seen. What a tool!
Cover of 'Hooked On a Feeling'
Cover of 'Jump In My Car'
KITT shouldn't be abused like this. Bad Hoff! Bad!
Jun 25, 2006
An American in Paris
Lucie and I went in to Paris on the 21st for La Fête de la Musique. Our first stop before catching any music was Versailles. Unfortunately the place was undergoing a bit of maintenance as stated on the back of the Orientation Guide:
The public Establishment of Versailles has embarked upon extensive estoration works in the Palace and the gardens with the aim of both heritage conservation and enhancing the welcome accorded to visitors.
We apologise to visitors for any inconvenience that these works may cause.
Ok, apology accepted. As you walked in you could see the massive amount of work going on. The whole Royal Courtyard was torn up and it looked like they were doing some archaeological surveying. The outer facade was getting a face lift and the gardens were getting a hair cut. None of the fountains on the grounds were turned on which was a bit of a bummer. Inside the palace the hall of mirrors was being restored. We got to see half of it as the other half was still sealed up. That was the only work being done inside that we saw.
Next stop, Montparnasse and La Fete de la Musique. A day in France and some other european nations where there is music everywhere. In the streets, restaurants, metros and monuments. The biggest event was at La Grand Arche where a bunch of lame pop groups performed. We walked from Montparnasse to the Eiffel Tower and then to a bar nearby to watch the festivities at La Grand Arche. I think the US should participate in La Fête de la Musique too. Maybe we'll start in Fortville and work our way to the coasts!
On Thursday we went to the Louvre. We saw a lot of really cool sculptures, artifacts and paintings. This completed my viewing of the 'Axe Historique'; La Grand Arche de la Defense, L'Arc de Triomphe, Place de la Concorde and Le Louvre. It's really cool inside the glass pyramid (Napoleon Hall) where all the entrances are to the exhibits. There are some really nice looking exhibit areas too. We didn't see everything but we saw most of the important stuff. We'll have to go back and catch all the stuff we missed some other time.
Jun 19, 2006
Robotic Thoughts is no longer coming soon!
One day at work the idea came to me out of the blue. Claytron! How perfect is that. I wish I would have thought of that one sooner. My name is Clayton and adding one letter transforms me into a robot. It even fits perfectly across my knuckles Blues Brothers style.
I just looked at the whois record for claytron.com and I registered it on April 11, 2005. That seems like a long long time ago. I promptly put up v1 of the site, this image:
A crudely drawn image of a robot made in Illustrator and poorly inverted to have a black background. I've learned a lot about Photoshop and Illustrator working on this site. The first design for this blog was horrific! It was a million gradients put together with these awful dark colors. You couldn't even read the text.
What you are looking at now was the second design I came up with. It's all based off of a super simple sketch I made which basically had the ink/blood splat and the line that you see coming out of it. The rest just sort of fell into place. Like the people at the footer of the page for instance. That happened purely by accident. I got an email from iStockPhoto telling me my credits were going to expire soon. I logged on and downloaded some pics and that one worked perfectly. The boxes on the right hand side were created in about ten minutes. I was just messing around in Photoshop and it really translated well to a portlet.
It's really nice to have this site live. I've been developing what you see here for about 6 months off and on (including the redesign). It's my first blog so we'll see how up to date it stays. I've always got things to rant and/or rave about so it shouldn't be too difficult.
PEACE
Feb 20, 2006
This might be real.
what i am seeing right now looks to be an almost beta format of this being.
my hands hurt. that's how long i've been sitting here working on this site. i want to finish it really bad so that i can actually use it. i have lot's more ideas and some more styling to go.
that's it. hope it amuses you.
Jan 23, 2006
Those kids over at skinny corp
Another interesting website creation from the people who brought you threadless.
I got a couple stickers in my most recent threadless purchase as per usual. But this time there was a new sticker inside. It was for a webite called Extra Tasty. It's a pretty cool idea. You sign up and head over to your bar. Stock it up with some goods. I added whiskey, vodka, kahlua, guinness, bailey's, orange juice, pineapple juice and a few other things. Then it tells you how many drink recipes can be created with your bar. If you don't see one of your favorites or you've created something of your own you can submit a drink recipe.
The site is still in live development so it may have a few bugs here and there. Now it's time to drink!
Jan 21, 2006
i hate fascists
don't tell me how to live. why does everyone have to scape goat the smokers in this country. what about the fatties? how about firing people for being really fat instead of being a smoker. i'm sure the health risks are similar. what about the alcoholics? that can't be healthy either. i finally quit smoking again but i just don't understand the hatred towards people who smoke.
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