Yesterday, I paid my annual bill for hosting (so the site won’t be disappearing for at least a year). But I also made a sem-major change.

I used to host a site called Frustrated Artist Commune. Other than actually providing hosting and incorporating Finetto for them, I had nothing to do with it. After months of inactivity and absolutely no interest in the site from its owners, I’ve removed it. It ate a fair whack of server space and was, in effect, dead.

The other thing I’ve been thinking about is the main domain at vkps.co.uk. For months now, it’s been inactive (other than the EWN namespace, which takes a fair number of hits to this day). This site was only supposed to be a temporary measure to keep updates going while I worked on the main site. In reality, I focussed any development time on Finetto, which was then incorporated into this site. So really, I’ve just been working on this site.

Over time, Solitude has evolved into pretty much what vkps was supposed to be: a constantly updated resource, with code, film and music reviews and other essays. So what to do with the main domain? I don’t really know. Do you?

After hours of trying to get it to work online and offline simultaneously, I’ve finally managed to change the permalinks around here to something approaching respectable. They’re now in the form “/Archives/Year/Month/Day/#Title” rather than the Google-incompatible “/News/Archives?ArtID=YearMonthDayTime”. The first time I tried it (a few weeks ago), I ended up crashing one of my servers. Now that my exams are over with, I’ve had time to clear my head and solve the problem.

Why did it take so long? Well, I had to fork two very subtly different versions of .htaccess to serve up each new URI to each server. Then I had to make sure that every conceivable permalink that has been used in the past is still compatible (there are a lot of variations and it’s a non-trivial job); they all do. Then I had to change the templates and archive code to actually output the new URI. There’s more, but I won’t bore you further.

The best part, though, is that there is an even better permalink scheme on the way: providing incredibly flexible and intuitive paths (yes, it will be able to figure out any relevant crap you throw at it), while remaining completely compatible with this scheme.

Also note, the links in the main navigation are all in the URI form now, but will still work with the older paths.

Things that I found out in roughly the space of a day:

1. Bourbon creams (king among biscuits) are better the cheaper they are. A 29p packet outclasses all challengers.
2. “That is not a weed – it’s a carrot”, despite looking very weedy.
3. A friend (admittedly not an extremely close one, but a friend nonetheless) might end up homeless within a week because of another friends procastination.
4. Silent Scope Fortune Hunter might as well be a bank machine. It’s so easy to take money out in small bursts. Repeat enough times and you have a considerable wad of cash.
5. If someone says “Yes, we’ll change those account details for you before you get paid”, they really mean “This request will be binned. You’ll have to try again next month”.
6. Madeleine Stowe looks somewhat like Cate Blanchett as a blonde in Twelve Monkeys, apparently.

The rest has been removed to protect the innocent.

Yesterday, I finally had my last exam. It’s been a long few weeks, I’m tired (as has been pointed out by more than one person) and I need this break. Thankfully, I’ve got the next 3 months off university.

What will I be doing to fill time? Learning a plethora of new languages (brushing up on javascript, XUL, Python, Java, C and a few others), working on new features for this site and Finetto (particularly comments and API stuff), working (gotta get some cash) and listening to a lot of music.

Full updates return on Monday (or perhaps sunday).

Right, this will be the last Matrix post in a long time. This time some guy is trying to explain The Matrix Reloaded.

I haven’t read the whole thing yet but, despite the craziness in places, it makes a lot of sense. Worth a read.