Early, Cold and Long

So far, this week has been one of very early starts and long journeys…

My job as a software consultant often takes me away from beloved Bradford to visit customers, providing them with training and consultancy on the implementation of the applications we provide.  This may seem glamorous to those who have not tried it – don’t get me wrong, I enjoy it – but scraping the car at 6:15 in the morning in an effort to get to Wolverhampton for 9:30 – 10:00am soon puts the whole thing in perspective.

Yesterdays experience was particularly arduous, as the snow caused all sorts of problems on the M62, stretching a 3/4 hour phase of the journey out to over 2 hours.  Oh well, at least I had plenty of thinking time.

While driving, I often think of many ideas of things to write about on the Old Heatonian, often composing whole articles in my head as I fight my way through the traffic.  Unfortunately, they are almost always forgotten by the time I come to sit here at my keyboard.  When I discussed this with Mrs Funk, she suggested I should use my dictaphone.  However, as I pointed out in no uncertain terms, the buttons are far too small, and in the interests of keeping within the law, voice activated dialling is good enough for me!

In other news, anticipation is now almost at fever pitch in the Kings, as the Lotto Bingo rolled over yet again last week, meaning the prize pot is now at an unprecedented £1040, with 16 players waiting for one number.  Most other players are waiting for 2 numbers, so it is highly likely that the prize will go tonight.  Good luck everyone, and remember your old mate Funk when buying a round at the bar if you win.  Landlord Andy recommends making sure you have paid your stake before the draw.

Finally, WordPress, the engine which drives the main functionality of the Old Heatonian, is undergoing a major upgrade this week, which I hope to apply asap, as among other things it will improve the way that comments work, as well as many other improvements in the backend (the bit I see).  Consequently, we may experience some disruption, as I fix the code that I have written to take account of the changes, so please bear with me if you notice anything strange – normal service will be resumed.

Comments

Overnight, all comments on the website appear to have disappeared…

I don’t know what has caused this, but am investigating and hope to sort this out soon.  In the meantime, please don’t post comments as the may be lost.

Thanks

Another Tentacle…

In our bid to try and be something a little more than just a ‘gossip column’, Old Heatonian proudly announces the launch of our new forum…

Lately, the comments section of the Old Heatonian has seen a large growth in usage, and the installation of the forum is meant to reflect that, giving a more relaxed area where anyone can join in and have their say.  It’s just an experiment for now, so it looks a bit plain, but in the coming weeks I hope to try and make it look a lot more like the Old Heatonian.  Anyone at the moment can start a new topic, but you have to register before you can do anything except look – just follow the register link at the top. If you have an icon associated with your email address, it will appear in the forum just as it does over here in the comments.

If this takes off, I will be looking for a couple of responsible people to help with the moderation.

Please, keep it relatively clean.  Don’t forget, your mother might be reading it too!!

Also, try to keep ‘on topic’ in the various areas.  There is a ‘General’ section for anything that doesn’t fit too well into the main Forum headings

If anyone struggles with using it, let me know.

Funk

www.oldheatonian.co.uk/forum

EDIT:  Yesterdays test highlighted an issue with the ‘auto password generation’.  Basically, if you join the forum, the software is supposed to send you a password via your registered e-mail address.  This isn’t currently happening.  To get round this, I will manually send a password to anyone who joins up.  You should then change this when you first log in.  Hopefully I will get this fixed soon. Thanks.

Using Magic

People who read/contribute to the comments on this site will notice a subtle difference in the smileys from today…

My smiley is now no longer a computer assigned little monster.  No, it’s a sheriff badge.  I can now offer the facility – for anyone who cares enough to have moaned about it in the past few weeks – to design and upload your own icon for use in the comments section of the Old Heatonian.

I’ll post some instructions up when I find the time to write them.

A Bit of Admin

Just a few notes about using Old Heatonian…

In order to keep me sane, I actively encourage comments on the site.  These serve to convince me in a way that counting hits to the site could never do, that people are reading it and at least have something to say about what I am writing about.  

However, comments systems like this are wide open to abuse by spammers, who use them to post links leading to god knows what dodgy sites.  So to combat this, I have a few rules programmed into the software about what comments are allowed.  At one time, all new comments from a new commentor would have to be moderated by me.  From then on, once you had a comment allowed, you would not have to go through the moderation queue.  When I installed the Live Comments feature (in the right hand sidebar), I relaxed this rule as it would have been unworkable and would detract from the point of it all being live.  But I do block comments which consist wholly of a link to another site, such as the one I have just allowed from semi regular commentor Dribbly.  Not because I want to keep you here, you understand, but link only comments tend to be spam comments.

Periodically, I go through all the spam just to make sure that I haven’t missed anything, but I don’t do this very often and they tend to get deleted automatically after a few days anyway.

So, just a few guidelines:

• If you want to post a link, don’t use the Live comments, as it won’t be ‘clickable’.  Comment instead on the article that inspired you
• If you post a link, write a bit about what it is, and why you posted it.  Web addresses don’t always describe what you are going to see when you click them, and if you want to share with people, it makes sense to tell them why.
• If you post a link, make sure there is only 1 link in your comment.  Multi link comments are automatically spammed.
• I also hold comments containing certain ‘anglo saxon language exerpts’ for moderation.  I’m not a prude, but I reserve the right to edit for the good of the readership.
• If your comment doesn’t appear and you have had something accepted in the past, look at the above points.  Email me at oldh[at]oldheatonian.co.uk if you feel they don’t apply.

I am trying to get some photos together from Sunday night – if anyone has photos they would like to share, email them to oldh[at]oldheatonian.co.uk, and I’ll try and get a gallery posted up here by the end of the week.

Big Moves Afoot

This weekend will see me migrate the Old Heatonian (and numerous other websites I run) finally to it’s new home…

The main codebase is currently already there, but I need to move the databases to my shiny new server, so you may notice some disruption during Saturday.  However, as ever I will try to keep this to a minimum, and during quiet times.

In other news, there is some controversy brewing over my failure to post a photo of St Paddy Day hi jinks in the Kings.  The reasons are two fold:

1. A participant has objected.
2. I haven’t had time to download the photo from my phone, resize it, ‘enhance it’ using photoshop, upload it to the site and attach suitable sarcastic commentary.

(Suggestions by a local real life fantasist in the Kings that I hand over my administration passwords so that he himself could link in the photos ‘on my behalf’ were met with the incredulous sneer that they deserved)

Apologies

Due to ‘big things being afoot’, updates will be few and far between over the next week or so…

But keep checking, because soon, all will be revealed.

Upgrade Weekend

Once again, Old Heatonian may express some connection issues for a limited period over the weekend, as I need to upgrade the website to iron out some security issues.  Apologies in advance – I’ll try and choose a quiet period…

In other news, the Fountain reopened again last night.  New lines have been installed in the downstairs bar, and work continues today on the upstairs bar.  Why not pop along and sample the wares available?  With a selection of lagers and 3 cask ales currently available, along with a selection of wines and spirits, there will be something to tickle your palate.

The Fountain would also like to announce the reinstatement of the Sunday Breakfast club, previously run by Oirish Sean.  Opening at 9.30am, a full English Breakfast is available until 11.30am, at the very reasonable rate of £3.50.  Why not do as the Plastic Paddy used to do, and finish off your early morning training session at the gym with a large, satisfying, cholesterol laden fried breakfast, with all the trimmings?  And the bar is licensed from 10am.  Result!!

Pay per view

Just wrestling with Pay Pal. Please keep checking.

Commenting on the Old Heatonian

Although commenting is rare on this site, it is always welcome.

Unfortunately, I have had to tighten the rules up a bit to avoid the huge amount of spam comments that would be posted on the site if I left it to it’s own devices:

1. Comments are held in moderation until I approve it unless you have already had a comment approved.
2. Once a comment is approved, Old Heatonian will try and save a ‘cookie’ on your computer – this will mean that the next time you leave a comment, it SHOULD appear immediately on the site.  However, if you have cookies disabled in your browser, this will not happen and you will have to wait until I approve the comment before it appears.

Your comments are always welcome and I am thick skinned enough not to edit something unless it is totally innapropriate for this forum.