With 25″ inches of snow on the ground, the skies started to clear giving way to a hint of a sunset. That’s I-66 and Washington Blvd in the background, with Virginia Hospital Center in the distance.
This picture shows the 23″ of snow currently on the ground here in Arlington, VA. That is I-66 in the background. Every once in a while there are a few cars that drive by, but it is completely snow covered.
And the kicker? It’s still coming down!
In the past several months I have taken a more active interest in my web presence, namely my websites’ placement in search results for queries of my name. My personal website and blog were previously hosted under two different domain names, and I decided to consolidate the URLs of my personal blog and personal website under one domain name. I wanted to reclaim the previous domain name for another use, and I wanted to accomplish all of this without breaking any existing inbound links to my WordPress blog posts.
With some creative thinking and using mod_rewrite, it is possible to move your blog to a new location, ensure your visitors never miss a beat, and reuse your old domain name. Here is the approach I used to move WordPress to a new domain name without breaking any existing links. For the purposes of this discussion, we will use URL1 and URL2 to stand in for our source and target URLs, respectively. I also assume you are using Apache and that your server/host supports mod_rewrite.
1. The first step is to identify the target domain name, URL2. My hosting company DreamHost has a web-based control panel that makes this part easy, and in my case, I chose to create a new subdomain of my personal website.
2. WordPress provides excellent documentation for how to move the blog itself. Just be careful not to change your permalink structure in the process.
3. You can manipulate the .htaccess file at URL1 to automatically redirect your traffic to URL2. If you have no intentions of reusing this domain, the following code in your URL1 htaccess file will simply redirect all traffic to URL2, preserving the path of the original request:
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule (.*) http://URL2/$1 [R=301,L]
However, if you are like me and you want to reuse URL1 for something else, you can do a bit of pattern matching on the requested paths to redirect only WordPress-specific pages to your new domain. I simply browsed through my own blog and noted that only a handful of paths need to be redirected. Then I created a RewriteRule for each.
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/$
# If you do not want to redirect your blog's homepage to your new domain name, comment out the next line
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://URL2/ [L,R=301]
# Redirect the permalink structure to URL2
# (assuming permalink struct: http://URL1/year/...)
RewriteRule ^2009(.*) http://URL2/2009$1 [L,R=301]
RewriteRule ^2008(.*) http://URL2/2008$1 [L,R=301]
RewriteRule ^2007(.*) http://URL2/2007$1 [L,R=301]
RewriteRule ^2006(.*) http://URL2/2006$1 [L,R=301]
RewriteRule ^2005(.*) http://URL2/2005$1 [L,R=301]
RewriteRule ^2004(.*) http://URL2/2004$1 [L,R=301]
RewriteRule ^2003(.*) http://URL2/2003$1 [L,R=301]
RewriteRule ^2002(.*) http://URL2/2002$1 [L,R=301]
RewriteRule ^2001(.*) http://URL2/2001$1 [L,R=301]
# Redirect these standard locations
RewriteRule ^category(.*) http://URL2/category$1 [L,R=301]
RewriteRule ^author(.*) http://URL2/author$1 [L,R=301]
RewriteRule ^wp-content(.*) http://URL2/wp-content$1 [L,R=301]
RewriteRule ^wp-admin(.*) http://URL2/wp-admin$1 [L,R=301]
RewriteRule ^feed(.*) http://URL2/feed$1 [L,R=301]
# Finally, redirect any Pages you may have
RewriteRule ^about(.*) http://URL2/about$1 [L,R=301]
The only catch here is that if you want to reuse URL1, you cannot duplicate any of the paths that you are redirecting because your visitors will never see that content. If you use a different permalink structure, simply adjust the regular expressions in each RewriteRule to match.
Hopefully this helps with your next WordPress move. With the magic of mod_rewrite and some creative htaccess entries, your visitors will arrive at your blog’s new location without incident and never the wiser.
Tags: domain name, htaccess, mod_rewrite, wordpress
So after dealing with a network content firewall, I return home to find the TurboTax website completely unavailable:
Screenshot from TurboTax website showing the site is unavailable
As of this writing (5:45 PM EST) the website is still down, and has been for at least three hours now. Some simple Google searches find other users seeing the same problems occurring over the past few weeks. I had planned to bang out my tax returns in an hour or so. Now it seems that I will have to wait until the site is once again available, or debate choosing a different tax preparation website.
The only thing keeping me from jumping ship this second is that my returns from last year are stored there, and that will save me a bit of time when the website becomes available again.
Update: As of 6:00 PM EST the website is back up and running. Hopefully they will be able to keep the site up while I file my returns.
Tags: free, online, outages, tax preparation, turbotax
You wouldn’t be surprised to see this message in a high school computer lab. You may even catch this at your local library. But when you see it on your own laptop while surfing the web from the waiting room of a private business, you may start to wonder. What is the responsibility of private business owners who provide free internet access to customers when it comes to content filtering?
This site is blocked by the SonicWALL Content Filter Service.
Reason for restriction: Administrative Custom List settings
I see two possible motivations for filtering content using a hardware-based firewall in the waiting room scenario. The first of those is bandwidth conservation. Certainly disallowing downloads of files exceeding a certain size and blocking non-HTTP ports would preserve bandwidth. Preventing this kind of downloading may also help stave off virus infiltration by blocking infected machines from transmitting the virus to/from other computers. And let’s be honest, nobody needs to be using BitTorrent to download/upload their favorite pirated films/songs/pictures while they sit in a waiting room or other public space.
I am less understanding of the second kind of filtering: that relating to content alone. SonicWALL firewalls, along with others in the same class, allow administrators to specify one or more keywords that are not allowed. In addition to blocking known spam/porn/treasonous websites by URL, this allows the firewall to block based solely on the keywords entered.
Life is full of dual-use words, and the mere presence of a word does not automatically go to the topic of the website. Unfortunately the text “Administrative Custom List settings” offers no detail as to the word in question, but I am left to wonder why accessing TurboTax (I’m trying to get a jump on my taxes by studying products now) is so scandalous. Businesses who filter their public internet connections should consider that doing so sends a message to customers: We don’t trust your judgment.
Tags: free, high-speed, internet, public
While checking the traffic cameras before heading out on this very snowy, icy day, I decided to browse the area traffic cameras at TrafficLand. Here is one of the cameras from this morning:
This traffic camera shot of I-66 and Route 123 near Fairfax, VA shows two strange red beams of light. Anyone know what this is? Is it the aircraft deterrent laser light? Unfortunately for now that camera is no longer available. I’ll have to keep my eye on this.
It has been a long time since I have updated this blog, and I am hoping to change that soon. The theme and layout are the process of a much-needed face lift, coming your way soon!
In the meantime, here are a few things that have kept me busy lately:
- Studying for a Private Pilot’s License
- Taking care of my head
- Campaigning for a new President
- Looking into Grad School
- Working
- Picking a new President
- Attending the Inauguration
More on each of these items soon, I promise!
Some folks find it awkward, but it certainly doesn’t have to be. The ladies don’t often have the opportunity to experience this, unless you are “one of the guys” or are in the vicinity of football (either the American or international varieties). But in case you didn’t already know, here is how to properly give a man hug:
Here is this piece about how to always look busy at work while really doing no work at all. Most of the clients I work with must have already mastered these skills very well, except that when I walk into their offices I always notice a quick action with the Alt-Tab keys or the mouse to switch windows. So whether you enjoy a thrilling game of Solitaire, or are more the type to cruise the web (maybe even update your blog?), hopefully you will find this useful:
Somehow I always join the latest revolution in television programming a few years late. Back in 2003, Josh West introduced me to 24 somewhere during season three. I loved it, proceeded to borrow the boxed sets of seasons one and two from Blockbuster and Josh, respectively, and have not missed a live episode since then.
So a few weeks ago I was perusing the selection at my local Blockbuster and saw a rack full of DVDs from the first few seasons of Lost. Being that there was nothing else jumping out at me, and remembering that Josh mentioned being a big fan and trusting his taste in television programming, I took the plunge and after a few days I had watched seasons one and two.
I was hooked, evidenced by the fact that only moments after watching the season two finale, I had already purchased a season pass from iTunes for season three (the Lost Season Three DVD set doesn’t come out until December, 2007). Within a few days I had watched the entire season, and am now waiting anxiously for the start of season four (in February)!
So for now I’m stuck watching season three again, which since I already paid iTunes for it I figure why not! I haven’t quite reached the point where I add a Lost Season 4 countdown widget to my dashboard, but you never know what might happen in the next few months!
There seems to be a trend among self-proclaimed Web 2.0 companies that when they are young, development is active. They take user feedback as gospel, and used it to shape the next revision of the web application. When the user base is happy, the developers pull all-nighters. New features and cool new “gadgets” pop up overnight, and users always leave with a fuzzy “cool” feeling. There seems to be a proven model for companies that stick to this regiment, they build up a much wider base of users and have a much more sought after application.
But then something happens, something that will cause the founders of such a company to never have to worry about money (or working) again. Some very large company comes in and buys them! Maybe the selling price is only $120m, or perhaps it’s $580m, or a staggering $1.65b. I assert the same happens in every case: the work ethic of the formerly lean and hungry company is thrown out the window, the purchaser reshapes the application to meet their needs, and the whole things is put on a shelf somewhere in a warehouse to mildew.
Although the case of Google’s acquisition of YouTube is too young for us to accurately speculate (though with recent reports of massive network failures and random video deletions, we can speculate), we instead discuss what happened when Yahoo purchased Flickr and News Corp with MySpace. Each deal (worth $37m and $580m respectively) closed very quickly, and within days assimilation into the new parent company commenced.
Here’s the point: When is the last time anyone saw a new feature added to MySpace, or read about any bugs being fixed, or existing features being tweaked or improved. And what about that server performance and the slow load times?
And now sadly, Flickr seems to be following the same course. Although initially they continued to develop the product after acquisition, it has now been months since the last major feature addition (and from what I’ve seen very few people requested or are even using that mapping functionality). A site that used to be driven by feedback, whose admins used to roam the user forums responding to queries and requests, now merely exists in status quo. There is also no hint as to their next move, because as this author speculates, they plan on making no next move.
One thing that Web 2.0 introduced, for better or worse, is this idea that the developer and the user can be connected. It seems like a fun exchange and very symbiotic in nature, the developers receive immediate feedback (and often some great feature requests), and the user population receives a great new tool that is usually highly adaptable to their needs. And then, unfortunately, big business came in set to raise the bottom line. Those developers were given maintenance duties, and the user population’s feedback goes unheard.
Update: Since I began drafting this article, it seems that Flickr has changed its “version” from Gamma to “Loves You”. It almost sounds Orwellian when a company proclaims its love for you, doesn’t it? Oh, and MySpace has added some new features, but only under intense pressure from all levels of government and from carpool lanes full of soccer moms.