Posts from Wednesday, March 9th, 2005

I have two coding projects going, and both are for the moment stalled.  Maybe you can help.

The more recent of the two is WP-Gatekeeper, which is almost ready to go from RC1 to RC2 except for one tiny little problem: I upgraded my local copy of MySQL, and it blew away my WordPress database.  So I mysqldumped the database from meyerweb.com, copied it down to my hard drive, and tried to mysqlimport it.  And tried, and tried, and tried, until eventually my eyes started bleeding.  No dice.  Therefore, no possible chance of my testing the update script, which is necessary because it actually deletes tables from the 1.0b1 version of Gatekeeper.  I don’t want to put it out into the wild without making sure that it deletes the right tables, and no others.

Obviously, without a successful import of the dump file, I can’t test the script.  I’ve read the MySQL documentation, and done everything it says to do.  It fails.  I tried logical variants, in case there was something the documentation was leaving out.  No dice.  Then I tried illogical variants, including some SQL statements that included words I wouldn’t ordinarily type, let alone say out loud.  The error message is basically always the same, and it never helps.  It goes something like this:

~/mw > mysqlimport -u root meyerweb meyerweb20050309.sql.dump 
mysqlimport: Error: Table 'meyerweb.meyerweb20050309' doesn't exist,
 when using table: meyerweb20050309

Well, no kidding, geniuses; there is no table called that, because it’s the name of the dump file, not anything in the database.  And yes, when I dumped the DB from meyerweb, I did it so that it contained the CREATE and USE directives at the top of the dump file.  They don’t seem to make any difference at all.

Plus all that was after I reinstalled MySQL about seventeen times because it refused to start up even though the installation was supposed to be point-and-click.  Eventually I switched to a different, third-party install package, and it went like a charm.  Serves me right, I suppose, for assuming that the MySQL.com folks could put together an install package that actually works.  At this point, as far as I’m concerned, MySQL is the rotted corpses of the maggots that once infested the corn inside a pile of moose droppings.

Not that I’m bitter that this wasted four hours of my life or anything.

The other project is, of course, S5.  It’s currently stuck at 1.1b5, because there’s this problem in Firefox for Windows that I simply cannot figure out.  I commented on it a little over a month ago; the basic problem is that when viewing the testbed slide show in Firefox for Windows, it seems to “jiggle”, apparently from constant re-scaling of the fonts.  I can’t figure out how to stop it.

So any ideas, anyone?  At this stage, that’s pretty much the last major problem before going final.  Safari still blocks use of Page Up and Page Down when in the outline view, but that’s something I can live with.  The nervous-twitch display in Firefox for Windows isn’t acceptable in a non-beta version.

I’ll still be using S5 1.1b5 for my SXSW presentations, but that’s okay because I’ll be using Firefox for Macintosh, which doesn’t appear to suffer from the same problem.  If it does start having problems, I’ll just switch to Safari.  No big deal.

Anyway, that’s where things stand on those two projects.  Hopefully I’ll get over the roadblocks soon, and be able to get them moving again.

Okay, everyone else is doing it, so here’s my “headed to SXSW” post.  Baaaa!

I’m getting in Saturday afternoon, just in time to miss Jeffrey’s opening remarks, and will be around through Tuesday.  Early Saturday evening, I’ll be at the WaSP/WD-L/CSS-D/WSM/AIR meetup at Buffalo Billiards; the festivities kick off at 6:00pm, and no RSVP is needed, so drop on by!  It promises to be a madhouse (a MADHOUSE!) of standards and billiards.

On Sunday, I’ll be speaking from 10:00am until 11:00am on the topic of “Emergent Semantics“.  I’ve been scheduled to do a half-hour book signing at 12:45pm that same day; if it’s anything like last year, there will be a few authors sitting at a signing table at the same time.  I’m told there will be copies of Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide, Second Edition, the CSS Pocket Reference, Second Edition, and More Eric Meyer on CSS in stock, but you don’t have to buy a copy at the show to get one signed—if you already have a book of mine, bring it and I’ll gladly sign it.  Heck, bring me anyone’s book and I’ll sign it.  I’m easy.

After the signing, I’m planning to sit in on Tantek’s presentation, “The Elements of Meaningful XHTML“.  His talk and mine make a good one-two combination, so if you’ve any interest in either, you might consider checking out both.

Come Monday, I’ll be getting a late start with an appearance on the panel “Where Are The Women of Web Design“.  Before I get raked over the coals again, I’d like to point you to Molly’s post about the panel and its genesis, as well as the comments that followed (particularly this one).  Just after that panel, assuming I haven’t been burnt to a tiny crisp, the SXSW folks have me doing another book signing.  That’ll be from 4:45pm until 5:15pm.

As soon as I’m done there, I have to skedaddle over to the Red Eyed Fly for Vox Nox, an early evening of New Riders authors showing their “B” sides.  Vox Nox, which starts around 6:00pm and is scheduled to end around 8:00pm, is in many ways a sort of mini-Fray Cafe, which is appropriate… because Fray Cafe 5 is going to be held at the Red Eyed Fly on Sunday, the night before Vox Nox.  I have to admit to being a touch nervous about my part in Vox Nox, because the piece I’ve created is deeply personal and I’m not totally certain how the audience will react.  But that’s one of the interesting things about public performance, right?

Tuesday I got nothin’.  No scheduled events at all.  I can just kick back, check out sessions, hang out in the halls, and generally act like I don’t have a care in the world.  Trust me, it’s just an act, but I’ve gotten kind of good at it.  That evening I’m doing whatever, and by the next morning I’ll be gone.

So if you’re going to be in or around SXSW, come over and say “hi”.  Even if you don’t have that much interest in me personally, you should still come by, because the concentration of Web design stars, standards gurus, and forward thinkers assembling at this year’s SXSWi is frankly a wonder to behold.