where the moon shines

While surfing and leaving comments at other blogs, I noticed that wherever there was CommentLuv, my last post was never detected. I couldn’t remember whether it started just after I moved to Dreamhost or before then. I checked the forums at Wordpress and saw similar issues reported by other bloggers using the platform. Someone said (sorry I forgot who) that it had something to do with feeds. So I moved on to check issues about feeds and true enough, I checked my own feed and found an error instead of my posts. Still through the forums at Wordpress, someone mentioned that the error seems to indicate blanks in the code. I searched for where there could possibly be blank lines but didn’t find any, because I wasn’t looking at the right place. I didn’t think to check through Feedburner then.

Tonight it just occurred to me to check Feedburner. I clicked on the Troubleshootize button and there they suggested checking the feed through Feed Validator. That’s where I got the direction to solve the problem. It specified where the blank was and which files could be containing them. I then accessed the files via FTP and found the culprit. So now my feeds are back to normal. I don’t have subscribers though But what the heck, at least I know it’s working for anyone who might want to subscribe eh?

So anyway, I hope this helps anyone out there who may be encountering the same issue I had.

(Okay, I just realized that images in my posts are not showing properly through the feeds… another problem to find a solution for… any suggestions?)

I was wondering why any photo I upload with my posts were displaying as red x’s. I had thought that it was the directory specified in the Miscellaneous settings in Wordpress, but when I checked it,  I didn’t find anything unusual and I felt that it was correct. But days went by and the issue went unresolved, I resorted to uploading my photos via FTP instead and linking to them for the posts. I just read up about it in the WP forums and realized that the path for uploads may actually be wrong! 

I just went in there to check, and yeah, the directory looks incorrect. So here’s testing if it works properly now..

Okay, the first attempt was unsuccessful. The directory I specified was wrong… Let’s change it again and see what happens…

Okay, that took about three or four tries but I finally figured it out! It was a problem with the path. 

I took this photo using Frankie. This was where my mom’s family lived for years. I’m not sure how many years exactly but when I was born until I was around 7 years old, this to me was my grandparent’s home. This was the house we first referred to as sa baba or roughly translated – downstairs, down south, or just down. We called it that way because the house we lived in was located in the same community, but geographically ‘higher.’ The St. Andrew’s Seminary Compound has a geography that I’d call rolling hills, so you’d literally go up and down. Hehe. So Papa and Lola’s place was somewhere lower than ours.

Anyway, the house still stands and a priest who teaches at the Seminary and his family lives there now. The front door was moved to the side, and the pig pens are no longer out back. Aha, I just remembered, I should have shot the avocado tree too, if it’s still there…                                              

I am back in business! I have managed to transfer my database backup, and also uploaded all of my site files – I am officially hosted by Dreamhost now! Woot woot!

I really used to not care so much for page rank and SEO rankings. But it’s been several months already and verabear.net is still PR0. There must be something wrong. I’ve seen Wordpress templates tagged as SEO friendly but I don’t really know what that means. Is there anything I can do, or a plugin I can use that will help me to raise my PR?

I am not losing sleep on this. I still blog mainly for personal reasons, earning from my blogs are only secondary. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to have bragging rights for high PR right?

Before leaving work today, I promised myself I would not turn the computer on. But I noticed that I had stray black pixels on my new header and the knowledge of it just nagged at me – I simply had to get it right.

So I cleaned it up. 

I’d also like to take this opportunity to credit Caneelia for the moon shot/image used for it.

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You know how they keep on repeating the headlines at CNN until you just about memorized them? Well, this morning, another form of China Melamine Scare was up – this time, on eggs!

How on earth could eggs get tainted with Melamine? 

It couldn’t be industrial transfer, that’s for sure. And it’s not middlemen adding melamine to up protein content (just how would they do that?). So how does it happen?!

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My mom bought the Bathroom Special of this magazine called Condo Living so we can find inspirations for our units that have been waiting for us for months.

Instead of being inspired though, I think it got me depressed! The featured spaces were just so lavishly furnished, and the surroundings so much more beautiful than what we’ve got. The faucet line alone – true steel works of art – made me cringe. They looked so modern and elegant – but most come with a heavy price tag. Oh, I’m sure there’s something there for the budget conscious too. I just can’t wait for the time when I can have the home I would grow old in, with resources enough to not worry about costs.