Added GeSHi - Generic Syntax Highlighter

I added a new shortcode tag using GeSHi

You can now use the shortcode [code:lang] or [code language='lang']

For example you can use the SQL language, ([code:sql])

--
-- SQL example for GeSHi
--
 
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS foo;
CREATE TABLE foo (
  id INT(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  characters INT(11) DEFAULT '0',
  time_taken DOUBLE DEFAULT NULL,
  language_used VARCHAR(100) DEFAULT NULL,
  SOURCE text,
  time_highlighted datetime DEFAULT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY  (id)
) TYPE=MyISAM

There is a comprehensive list of languages available, but most of the basic languages are included.

9:40 PM - 2/9/2012 - comments {0} - post comment

New Blog entry at the Genesee Country Inn!

If you haven't visit my website lately, this may be a good time to do it.  Visit my BLOG Living the Dream!

12:16 AM - Wednesday, February 1, 2012 - comments {0} - post comment

Comment changes

I made some minor changes when it comes to comments

1. No URLs will be allowed in the title of the comment, (if allowed to have titles).
2. The number of URLs in the body of the comment will now be limited, (the number will vary depending on various parameters of the poster).

Let me know if you come across any issues.

10:02 PM - 1/25/2012 - comments {0} - post comment

Secure Facebook login

If you have a secure Facebook account, (I think it is a requirement now?), you can now login to facebook, (or even create a new account using Facebook).

This is the secure site, https://www.journalhome.com/, over time I will update all the links, (internal of course), to be 100% secure, I just want to make sure that everything runs fine for a while.

Visit us on our Facebook page.

8:56 PM - 1/25/2012 - comments {0} - post comment

Updated Daffi template

I finnally fixed the Daffi template, it was very outdated and, to be fair, completely broken.

It is now a bit wider and allows for most/all plugins to be entered.

Click on the image to see what it looks like.

I am still, (yes still!), working at converting some wordpress themes, this is taking a lot longer than expected, but at least the work is slowly progressing.

Let me know of you have any other templates you want me to look at.

7:23 PM - 1/24/2012 - comments {0} - post comment

Supporting anti-SOPA Blackout day

On the Tuesday 24th January 2012, the US Senate will vote on the Internet censorship bill.

Whilst it is an American law, it has far reaching repercussions for the web as a whole.

The bill will affect us all, and the way we all use websites.

7:55 PM - 1/18/2012 - comments {0} - post comment

Friday the 13th updates

Hi,

I laughed in the face of Friday the 13th and made some minor updates

New items:

1. I updated the tinyMCE editor to version 3.4.7, this is the default editor, (when no other plugins are active).
2. I updated CKEditor to version 3.6.2, you can activate that editor Dashboard > Plugins > CKEditor

Fixes:

1. Trackbacks were not working properly to say the least.
2. Minor tweaks in the background.

As usual if you see anything wrong, please give me a shout.

4:20 AM - 1/14/2012 - comments {0} - post comment

Hi Folks

Hi Folks Just to let you all know I am back on after a traumatic 12 months what with loosing my job and then dad passing away and finaly a short illness I have not had the time or effort to do much However I am back doing the things I love Walking Camping My beloved photography and soon to enrol on a family history course

09:52 - 1/10/2012 - comments {0} - post comment

Happy new year!

It is already 2012 in some parts of the world and it is slowly getting to that time where we are...

2011 was full of changes for Journalhome, I have, (and in fact I am still busy doing it), re-written a lot of of the engine.
I know it was fustrating for some of you as everything did not always work as expected... I am aware that there are still some issues with some templates.

2012 should bring some visual changes, new templates, (a-la Wordpress), finally a new front page, (this one is 7 years old I think)!

So, I hope you have a wonderful and prosperous new year, filled with all your wishes.
If you are driving, be safe on the roads!

Happy and prosperous 2012 to all!

FFMG

08h44 - 12/31/2011 - comments {0} - post comment

The $5.00 mistake

I am in the process of making various updates and, although I am trying to be as careful as possible, some errors crept in.

Last night, (UK time), users were unable to create new entries for about 4-5 hours, the editor was just not working properly anymore :(. I fixed the issue as quickly as I could.

Sorry about this, please let me know if you come across any other issues that I might have missed.

In case you are wondering about the title, I had to put about $5.00 in the swear jar last night...

12:03 PM - 12/16/2011 - comments {0} - post comment

Where did my comments go?

We often get some questions about 'disappearing' comments.

What happens is no big secret, but rather a sign that we are not relying on technology as much as people think we are. You see, we have a spam bot running in the background, constantly evaluating entries, weblogs, and comments, (and a few other things). While it catches most spam on the spot, sometime it goes into 'safe mode' and asks for the comment to be moderated rather than risking making a bad decision.

While this is happening, a notification is sent to you, informing you that there is a new comment on your blog. Been the super efficient bunch that we are, we often review comments very quickly and delete it if need be.

This means that, by the time you come to read your blog, you find nothing more than tumbleweeds.

Note that we don't judge any comments, we only remove spam comments, nothing more, nothing less any other form of comments will have to be moderated by yourself. You can go to your account and delete the comments you don't wish to see.

Also note  that a copy of the comment is sent to you, if you feel that we were wrong, we will happily restore your comment...

7:43 AM - 12/12/2011 - comments {0} - post comment

Stand up against the Internet blacklist legislation

Today, (November the 16th), the US congress is discussing some form of Internet censorship bill.

Basically they want to be able to monitor and censor the content of the Internet, (to prevent piracy and copyright infringements).
This might sound like a noble idea, but in reality, anything you blog might be scrutinised and censor under some piracy cover.

Our servers are not located in the US so we would fall out of any such bills, but we still strongly believe that no government should be able to censor the Internet!
You can read more about it here.

20h48 - 11/16/2011 - comments {0} - post comment

Network update

There were some issues with the network this morning but it seems to have resolved itself, (somewhat worrying when those problems come and go).

At one point it looked like the Yahoo search engine robot had gone a bit crazy and was flooding the site, but I am not entirely certain that this was the issue.

I will keep monitoring it to see what the issue might be.

Sorry if you experienced some down time ...

[update 20/10/2011] I am still having some issues, I have disabled the statistics for now, so they will be a bit skew for a day or two ....

9:56 AM - 10/18/2011 - comments {0} - post comment

Fall Foliage by Trolley & Train

Sunday, October 16th, 2011 (11AM - 5PM)

Enjoy the beauty of Autumn in western New York State from the window of an authentic 80-year-old electric trolley car. A diesel locomotive with two cabooses will meet the trolley each day for the continuation to the Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum. Trolleys depart every half-hour starting at 11:30, and no reservations are required.

12:47 PM - Friday, October 14, 2011 - comments {0} - post comment

Very high server load

Something is putting a load on the server.
I am not 100% sure what the issue might be, ('cause I changed nothing in the last few days).

But please bear with me while I try and sort it out, I'll update this post once it is sorted.

[edit]:I have made a couple of changes to the scripts that were causing some issues, this seems to have sorted the problem for now, but I am monitoring the situation.

[edit2] : It's been a couple of hours and all seems good now. Please let me know if you have any major issue(s).

F.

06h53 - 9/29/2011 - comments {0} - post comment

Started facebook promotion - Part 2

This is a continuation of my earlier post on Facebook promotion.

I have now stopped the promotion to take stock of the results, (and because it was costing me a lot of money). There has been some signups directly from Facebook, (I can track those), but nothing worth the amount of money spent.

I ended up spending about 50 pound, (GBP), this was my budget for this experiment, each 'clicks', (that is users that saw the adverts and came to the sign-up page), cost between 0.2p and 0.8p, (I am not entirely certain why the cost varied so much, I suspect it has to do with the time of day).
So, I ended up with about 70 'visitors' and out of those, I got 4 or 5 sign ups.

As you can well imagine this is very expensive for such a low return.

So what next?

1. I'll wait a little bit and try Google AdWords.
   
   • I'll probably wait for the Google+ plugin to be finished...
2. Probably start some kind of competition, in other words, award the 50 pound to the best post, (per months or per week).
3. Wait to see if someone else has another suggestion.

*I like number 3 but I want to give google a fair chance to see what comes of it.

As always, any suggestions are always welcome.

11h11 - 9/21/2011 - comments {1} - post comment

Started facebook promotion

I have always been curious on how to advertise journalhome, the way I see it, there are only two realistic options.
Google Adsense or Facebook, I decided to go with Facebook because it is easier to choose the location, gender and user preferences.

I have a very modest budget, so we will see what kind of results we are getting, I am aiming for 1 'real' new blogger a day.

I will update this entry from time to time, to give a bit of feedback, the ad goes 'live' in about 2 or 3 hours, (when the US wakes up) and it is already live in Europe.

If you are a Facebook user please become a fan of JournalHome :), the more people we have the better.

(Update: see the result of my tinny exeriement and what I might do next).

11h13 - 9/17/2011 - comments {0} - post comment

High Fructose Corn Syrup Vs. Pure Sugar

September 10th, 2007

High Fructose Corn Syrup Vs. Pure Sugar – Is One Worse Than The Other?

Pic from The Economist

Last week I asked readers to submit any questions that they may have, and I got a good one from Vik. Vik asked “Is “high fructose corn syrup” worse (in whatever way) than sugar?“. Great question and one that I am sure many people have asked themselves!

From what I understand, high fructose corn syrup is a bunch of corn syrups that have undergone a process to increase their fructose content, thus making them sweeter. The reason you see it in everything from soda to cookies to energy bars is that real sugar can be expensive and it is much cheaper to use HFCS as a substitute. Plus it has a longer shelf life than sugar, making it even more attractive to food manufacturers.

In soda, it has been found that by using HFCS instead of pure sugar it can make the soda 10 times richer in harmful carbonyl compounds. According to one study, carbonyl compounds are elevated in people with diabetes and are blamed for causing diabetic complications such as foot ulcers and eye and nerve damage. Another study concluded that foods with increased fructose “produced significantly higher fasting plasma triacylglycerol values than did the glucose diet in men” and “if plasma triacylglycerols are a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, then diets high in fructose may be undesirable”. Sounds good, right?

However, it’s not that sugar is good for us and HFCS is not. Both can be very damaging to our bodies, causing obesity, liver damage, heart disease, etc.. Pure sugar just happens to be a truly natural substance that has not been mixed in vats, chemically derived and played with, and used as cheap substitute in almost everything on the grocery store shelves. Everyone should limit the amount of sugar they ingest. But according to an article in SF Gate, “The body processes the fructose in high fructose corn syrup differently than it does old-fashioned cane or beet sugar, which in turn alters the way metabolic-regulating hormones function. It also forces the liver to kick more fat out into the bloodstream.” So, I guess HFCS is seen as much worse by a lot of nutritionists, but either way you look at it, ingesting as many empty calories as we all do from sugar is not good for anyone. Personally I try to stay away from the stuff. Sure, I do have the occasional Coke or whatever, but I do look at the labels of food before buying it and try to get stuff that does not have HFCS in it. It’s hard, but it can be done.

Oh, and don’t let anyone fool you into thinking that high fructose corn syrup is a “natural” substance. I know 7-Up was calling their drink “100% Natural”…but the fact is that HFCS is not natural at all because of the process it goes through to make it, along with the fact that it has at least one genetically modified enzyme in it. Don’t let the label on things tell you what is natural, you need to know the facts so you don’t fall for deceptive advertising!


From The Good Human    http://www.thegoodhuman.com/2007/09/10/high-fructose-corn-syrup-vs-pure-sugar-is-one-worse-than-the-other/

10:02 PM - Tuesday, September 6, 2011 - comments {0} - post comment

August updates

1. Entry categories were not saved properly at all.
2. Tags can now be saved in drafts.
3. I turned bad-behavior off for a while, (mainly to test speed and load times)
4. I got rid of the 'Total members that have visited us in the last 24 hours: ...', it was ugly, slowing the db, and all in all not telling us anything very interesting.
   You are welcome to go on the stats page to have a look at who has/has not visited us.
5. I upgraded the default editor to version 3.4.4
   I fixed a bug that was causing the spell checker to not work properly, (for the record, we use Google spell check).
6. I re-wrote the messages section, just to make sure it looks a little better.

 I also updated the 'lifeless', 'forced energy', and 'exotic' templates, because they were ugly... I know there are others, but I am working on them slowly.

19h55 - 9/4/2011 - comments {0} - post comment

Living the Dream has moved

Visit the Genesee Country Inn Bed and Breakfast Blog at its new location:  http://blog.geneseecountryinn.com 

10:59 PM - Monday, August 15, 2011 - comments {0} - post comment

For though All are not able to write books, all conceive themselves able to judge them. ~The Monk

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