About ABTBS

March 22, 2024 @ 03:03 pm 🔗 Post Link

Geeky, APTBT

good day...

Well Howdy there Internet People (for Beau!)

Welcome to my Blog. I have been writing to this blog (in its MANY forms) for over 20 years now... The content has bounced across many servers. I've run it from my own code or Wordpress.. Due to the many iterations of the blog, some of the content (most likely embedded graphic references) will 404. If you come across any - please let me know and I'll see if I can relink them (if they exist). Links and content was functional at the time of posting. I'm not back checking 20 years of link posts. 😛 I expect there are some 404s out there...

I live North of Toronto. In lovely Ontario, Canada 🇨🇦 with my wife, cats (Mochi, Suki Yama-san) and dogs (both Vizslas) (Mystic) and soon Edie.

Anyway, this is just a place where I bury some of my thoughts.

Yes, the title is inspired from the bandname: A Place to Bury Strangers. 🤘

current domains

...a place to bury thoughts domains: unsung.net. That's it.

current update

I gave up on Wordpress (Feb 2023) and I'm recreating the blog posts into the new format slowly. The site has been completely redesigned and recoded from scratch. I initially tried ~~GravCMS~~ and it seemed promising until it had to load 100 entries then it crapped out. Sigh. So, yeah this is all my own CMS. The conversion is being done manually...The progress will be updated below.

website updates:

July 9/2024 • Another usplash API error. Querying for Black & White photos. The query has to be one word. ?query=blackandwhite not ?query=black_and_white

June 28/2024 • Fixed error in my usplash api call. I added &count=1 (I only need one image returned not a 100) and that broke my script. Changing data.urls.regular to data[0].urls.regular fixed it. *shrug* I guess sticks everything in an array.

June 27/2024 • In a moment with complete lack of clarity and one that ever fibre of my being expects I'll regret... (eyeroll) I've added the ability to comment on posts. It works but will certainly need to be beefed up once the spam bot start hitting it. Every comment will be approved before they short. ALL spam will be deleted. I don't care if the comments remain, so if all I get is BS I'll just remove it.

June 25/2024 • The background has been changed to a random black and white image from unsplash. As the background is pulled randomly...you may get an image that looks like ass with the layout. So, I've added a New BG Image option.

June 25/2024 •Changed the main body font to Rubik after seeing it on another site. Very nice!

June 19/2024 • UPDATES COMPLETED!! The entire blog has finally been transferred into the NEW format!

June 17/2024 • Updated to Dec 2002! Only THE FINAL YEAR left! Phew! Minor change to caption and titleimg.

June 10/2024 • Tweaks to the mobile version to improve legibility. Some minor layout tweaks as well.

May 31/2024 • Error pages were using an old CSS link. This has been fixed.

May 15/2024 • Updated to December 2003. On the home stretch now! About 600 entries left. I've been doubling and tripling entries to a single page since a lot of them are now just memes or very short entries.

May 09/2024 • Changed bold from #6600ff to #7B68EE. For better contrast to the bg colour.

April 22/2024 • Busy week for Tr*mp. So memes updated since he is so easy to editorialize.

April 11/2024 • Updated to December 2004.

March 25/2024 • Added font awesome back. Not sure why I didn't earlier. Yes the free version is nerfed but there are still a lot of great icons.

March 20/2024 • Removed the text hit counter in the footer. *shrug* Google stats should be more than enough anyway...

March 12/2024 • Updated to Dec 2005. Lots of entries. Lots of updates.

Feb 28/2024 • Filled in massive month post gaps with retrospective posts. They are pretty thin posts since they are years old but... they fill in the gaps and are better than nothing.

Feb 22/2024 • UGH. The CSS colour toggle has been removed. It is driving me crazy.

Feb 20/2024 • OK. The functionality for the colour toggle seems to be working as expected now. The light theme is still being tweaked.

Feb 19/2024 • Significant changes to how CSS is loaded. CSS light/dark colour toggle temporarily removed. You may need to clear your site cookie if the display is wonky. Centralized the meta data.

Feb 14/2024 • Updated to Dec 2006. Sloooow progress now when everything is missing or 404.

Jan 29/2004 • A bunch of older posts without images have been updated with generic vector images. My primary source for vector images has been vecteezy.com. Added a meems page to store some I've come across that I found funny...

Jan 24/2024 • Changed default bullet graphic. Removed archive from nav as it is redundant and post archive is preferred anyway...

Jan 9/2024 • Updated to Dec 2008. Updates are taking longer as I'm back filling a lot of missing images. Ha, also fixed the year on these updates.

Jan 4/2024 • Fixing issues with the link rollover states not having sufficient contrast.

Jan 3/2024 • So far, the new captcha has stopped the spam. Updated the blog to display the last entry if it is a new month with no posts...

Dec 31/2023 • Getting a lot of pointless garbage spam. Added another captcha type question to the contact form. I'll just keep adding more if you cretins keep spamming!

Dec 12/2023 • Cleaned up the date formatting on this page.

Dec 12/2023 • Opened up archives and post archive pages to 2003 when the blog began. So there are a lot of empty entries since I'm working chronologically backwards updated them. Updated to Dec 2009.

Nov 28/2023 • Updated to December 2010.

Nov 13/2023 • Updated a few more links to unsung.net.

Nov 7/2023 • So it took one day to start getting spam on my contact form. ONE DAY. 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄 Google Captcha has been added.

Nov 6/2023 • Updated to Dec 2011.

Nov 6/2023 • Phew! I finally got PHPMailer configured properly! So... the contact page now has a working form. Can't wait for all the spam!

Nov 5/2023 • Created pages for the 400 and 500 series errors.

Nov 4/2023 • Added a post search feature. The site should be resolving to unsung.net with https now! 😊

Nov 4/2023 • UGH! Due to various DNS and Google verification issues....once again, APTBT's official domain is unsung.net.

Nov 2/2023 • Added the posts archive. It lists every post by year and month. Phew.

Oct 25/2023 • Updated to Dec 2012!

Oct 23/2023 • Stylied the CSS Dark/Light mode checkbox. I know! Very exciting!

Oct 20/2023 • Updated to Dec 2013.

Oct 20/2023 • Brought back the little skull favicon.

Oct 19/2023 • Added a basic light/dark css mode toggle. It stores your choice in local data - so it should keep it for every visit. I'll expand the impact of the different modes over time. It is pretty basic differences at the moment. Inspired by bdot.

Oct 19/2023 • One of the light theme background is from unsplash contributor: https://unsplash.com/@ksushlapush

Oct 17/2023 • Reoccurring backups setup.

Oct 16/2023 • Updated to December 2014!

Oct 15/2023 • The website now forces HTTPS. You're welcome.

Oct 10/2023 • Added a random post feature. May need to do a full reload (F5 / Ctrl+R / Ctrl+F5 / Cmd+R) of the site to see it.

Oct 9/2023 • Updated to November 2015. Added a crappy jotform to the Contact page. It is better than nothing. Trying to figure out why PHPMailer isn't working. Also added a bunch of visitor data capturing. ipinfo.io is a pretty incredible API.

Oct 2/2023 • Updated to November 2016.

Oct 2/2023 • OK! The main SSL cert is applied to the unsung.surfnet.ca domain. So if you want HTTPS (and who doesn't?!) use it!

Oct 2/2023 • I got an unexpected renewal notice for my DDNS domain unsung.ddns.net. Sigh. It looks like the FREE option forces a monthly renewal, so F that. I'll likely let it expire. I've set up a new domain on afraid.org > unsung.surfnet.ca - once it begins to resolve will be set as the default domain.

Sept 29/2023 • Fixed site path. Now root directory and not a subdirectory. Synology has erremoved the ability to easily host multiple domains so. Meh... Updated to May 2017.

Sept 26/2023 • Updated to December 2017.

Sept 19/2023 • Lots of minor updates. I think the monthly nav is pretty solid now. I restored one of my favourite bits of functionality. The random background from unsplash is back!

Sept 14/2023 • UGH. Found out why the two digit option for month exists. date('m'); It creates a date standard which makes creating functions easier. Now I have to fix tons of entries. All image links are broken. I tried switching the extension to php but it isn't parsed so doing something with a variable won't work. *shrug*

Sept 11/2023 • Slowly adding functionality. This is a huge undertaking. This will take A WHILE. Domain should be accessible now from unsung.net.

Sept 7/2023 • Not sure why... but Grav CMS doesn't seem to be able to handle a massive blog like this one. (it could certainly my misconfiguration or misuse but I still don't think it should operate as it did) It based was running my Synology at full RAM and my PHP was running out of memory. Does it seriously cache ALL the entries??!! I'm not even remotely close to adding all of my entries to Grav and I'm having these kind of problems. SOOO... I've decided I'll just build my own blog CMS. So far with ChatGTP helping, I think it is coming along quite remarkably. The format is very Grav inspired however, with basic html files for content with some markdown code within. So far, it is fast and effiencient and I have 100% control over everything. Maybe I should have done this in the first place. Hmmpt.

Sept 5/2023 • Porting of entries continues. Made the body font a bit bigger...(so old people like me can actually read it - sigh) Trying to figure out the href for pages outside of the blog. Pages like this one and Food. The backlog will be added once I can access it.

Sept 1/2023 • Ahh... after years with Wordpress, I've decide to try another CMS for my blog. Something that is easier to backup and reproduce as I seem to be moving this blog around a lot. Backups NEVER worked for me in Wordpress. While I still think it would be a great CMS under certain circumstances... I like the idea of something easier to maintain, while still having full freedom to create what I want.

August 21/2023 • Changed background to these cool purple bubbles. Image "A 3D rendered image depicting the word wobbly by Iya Mistry at Flying Object" by from unsplash.

June 27/2023 • Site exported.

June 26/2023 • Google Site kit updated. Yes, this is a very low traffic site but why not...

May 25/2023 • Updated all remaining entries! Phew! Links that are labelled as (link is 404) have been set to src="#"... the link won't go anywhere. A lot of old links went to pages that no longer exist or domains that are inactive. Some went to very strange places now... So ALL the photos have been restructured in the standard Wordpress manner of year and date. They have all been updated to the current URL as well. So, yeah, all the content is as good as it is going to get.

May 24/2023 • Updated entries to December 2007.

May 17/2023 • Updated entries to November 2011.

May 11/2023 • Updated entries to November 2013. Changed background to Wesley Tingey's awesome Purple Bricks on Unsplash.

May 10/2023 • I've been editing the entries (one at a time... ughhhhhhhhhhhhh) and I've updated 2023-2016. I've also restructured the photo paths into the date sub folders they *should* have been in. Also updating the file path. Not sure why the dynamic path doesn't work, it would alleviate so many headaches...

May 3/2023 • Noticed some of the images aren't loading post-migration. WHY oh WHY are they HARDCODED with absolute URLs Wordpress?? UGH. It will take a while to update them all...Le sigh..

May 1/2023 • Changed title font to Amatic SC.

April 27/2023 • Moved the site off my Raspberry Pi to a legit Ubuntu Server! It was several days of configuring, trial and lots of errors. But I'm hoping this will be a longer term solution. Wordpress itself was a lot of the problem. Getting this monstrous blog of close to 3000 entries created an export file of over 500M. Everything was choking on it. I had to update php.ini settings to get the file to export... The real solution was the All in One Migration Plugin. What a saviour. New purple wiggle background by Anete Lusina.

Wow... I was using ZeroSSL for my SSL/https but I guess you only get three free certs then you are gouged for $10/m! Jesus... So I looked for a free option, and not only does Let's EncyptÂ offer free certs but my gawd! they have an app (certbot) to automate it!! I still don't believe it.

March 9/2023 • Added the guestbook.

February 22/2023 • Since 99% of the comments are spam from the totalitarian terrorist state r*ssia, I've changed the comments to require registration. This may just kick the ball from comments to registration but we'll see. Sigh.

February 16/2023 • I've heard a lot about the Jetpack plugin for Wordpress. It apparently adds a fair bit of functionality. So I decided to try it. It installed without bricking anything, so that is a good start.

February 15/2023 • The site is pretty much back to where I want it. I added the side widgets and some minor appearance updates. I'm pretty happy with the current look and functionality.

February 14/2023 • Attempted to install a Geo blocking Plugin and it *gasp* broke my wp-admin. I got a critical error and could not load my Wordpress Admin. @%$#%! I was able to ssh into the server and rename the plugin folder. I also turned on debugging. Not sure which of those worked, but after a few refreshes I was able to get into the admin and delete the poorly coded plugin. Be careful kids. This can happen to you too! :(

February 9/2023 • Right. Well, I've moved the blog back to a home server. I just couldn't stand having such a crippled WordPress on wordpress.com. They want a ridiculous amount of money for full functionality. So... hopefully, this works out. The aesthetic is a mess and will be a few days to get it back to where I like it. Importing over 2,700 posts timed the server out a few times. I had to edit php.ini, this article was super helpful. I set the max input time to -1. in php.ini and it imported successfully! So things will be wonky for a few days as I update the theme etc..

Aww yes - my beloved FMI theme is back in business. To show the full post:
a) Settings > Reading > Blog pages show at most = 1
b) Settings > Reading > For each post in a feed, include Full Post
c) Appearance > Customize (note: only with FMI Theme) > Homepage Layout > Post Summary > Use Read More Tag

December 6/2022 • In case it isn't obvious, my primary domain, unsung.net is forwarding here. It should be SSL/TLS encrypted. It is at least enabled from unsung, I have zero control over the wordpress domain and whatever they do. All real functionality is locked behind a paywall.

November 24/2022 • I've noticed some of the older posts are not formatting very nicely with this theme. *shrug* It is disappointing but they are still perfectly readable but the centering and/or padding is a mess or missing. Sorry kids, I'm not going to re-edit 2000 posts for this, they are what they are...Ugh, also found a lot of photos are missing. They copied over in the export and are on the server but the filenames mapped wrong. *eyeroll* So I'll fix them as I find them but again... that is a massive undertaking.

November 22/2022 • After a lot of tweaking the site is looking pretty decent IMHO. The new editor does allow you to tweak the template quite a bit... so I was able to modify the footer and add search to all the pages. There was a drop down for archives but I can't find it now... somehow I'll have archives. Probably end up just adding a page for it.

November 21/2022 • Well after non-stop password attacks on my self-hosted Wordpress *eyeroll* ... I said fsck it. I have moved the blog and content to Wordpress.com. I will miss all the control and configuration options I enjoyed with a full version of Wordpress but concern over hackers was too annoying. So this is it now.

November 1/2022 • Somehow with Style updates the favicon was lost. *sadness* Added it back. It is a little skull.

Also changed the background. Grabbed this lovely Black and White Landscape from Pexels

August 12/2022 • I was using Contact Form 7 for my form but it used some backend captcha. I'm getting Russian spam (sigh- really that nation needs to get their sh*t in order) so I've changed the form to WPForms with a more pro-active captcha. We'll see what happens. Wow, WPForms is pretty slick!

July 28/2022 • Some minor UI tweaks.

July 27/2022 • Changes the site theme from Suits to FMI. Just felt like a change and the widget title font was irritating me so, *boom*. I think it is clean and easy to read. the spacing is nice and I like the Load More option. Also changed the background to a photo I took at Killbear PP.

May 23/2022 • Ok, ok, google has WAY TOO many great fonts. Changed the banner to Rubik Glitch. I did want something thicker so I add a 1px stroke to the text. No pun intended. Also redid the media queries, really the only downside to font hopping.

May 22/2022 • Yup, decided the header was a bit much. Changed it to just text. The google font is "Pathway Gothic One."

May 16/2022 • Changed the header. Not sure about that font. I do like the transparency. It is a bit whacky.

May 14/2022 • After some hacking attempts - I've increased the site security. Not sure why you'd hack someone's blog. ð

May 13/2022 • Changed the background image to a smaller size. Still not really filling how I'd like. Hmm.

May 12/2022 • Hmm, not sure why I haven't done a site log for my blog. It would have been interesting if had I actually maintained it, as the blog has changed so dramatically over the years. Oh well. I added the Contact page and this log today. The Contact form is using v3 (reCAPTCHA) which passively checks for spam instead of requiring any matching etc. I'll be curious to see how well it works. Changed the background image to this stunning capture by Andre Furtado. Being North of Toronto - I thought it worked well. Cropped the header image to shorten its height.

Yes! the site name is inspired by the great band A Place to Bury Strangers.

September 18/2013 • Blog is converted to Wordpress!