It's a Blog ! Not a Log !

Due to issues with www.cheapnames.co.uk and there refusal to allow me to use the full functionality of WordPress by denying access to the xml-rpc.php file contained within WordPress installs, I have decided to move hosts.

The blog is now situated at www.itsablognotalog.com

Hopefully in the coming weeks the domains www.elgey.co.uk and www.elgey.com will redirect to the the new GoDaddy hosted site, but eventually I will be setting these 2 domains up for other projects that I have in mind, so please bookmark the new site and come say hello

Well I’ve finally got my date for my appearance in court on the Totting Up for Speeding Offence, I’m due in court next Wednesday, when I’ll most likely lose my licence and be banned for anything from 7 days to 12 months.

Not looking forward to it all . .  will either have to get on the bus everyday or start biking into work, neither of which fill me with joy.

Only good thing to come out of it will be that when I do get my licence back it will at least be clean of points, so the news isn’t all bad, though thinking about it, it will mean my Car Insurance will increase quite drastically, more expense I could do without to be honest.

Anyway wish me luck

she’s finally found fame on the silver screen . .  well ok the computer screen

See if you can spot her appearance

The Avenue: ‘Not Just for Wags’ from seal films on Vimeo.

I’m afraid to say though that she was typecast due to her size and looks me thinks . . which is a bit of a shame, as she’s such a princess in real life, so should have at least been given a chance on the catDogwalk.

The advert was done filmed for The Avenue,  Spinningfields,  in Manchester, its an area of designer shops in one of the revamped parts of the city centre.

Now I don’t how many of the people who read this have a blog themselves or are considering getting one, but if you do . .  whatever you do don’t get one hosted at the above companies, because if you do, you will never ever be able to use the xmlrpc function that is embedded in WordPress, this function allows you to post images/text etc from other websites/apps into your WordPress blog.

When I first started blogging I did’nt know about xmlrpc, but as I began to have other sites where I posted things to do with my life, i.e. YouTube, Flickr and discovered that I could post from mobile apps on my iPhone and iPad, I began to realise what a fantastic function it was.

However when I attempted to start using this function on my WordPress Blog I discovered that it would’nt work, no matter what I did or how I did it, I just could’nt get anything to remotely post to my blog.

After much digging around on the net I discovered that possibly my hosting company was blocking this function within WordPress, so I decided to contact them, at first they informed me that this was not the case and that it must be something else.

So I went away and did some more digging on the internet and someone’s post on some long forgotted forum suggested that i make a copy of the xmlrpc.php file in wordpress and rename it to something else, which I duly did and then pointed my apps and websites to this newly created new named xmlrpc.php file and low and behold it worked, however some of the apps and websites I used were hardcoded to only use the xlmrpc.php file, so again I approached my hosting companys Tech Support explaining what I’d done and how I’d done it, and why of why was the original xmlrpc.php file not working, well they passed me about for a while and eventually I was told by someone that due to an expoilt in early WordPress installs they had decided to lockdown this file to stop their hosting servers being compromised.

So I went away and researched this exploit and found that it had been fixed and that the particular version of WordPress I was using was one of the ones where the exploit no longer existed.

With this news I went back to the Tech Support company and explained that my WordPress did’nt have this exploit and could they enable the function again . . .

Ohhh noooo we can’t do that sir, we’ve disabled it across all our hosting platforms/servers

Oh and why’s that I said

Well sir it seems not everyone’s as diligant as you are and some people are still running older versions of WordPress and because of that we can’t unlock the file to enable you to use it, so I’m afraid sir that theres nothing we can do to help you . . .

Anyway I’ve been having this arguement with them for the past few years now and I’m getting sick of it, in the 3 years I’ve argued with them, they could have got up off their arses and contacted all the people with outdated versions of WordPress and told them to update them, but guessing that would take brains, something which they don’t appear to have.

So today after recieving an email from them informing me that I had to change my email passwords for security reasons and that if I did’nt, they would change them automatically for me, I sent the following to their Technical Support Dept

Dear Technical Support,

I notice that you’ve recently sent me an email telling me to change the passwords on my email accounts, otherwise you will change them automatically.
Well how about you send a similar email to all your customers running outdated versions of WordPress, telling them that if they don’t update them you will disable their accounts, this way customers like myself will be able to use the XMLRPC function of wordpress, instead of continually having to listen to Support Technicians telling us that its been disabled locked down due to inconsiderate users not updating their versions of WordPress to a version that prevents the XMLRPC.php file from being exploited.
Come on Tech Support, pull your finger out and get with the programme, I’ve heard this same excuse from you for at least 3 years, so instead of blaming the customers because they have’nt updated, how about being security conscious like you are with email passwords and either notify those with older versions of WordPress that you’ll disable them unless they change or just migrate all those users with updated installs all onto one hosting server and then allow those customers to use the XLMRPC.php file.
I look forward to a response and the name and number of a Director of the company that I can complain to directly and perhaps reach some sort of solution.
regards
Vince a pissed off, sick to death of hearing excuses, probably soon to be an ex-customer of Namesco . . .

Now its just a case of waiting and seeing what they reply with. . . .

I’ll keep you posted

Today I’ve had to say goodbye to quite a few people I’ve spent that last 7-14yrs working with, the company I work for has due to the present economic crisis had to let a number of workers leave the company, voluntary and forced redundancies.

It’s a very strange day knowing that tomorrow people you’ve seen more than your own family are’nt going to to be there anymore . . no more chats about them and their’s, no more random banter in the office/warehouse, quite sad to see alot of them go, worst thing about it all is, t’s not yet over, the office staff are next up for consultation on who next needs to go to help the company survive . . .

It’s a sad day

It seems that there is now a Road/Close in my hometown of Market Weighton called “Harold Elgey Close”, it’s named after my late father.

Seems my sister Glynis put a proposal to East Yorkshire and Market Weighton Council to have a road named after him on some land she’d recently sold to developers and they agreed on it, so now for future generations my dad’s name will be seen in Market Weighton, he’ll sort of be immortalised . . . how cool is that . .  well done Glynis and well done dad . .

Another dog friendly bar in Chorlton, aptly named the Beagle, though not in honour of a dog, but in honour of the HMS Beagle, the ship Charles Darwin sailed on when he went to the Galapagos islands.

Anyway what can I tell you about the Beagle in Chorlton, well the downstairs area of the bar is spacious and dog friendly, half of the area caters for seating, while the remainder is standing area for the bar and entrance way, this is also the area where folks with dog’s are welcome, they also have a seated area upstairs which is the resturant part of the bar (not so dog friendly).

They have a fine selection of beers and lagers for the discerning drinker to sample, I myself was taken by the Morovka lager, a rather nice Czech recipe thats now brewed in Yorkshire (I believe), as for the food menu, it does look appealing, but I’m sad to say after sampling the Sunday Roast, i don’t think I’ll be eating there again very soon.  I went for the roast beef sunday lunch and for a sum of £14.95 I was given what I could only describe as a childs portion :

3 x small roast potatoes, 1/2 of a carrot (sliced down the middle), a sort of purried mash potatoe again about the size and length of a carrot, a small Yorkshire Pudding that had obviously mushroomed out of the tray (which sort of made it look bigger i suppose), about 3 leaves of what I presume was cabbage and a roasted beetroot cut in 1/2, all of this was then partly surrounded by a very poor gravy.

After eating this measly portion I had no choice but to vacate the Beagle and head to my normal Sunday Lunch venue Electriks and purchase one of there slightly more filling Chicken and stuffing baps, which did the job of filling me up more that the Beagle.

So I’m sorry The Beagle, but I wont be eating at your establishment again.

It appears it was a cock up on Humberside Police’s side an it now appears that I will shortly have to attend court, where I will most likely lose my licence via disquailification for totting up speeding offence’s, at present no idea how long I’ll be banned for, could be as little as 56 day’s or as long as 12 months.

I’m hoping for either 56 days or 3 months as any longer without a car willl start to impact on my work life, only good thing to come out of it is that when I get my licence back it’ll be clean, no points on it anymore

Bad news is I’ll most likely have an increase in my car insurrance, which is a definate downer, especailly as I’m already paying out £500+ as it is.

Oh the joys of owning a car  . .

I got a letter from Humberside Police today, that I’d been dreading since the 18th Nov 2012, when I was collared by a speed camera in Holme on Spalding Moor.

At the time of the offence I had 9 points on my licence and the worst thing about it, 3 of them were going to expire on the 20th Nov 2 days later, so between now and the today when I recieved the letter I was shitting myself I kid you not, contemplating life without a car for a minimum of at least 6 months, but god was on my side today, the Police offered me a conditonal offer of 3 points and a £60 fine.

Just hoping its not a cock up at there end.

Only 10 days left till we go on this years holidays to Dorset and Cornwall. . .

This is the time of the year that I really look forward to, just me, Mel and Blue on our ownsomes in a little cottage on the coast, first up Lulworth Cove and then a week at Mullion Cove.

This year I’m intending on avoiding alot of driving and just spending the 2 weeks relaxing for a change, we’ve been to Cornwall so many times now that we must have visited just about every tourist type town on the map, just going to stick to our favourites this year me thinks.

So expect some posts from our hols to follow shortly