In case you didn’t know, WordPress 2.5.1 was released today. I’ve just done the upgrade here, which was quick and painless I’m glad to say!

The upgrade consists of around 70 bug fixes, but the really important part of this upgrade is that it contains a security fix. You can read all the details over here on the dev blog. If you haven’t already upgraded, given this is a security update I strongly recommend that you do. You can grab yourself a copy right here.

No, not blogging about history, but the history of my blogging. Despite this blog being only a year old, I’ve been blogging for a lot longer than that, going back almost 4 years I think. My old blog is currently stored over here, but I’ve been thinking about importing all the posts to this domain.

At the time I decided to start afresh and leave that old blog behind, it was mostly because I felt it had become a bit stagnant and that starting again would kickstart some of the blogging juices I’d lost. I’m not really sure that plan worked, but there are a few posts on the old one that have some personal importance to me. I’m not afraid to admit that most of it is rubbish, but I wrote it and it’s a part of my blogging history which I think is important to preserve. Probably not important to anybody else, but hey, it’s my blog and I’ll cry if I want to. :)

So I think over the next few days I’ll get to work on that. Not sure yet if I should import the whole lot or just the least rubbish ones.

*edit*

I’ve decided to manually import by way of copy/pasting the posts I want to keep, so I guess this blog will get a bit fatter over the next few days.

My ISP, Karoo, is notorious around these ‘ere parts for being generally crappy. The latest in a long list of complaints being the redirection of unsuccessful DNS lookups to ask.com. Their DNS is usually pretty slow to catch up with changes too, a fact illustrated every time I change the nameservers on a domain that I own. This is just one sucky thing about them, I would list everything but won’t for fear of everyone falling asleep after an hours reading.

However, thanks to OpenDNS I have one less sucky thing to deal with. Somebody told me about this service when the whole Karoo / ask.com debacle first came to light, but I’ve only just gotten around to signing up for it. No more ask.com for me!

It’s already proved how much better it is. I’ve just moved a domain name from one host to another - generally the switch takes at least several hours but as soon as I switched to OpenDNS the domain appeared at the new host. I know this because checking it on a machine that I haven’t yet switched to OpenDNS still shows the domain at the old host, even more than an hour after the change.

There are other useful things about OpenDNS too. You get a nifty control panel which allows you to blacklist sites either by a domain or by blocking whole categories, which is a nice feature for parents. You can also turn on logs which gathers stats about everything you do on the internet, add domains to a whitelist, create shortcuts and probably other things that I haven’t looked into yet. There’s a full list of features here.

On the whole, it seems really good. I’ll keep using it on a per machine basis for a while before switching via the router, just to be sure nothing bad happens like the internet exploding on me or something. :)

Just in case you weren’t aware, or somehow missed announcements elsewhere, Ubuntu 8.04 will be released today. Codenamed Hardy Heron, you can download your very own copy from the official site.

I’ve been using the beta Hardy for around 3 weeks now and I have to say I’ve found it far more stable than Gutsy ever was.

One of the slightly riskier things they’ve done with this release is to include the beta of Firefox 3. I say riskier because Firefox still being in beta, a number of people have reported stability problems with it under Ubuntu. Personally speaking, I’ve had one or two crashes but they do seem few and far between. The main downside for me is that not all of the addons have been brought up to date for 3, and using the nightly tester tools plugin has not helped in making two of my essential addons compatible. If you don’t rely on addons however there shouldn’t be much of a problem, and I’m sure it will be a simple enough process to downgrade Firefox.

Aside from Firefox there are plenty of other goodies to keep everyone happy, here is the full feature list.

Oh, and I have heard from a reliable source that Linux Outlaws will be releasing a Hardy Heron Special podcast today, so don’t forget to check them out too!

After a couple of days deliberation, I finally came up with a name, Marley, as in Bob. He’s so laid back the name just fits. As you can see, he’s a friendly little chap too, always wanting to come out and say hello!

My daughter kept the name Edwina for her leopard gecko. I must admit I didn’t like it at first but it’s grown on me (now that I’m past the image of a certain ex-politician of the same name). No pics of her yet as she’s still being shy but I expect that will change soon enough. Apparently the younger they are the more skittish they can be, so we’re giving her lots of time to settle in.

They both had their first treats of waxworms this week (yum), you’ve never seen anything move so fast! Not too many of those in store for them though as they’re very fattening, a bit like chocolate for us humans. Though I’m sure they wouldn’t complain if we fed them nothing but waxworms. Next up on the menu this week - cockroaches (double yum).

I’m in the process of switching themes - it’s the same theme I’m using at the new blog I announced yesterday.  I’m really in love with it, so decided to use it here too.  I will be making modifications to it over the coming week though, so if you happen to drop by and something is broken don’t worry, it’s only temporary.  :)

Just a quick note to let everyone know I have a new book blog!

It’s been at the back of my mind for quite a while, and yesterday I decided to do something about it. If you’re interested in reading reviews of books that I read, head on over to Outside Normality.

I’ll write more about this in the next few days, and I hope to grab some pictures myself soon but I don’t want to disturb them too much yet.  So, without further ado, here are the two latest additions to our family, a pair of leopard geckos!

This one belongs to me, and he is a giant mack snow leopard gecko.  No name as yet, but I’m working on it!

And this one belongs to my daughter, a present for her 15th birthday (though guess who will be feeding it locusts and such like!). She is a 6 month old female mack snow, possibly pastel, and so far the name Edwina is favourite for her.

These photos were provided by the breeder we had them from, hopefully I’ll be able to take some of my own soon. Watch this space.

So, it’s been a while. With that in mind I thought I’d write a general ‘catch up’ post.

At the beginning of this year I took an extended break from my regular online activities (including Jaiku, a rarity for me!). I went over a month without checking RSS feeds, micro-blogging, checking Facebook etc. It really did me a favour too, gave me time to step back and take stock a little. Anyone who knows me will realise how much of a ‘web 2.0′ addict I’ve become, and while I still find those things fun I’ve slowed down a lot.

There are changes coming in my life - my daughter will be 15 this year which means that being a full time mother isn’t quite so full time as it was these days. By that I mean in the sense of she is relying on me less and less. Which also means that soon she’ll be pretty much gone altogether, before I know it she’ll be packing herself off to uni, and I need to prepare for that and have something constructive to do with my time. Preferably involving money! Not that I’m expecting or even wanting to earn fortunes, but I need something. I have two choices in mind and I can’t quite decide between them, one of which is going to depend a lot on personal circumstances as it will take some initial capital to get up and running. At this moment in time said capital is nowhere on the horizon, but things may change in the next 6 months or so.

The other big change is a house move. Not a move we’re making by choice but rather one that finances have forced us into it. Carl has struggled to get work at the start of this year and it’s really effected our finances. Unfortunately the world of contracting can sometimes be a gamble, and this time we lost. However, the move will also mean a fresh start and the release of one hell of a lot of stress for both of us, so now that I’ve resigned myself to it I’m actually kind of looking forward to moving. New house, new beginning. Of course that also means that I’ll be really busy over the next month or two packing, then unpacking, then probably decorating and getting settled in.

So, those are the major things. Mostly anyway, there is one other, but I’ll save that for the next post. Wouldn’t want to bore you all too much with the details of my life, I might scare away the few people who still actually come here in the hope of seeing a new post. :)

On a lighter note, I have plans for at least one other blog in a specific area, possibly two. Yeah, I know my blogging hasn’t been that regular here, but that’s mostly because it’s a personal blog and really, my life isn’t that exciting! So I thought a blog with a more concentrated subject area will make me focus more. That’s the theory anyway, we’ll have to see how it goes in practice. I’ll announce here when it’s up and running, though it might be a while yet as I’m trying out various bits of software to see which suits the most (i.e. I’m having fun playing with new toys!).

If you’ve read this, thanks for reading! And if you’ve been here before and are wondering where I spend most of my online time these days, you might want to check my Jaiku profile. I’m addicted to the place, and have made some wonderful friends there (the community is fantastic, there’s far more interaction than I’ve found on Twitter). If you want to get in on the Jaiku action, you could always request an invite from Jaiku Invites - since Google bought Jaiku out it’s been in closed beta as is the way of all things Google.

And that, as they say, is all about it. For now at least.

It’s been a while since I gave the old blog some love, so when I heard WordPress 2.5 had been released yesterday I thought it would be the perfect opportunity.  The upgrade went very well, and I have to say I’m impressed with the new admin interface.  Very pretty!

I didn’t stop there either, I changed the theme as well.  ‘Steady on there Jackie, before you know it you’ll actually post things too!’  said my inner voice(s).  You never know, stranger things have happened.  :)  If you do happen to stop by, I am still playing a little with the theme, so if something looks very broken, it won’t be for long.

Just so that this post isn’t completely without value, I’ll leave you with a video of the best dog in the world, brought to my attention by a friend of mine on last.fm  (thanks Andre!)