Project:Current events
12 January 2018
The last entry here is now older than the Encyclopedia was when it was written. Also, the site (counting from 2003) is getting close to the age I was when I started it.
Anyway.
In an effort to consolidate and modernize some servers, I've moved the Encyclopedia off of eris (an aging debian VM over at RackSpace) and onto sapphire, a sparkling new Ubuntu 17.10 VM on DigitalOcean.
In this process, the MediaWiki installation has also been upgraded to the newest version (1.30.0), and is now served by an nginx server rather than Apache.
The chance of another human reading this is infinitesimal, but just in case you notice any issue, you know how to reach me.
-- Arancaytar | Send Reply! --- That is not dead which can eternal lie... 15:02, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
6 September 2010
A pattern is beginning to emerge.
As I explained on my blog, the Ermarian Network has moved to a new server, which required an upgrade to PHP 5.3.3. Unfortunately, MediaWiki is not fully compatible with PHP 5.3.3, even the cutting-edge alpha version used here.
I had to introduce two separate workarounds to the MediaWiki code to make it editable again, but now it works once more. (See you next year.)
20 September 2009
It's been a while since I wrote an update, since the site has had no major glitches in the past year and a half (good), and also since the site hasn't occupied much of my (or really anyone's) attention for a long time (bad). That I'm writing an update now obviously means something went wrong again:
While continuously updating the MediaWiki subversion trunk, eventually (that is, about August 20 or so) MediaWiki started requiring PHP 5.2.9 or above. This was bad because I had PHP 5.2.8. It claimed that a libxml error in earlier versions didn't allow their database update script to run, and I didn't dare run the site on a non-updated database. Remembering my challenge in installing 5.2.8 last time (it was awful; I did it around New Year's and didn't get it working until a week later), I shied away from installing 5.2.10 then, and instead suspended the site.
Now I have some free time, and decided to install PHP 5.2.11 (released three days ago). Astonishingly, it turns out that almost all of the extensions I slapped on last time (ming, tidy, bzip2, etc.) are completely unnecessary because I never use them, and without them, PHP can be installed very, very easily. I've even managed to get PDO to work (usually the most difficult part). So here we go, MediaWiki 1.16alpha on PHP 5.2.11. EE is teh back.
28 April 2008
Encyclopedia Ermariana is now once again on the subversion trunk of MediaWiki, currently branch 1.13.
18 April 2008
MediaWiki 1.13 looks spiffy. I'll try to get EE updated tonight.
25 October 2007
MediaWiki was updated to stable branch 1.11 today. A full backup of files and database was made before, but no problems have occurred.
However, I have had to disable the PDF-generating extension, which was already ancient and unfortunately not compatible with this latest version. I will try to find a replacement soon. Meanwhile, for those who often save articles as PDF files, I recommend a utility named PrimoPDF. This is a printer driver that prints PDF files, much like Acrobat Distiller but ad-supported.
You may also notice that I took the opportunity to bring back the visitor counters below.
21 January 2007
MediaWiki was updated to the development trunk today. For some applications, this would be ill-advised on a production version, but I'm ready to trust the version if Wikipedia runs it on their own site. Also, if the switch from 1.8 to 1.10 confused you for a moment as it did me, keep in mind that 1.10 is not "one point one zero", but "one point ten", which follows 1.9.
Arancaytar | Send Reply! --- That is not dead which can eternal lie... 04:17, 21 January 2007 (PST)
27 September 2006
Big update.
First: The site moved to a new server on Monday. As of today, the site move is complete and the site works again for all people whose DNS points them to the correct server. The site is now hosted on DreamHost, who I'm already liking a lot better than the other guys.
Second: The MediaWiki was updated to version 1.7.1. Since I now have PHP5, I was able to upgrade the software to the latest version, the result of which you see here.
Third: Unlike earlier upgrades (in fact, only for the second time ever), I completely reinstalled the software. This is the reason some things do not look like you are used to. Some examples:
- The favicon (the yellow "E" in the address bar is gone, pending a redesign
- The logo has been replaced by the funny MediaWiki flower and the helpful text message. Also pending new logo.
- The dark blue skin is gone. Will be reincluded, but after two people disagreed, it will not be the default anymore.
- The Googleads and visitor counter are gone.
- The skin hasn't been fixed for XHTML-validity (in fact, I haven't checked - perhaps 1.7.1 has an XHTML-valid skin by default).
Fourth: I figured out how to fiddle with the navigation bar you see in the left side of the page. A few obsolete links have been removed and a link box for the Encyclopedia (forums and irc) has been added. There is also a link box for Ermarian-related pages, but I've only included a few because they would clutter up the page. The search box should be as high up as possible.
Arancaytar | Send Reply! --- That is not dead which can eternal lie... 07:09, 27 September 2006 (PDT)
14 September 2006
A site move is imminent now. The domain is up for renewal in two months, and I will register with Dreamhost in about 2 weeks. The cost of maintaining ermarian.net will (for the next two years) decrease from 8$ a month to 3$ a month, and MediaWiki will be upgraded to v1.7 soon after that.
The transition will be smoothed as much as possible, but it is likely the site will be unavailable for about a week.
Arancaytar | Send Reply! --- That is not dead which can eternal lie... 06:13, 14 September 2006 (CDT)
24 August 2006
The Encyclopedia should be updated to version 1.7.1 of MediaWiki, but unexpected problems delay this. Namely, my host refuses to install PHP 5 (required since 1.7.0) unless I buy a virtual private server at several times the price.
Fortunately, the hosting package is up for renewal in a couple of months, meaning that I have plenty of time to look around for a new host and organize a domain transfer. Maybe I'll even stop using "one-stop shop" deals and host the domain elswhere (register4less?). We'll see.
Siteground.com looks appealing as far as my new requirements go: Besides having PHP 5 (though it's stuck on MySQL 4), they offer 15 times as much space and 2.5 times as much traffic as my current host does, at a lower price. It sounds so good that it made me suspicious, even.
Let's see what happens.
20 April 2006
MediaWiki updated to 1.6.3. With partial shell access, this was more convenient than I'd initially feared, but still a hassle. If any weird things result from this, shout at me on IRC (use the webclient if you don't have one) or the Board or email.
6 December 2005
With image functionality restored, I have uploaded all images that were saved on the old site.
8 November 2005
The wiki has been restored. Please be careful when editing - pages are to stay below 30 kb to avoid database issues. Images are rendered completely unusable until we change hosts (although I do still have them and can restore them when it's possible).