Technocrank

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It Done Broke.

WordTwit Strangeness

WordPress 2.9.1
WordTwit 2.3.1
WPTouch 1.9.7.7

Some bizarro stuff going on with WordTwit. First it was complaining about a foreach() loop and coughing up a PHP error. Now it doesn’t seem to know how to handle the multi-dimensional array $tweets; it spits back the first character of the first levels elements. I posted the letter “t” -900 minutes ago and the number “2” 14646 days ago?

In another theme that handled widgets, similar hanky, but with doing something with an array that PHP didn’t like.

Unfortunately, Bravenewcode, the authors, have their support forums in plastic surgery right now and I’m not sure how to contact them. I’ve also tried hitting them up on Twitter for a clue on how to hit them up. Nothing yet.

Update: the lads from Bravenewcode have quickly fixed this. It was an error caused by Twitter not returning an array when only one tweet was available (when it normally does). WordTwit 2.3.2 and WPTouch 1.9.8.1 address this issue.

WordPress For iPhone Local Drafts

WordPress 2.9.1
Wordpress for iPhone 2.1-2.2

Saving a local draft fails. Not iust fails, but completely doesn’t happen at all. Writing a post of any length goes into /dev/null. Seems it’s not an exactly uncommon issue as this forums post shows but for some reason isn’t reproduceable.

Saving as a draft to the server is fine, though.

Facebook Invalid Email Contacts

Just today I logged into Facebook and discovered that it felt that the email address I had supplied as a contact was no longer valid.  It provided me an inline form to give them a new address as well as a link to click if I thought this message was in error.  Action on either front made it cough back an message saying what I’d given them was still invalid.

I did a bit of digging around the site’s help pages and I’m sure it’s no surprise to anyone that it’s pretty much impossible to contact an actual person to help you out.  I do have to credit the CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s enormous ego with creating what is possibly one of the most successful sites with the paradoxically worst support system ever.  The customer forum is composed of an unbelievably byzantine interface link structure that rivals Microsoft’s.  It’s pretty much impossible to find the answer to a problem which they don’t deem to be an official “issue”, nevermind one they do.

Anyway, I did eventually find a solution (without input, of course, from any Facebook staff, possibly from Google).  For some reason, they’ve started scanning their database for contact emails that they deem “generic” (e.g. “mail@…” and “info@…”).  At their request, I changed mine to something else, something equally generic but not what they’re flagging and then set it on my email server side to forward to the address I had previously given Facebook.  This seemed to satisfy it.

I did notice in the “help” pages that some customers had tried to follow Facebook’s instructions but on doing so, became locked out of their accounts.  They’re now stuck in purgatory.  I won’t dwell on this too long, since it’s only a matter of time until I too, am banished with all my contacts, groups and fan pages blown to dust.

Seriously, Facebook:  F.O.

Also, anecdotally (from the “help” pages), more than one customer had reported finding a help page in there somewhere that directed them to contact Facebook support at the following address: “info@facebook.com”.

Google Gears & Firefox Working Again

Google Gears (0.5.29) has just been released and now works with Firefox 3.5.  I’ve only tested it so far with WordPress.

BT Home Hub 2 Router Security “Feature”

I was wondering why my BT Home Hub 2.0 router would keep resetting/rebooting after about 3 minutes of a outbound activity.  Benign things like uploading FTP files to my webserver.  Infuriating, since my client was waiting for these files and it was looking like I’d have to courier DVDs across the ocean.

This had been happening for months and I started to get suspicious that it might be BT doing something sneaky like sending a reboot command to the router.  After all, they update the firmware remotely and silently with out telling you.  Who knows what else they can do?

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