the abrupt switch to wordpress

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Well, today I’ve finally had enough and had to switch my blog to WordPress abruptly. In the two weeks of this month so far I have already received two and a half times the amount of traffic that I got last month, but from one third the number of visitors. It’s all going to my b2evolution blog and is clearly from spammers. Hell, 2gb of it was from only two IP addresses, both tracing back to Mexican providers. I’ve firewalled some of them out, but I still got another gigabyte of traffic yesterday, in just one day. This is ridiculous and has to stop, so today I installed WordPress, loaded it up with antispam plugins, and I’m hoping for the best.

I have to say, the switch to WordPress was nice and smooth, thanks to the b2evo importer script that I updated a bunch and which Isaac Schlueter has worked on further. There’s also a terrific number of WP plugins available to use, and I’ve already installed quite a few. I love the Events Calendar (look to the top of the sidebar on the right) and I’m hoping that Spam Karma 2, Referrer Karma, and Bad Behavior will all help to filter out spambots. As soon as I get around to it, I’ll update my Gallery to Gallery 2 and start using the WP-Gallery2 plugin to post images here. After I finish my Google Summer of Code project I’ll be working on it a little to add some functionality and make it easier to insert Gallery items into posts.

Anyway, for now WordPress is terrif and I hope it works out…

amarok 1.3 released

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The newest version of my favorite music player/library program ever has been released – Amarok 1.3! I’ve been using the betas, and I have to say, there are some terrific improvements and it really works great; I love it even more. Do yourself a favor, ditch Juk, Rhythmbox, or whatever you’re using, and switch to Amarok. If you’re using WinAmp or iTunes for Windows, you just have a whole ‘nother set of problems…

bash script to convert 15fps mjpeg to mpeg-2

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This sort of came up in #openvideo on FreeNode, so I figured I should post this conversion script I wrote, in case it comes in handy to anyone else.

#!/bin/sh
# Script for converting my Canon SD110 videos to something usable by Cinelerra.

if [ -z "$1" ]; then
echo "Give me a file, biatch!"
echo "Usage: videoprep.sh filenames"
exit
fi

while [ ! -z "$1" ]; do

if [ ! -e "$1" ]; then
echo "$1 does not exist!"
exit
fi

filename=$(basename "$1" .avi)

lav2yuv +n "$1" | yuvfps -r 30:1 | mpeg2enc -o $filename.m1v

lav2wav -I +n "$1" | mp2enc -o $filename.mp2

mplex $filename.mp2 $filename.m1v -o $filename.mpg

rm -f $filename.m1v $filename.mp2

mpeg3toc $filename.mpg $filename.toc

shift
done

echo "Done!"

exit 0

charlie and the chocolate factory

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Just watched this tonight. Wow, weird. And all the Oompa-loompas being played by the same guy? Kinda freaky. And the oompa-loompa dancing was off the hook. Wild. Updated songs were actually kind of cool, the songs are sort of an expected part and it’s nice that they’re not entirely as cheesy as the old movie. Depp wasn’t as disappointing to me as he apparently was to some reviewers, conversely Highmore was not as terrific, although I do think he did a very good job. Sets were fantastic, the Wonka-Jackson connection didn’t seem as pronounced to me as to certain reviewers, and overall it was a great movie.

I pity the poor kid who had to wear the young Wonka appliance.

maria full of grace

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Okay, I have to admit it: I’m a sucker for foreign films. Maria Full of Grace is a very good Spanish-language film about a Colombian girl who takes a job as a drug mule to the U.S. It is interesting and well done, but I was surprised that her employers weren’t very rough on her at all. How close to the truth? I don’t know.

the west wing

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My brothers and I bought my dad the first season of The West Wing for his birthday last week. Watching (or in the case of some episodes, re-watching) it has reminded me how much I like this show whenever I catch an episode. It’s smart, well-written, and backed up by a stellar cast and great direction. Not only that, but the quest of the Bartlett White House and of the individuals in it for right is truly inspiring.