September 3rd, 2010
Well it’s been a while since I’ve been able to post – just thought I’d let anyone reading what’s going on and why I’ve not posted any ThinkTwit updates in a while. As you will have seen from previous posts I’ve had issues with my PC – after getting my motherboard fixed I received further issues and had to fight with MSI again to have my motherboard replaced. They eventually relented after the threat of being reported to Trading Standards and they replaced the motherboard with one that was refurbished. However, that motherboard also has an issue but that’s another story – needless to say I won’t EVER by an MSI product again.
Since all that palava I have also bought and moved in to a new house. I’m currently without Internet and my PC is still in pieces but once I’ve got everything sorted and I’m settled (probably another month) I hope to get some time to start updating ThinkTwit again. Apologies to anyone this may have affected but I’ve not seen any complaints so I’m hoping all is well.
Tags: msi, pc, site, thinktwit
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June 8th, 2010
I had my first “Graze” box last week. I’m not really a fan of healthy foods like dried fruits, nuts, seeds etc. but I decided to get one of these boxes as they were free. How wrong I was, it tasted great! They send you a mixture of different things, rather than let you choose, and I decided to be open minded. If anyone else wants a free box (first one is free, second is £1.50, every other is £3) then please feel free to use this code: LH5KW7HN at http://www.graze.com.
Tags: food, free, graze, Health
Posted in Health | No Comments »
April 24th, 2010
My PC is FINALLY working again! MSI stuck to their work, fixed and returned the motherboard no questions asked, for a small fee of course, although it took about 4 or 5 weeks!
I shall try my best to get working on ThinkTwit again this week and finall roll out the changes I was working on when my system died (I think caching and filters). Sorry again for any trouble this may have caused anyone!
Tags: msi, pc, thinktwit
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March 25th, 2010
My computer is currently out of action. Had a lot of trouble with it ever since I built it 2 years ago and it’s only emerged recently that it seems to be due to the motherboard. After a LOT of wrangling with MSI, who make the motherboard, they have finally agreed to repair or replace it for me. After all the trouble though I will probably never buy a product from them again – they are great products and at great prices but their post-sales support is dreadful!
Anyway, this means I don’t have access to my PC or my files and tools so ThinkTwit development is on hold at the moment. Hope to start back up with it in a couple of weeks once MSI has sorted my motherboard out. I apologise if this affects anyone but please feel to write here if you need any help or advice.
Tags: msi, pc, thinktwit
Posted in News, Wordpress | No Comments »
March 4th, 2010
I recently found the need to give AJAX abilities to a Wordpress widget. Notably, I had a request from Kjell Martin Bovre of Scribo.no to allow ThinkTwit to update when used with a caching engine, for instance WP Super Cache. Caching engines work by converting the pages of a site in to HTML and, rather than loading the website code using calls to its database, calling these pages directly when a user makes a request.
The first time that a user visits a site with a caching engine the pages they visit will be converted to HTML. After a period of time these pages will get updated, but if you have a particular item on that page that should be updated more often this will not happen. One way to ensure this item is updated correctly is to enable it to use AJAX. The AJAX code will get called whenever the site is loaded, even in its HTML format – therefore it will work even when cached as the Javascript will make a server call, the server will respond with the up-to-date data and the Javascript will then update the HTML within that page.
After a good few hours research I was able to find a site that helped me do most of this, but there were some errors and it did not work with Wordpress widgets as it would break their ability to create multiple instantiations. It was therefore necessary to update the code to allow this, so I thought I would just write a quick and easy guide to writing AJAX capable widgets to allow other developers to quickly and easily resolve this issue. I hope it comes in handy!
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: ajax, plugin, widget, Wordpress
Posted in Wordpress | 2 Comments »
March 2nd, 2010
From 14th March 2010 my employment with Think Consulting Solutions is due to come to an end. The decision was mutual as I have shared employment with Connect Assist and it will be easier for me to manage my time and for both companies to progress as partners.
I have, therefore, decided to take ThinkTwit development with me to ensure that it does not die. I needed somewhere to host this and have also planned on having my own blog for some time so decided now would be the best opportunity to do this!
The site probably won’t be updated very often, but I’ll use it to post anything useful probably from a development point of view.
Tags: site, thinktwit
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