Server Move and Some Coding

As you may (or may not, it was fairly seamless) have noticed, I have moved to a new server. Site5 cocked something up during a supposedly routine server upgrade last week, and after contacting the CEO and having a level 2 tech supposedly fix the problem 3 times, most of my site remained unavailable. I got fed up; I was losing valuable hits from StumbleUpon to tutorialtastic and had an inbox full of messages to let me know Mr Ken Marx was hogging my space (this is not a complaint.. it made me feel that tutorialtastic is worthwhile :) )

So, long story short, I’ve moved to Clook. I know they’re reliable because we use them at work. Everything was set up and I was able to start copying data across within less than an hour.

Although I took a copy of the guestblock database from the Site5 server, I was hesitant to reinstall the script yesterday as I’ve been having problems with spam. The script is old and the website retired. I decided to sod with it all and have spent the past two evenings indulging in some random coding… of BellaBlocks.

BellaBlocks will be my flat file ‘replacement’ for the old Guestblock script. It will be easy to manage, easy to update, and will have some decent bloody spam protection. You can see my live beta but bear in mind it may be broken at any point. Thoughts?

30 Comments

  1. I want to use it! Hurry up and finish ;)

  2. Glad to see that the transition went smoothly :) It really is a shame that things went downhill with Site5 so bad, especially given all the positives you’ve had with ’em.

    It’s almost always support that seems to cause problems. I know I’ve left a few hosts in the past due to incompetent support :(

  3. I’m waiting for BellaBlog, the replacement to WordPress. :P

  4. Jem

    26 Jan at 10:05 pm

    @Vasili: not going to happen.

  5. Oohh, I’ve always wanted to be able to use GuestBlock but the site has been gone for as long as I can remember… I’m excited for when BellaBlock will be released as it looks really cool :D

  6. If Jem ever tells me she is making a blog script, I will go to England and have her committed myself.

    But, I mean, a photo gallery script would be cool…

  7. BellaBlock looks cute, but I never did get the point in the original GuestBlock site.

    Might just have been me, though.

  8. Looked at it at work earlier and it looked great! I’m getting a ton of PHP errors right now, but you’re probably mucking about with it :)

    It looked great earlier. I didn’t ever get the point either but it still looks cute and like something I’ll put on my website anyway hehe.

  9. I used to want to use GuestBlock because it looked so cute. I’m glad to hear there’s going to be a replacement for it. Don’t think I’d have use for it anymore but maybe one day. :)

  10. I went to your live demo and my first thought was "Holy fuck, Jem!" :D There are tons of "Notice: Undefined offset: 6 in /home/jemjabel/public_html/gb/index.php on line 31" type errors down the page.

  11. This will certainly make a lot of people giddy.
    As for the live beta… just as Sarah said, but I can see the blocks down under :)

  12. Oh cool! BellaBlocks! :D I’m glad you’ve decided to revive the old Guestblock thingy – I could never get it to work properly. Hows about some new sets of blocks for it? ;)

  13. So you did move servers now? Good for you, you’ve been having problems with site5 every now and again, it seemed.

    I’ve never used those Blocks. I’ve seen them around, but I never really understood what you do with them (maybe I should have read more into it). Once your script is done I might consider installing it. Those blocks look so cute and I like cute things :)

  14. Hmm, I might check your new script… since everyone says it’s so cute ^^.

  15. I’m really looking forward to BellaBlocks. I’ve wanted to use GuestBlock for ages but the site seems to have disappeared.

    Glad to hear the move to your new host went well.

  16. Thank goodness you shifted.
    Site5 are shit, i’ve said it for how long?

    This bellablock is all well and good even if the markup is bloated with inline styling but it’s not threading is it…hint hint nudge nudge wink wink

    Hope you and Karl are well :D

  17. @stephanie….

    ..erm…I don’t quite know how to say this, but..this ISN’T WP…Jem wrote this "blog engine"..:)

  18. Jem

    27 Jan at 2:26 pm

    Stephanie was referring to a free one for other people’s use, deary :)

  19. @karl yeah, I know she wrote this (god love her), but if she ever attempted to distribute it, i would have to ask her if she was out of her damn mind ;) just the support emails would drive her to the bottle, let alone trying to keep up with security and stuff :P

  20. I have had some really good luck with HoldFire. I am in love with them. But in the past I swear, I could shoot my server. I have been on systems that wouldn’t run some php scripts on one site. Then on another site hosted by the same service run the same script fine. That was fun for a bit. Not so much. LOL

    Can’t wait until the script gets done. :)

  21. Ohhhh, BellaBlocks. Awesome, looking forward to it. :)

  22. I keep getting the same error when I try adding a comment (on BellaBlock). The error is on line 99.

  23. Jem

    27 Jan at 10:36 pm

    It’s fixed now :)

  24. @Julie: Same for me. :/
    Bellablog…?? It sounds too good to be true! Oh wait. It is.

  25. Jem, I have a copy of all the blocks on guest blocks. But would that be wrong. Do you want the blocks? I will defiantly implement the script when you release it.

  26. Jem

    27 Jan at 10:48 pm

    Thanks Hev, I have the blocks but they’re not really mine to implement. I will make some and Melissa said she might make some for me, so hopefully there’ll be plenty to release with the script when it’s done :)

  27. hooray for smooth moves! BellaBlocks looks awesome, I never used guestblocks myself but I can see how people would want to use something like that especially in flat-file style!

  28. I might have my old blocks somewhere too, I’d give them to you. :D

  29. I think it needs more blocks! I know someone who loves to pixel and who is named Mimi that would donate blocks for the cause! You know, just saying. *snicker*

  30. Oh and I just totally failed for not reading other comments first. *face palm* Oh well, I’d still make some blocks for ya!