STATIC_DEPS=true easy_install 'lxml>=2.2beta4'
STATIC_DEPS=true sudo easy_install 'lxml>=2.2beta4'

The first run without “sudo” pulls down the necessary libxml and libxslt and then the second run provides the permissions to install the egg.

At the same time as updating the site I took the opportunity to upgrade to WordPress 2.1. Aside from needing to change the blogroll categories and update the function in the template all went fairly well.

The blogroll has been merged with the other categories so if you were referencing your blogrolls and link list via id it’s likely that your ids will have changed. The easiest way to find out what’s going on is to go and look at the blogroll maintainence screens and look at the category links have changed to.

The other issue for me is that the wp_get_links function seems to have changed causing the links to be output with a load of brs etc. To fix this I looked at the code and found that the function get_links() did what I wanted. Thus I changed from this:

<?php wp_get_links(4); ?>

to:

<?php get_links(37,'<li>','</li>','',false,'name',false,false); ?>

The difference being I am now specifying the markup before and after the links and whether to display the descriptions or not.

Currently I’m on a dedicated server and the problem with that is that should the server experience some kind of major software or hardware failure then it’s up to me to either fix it or restore it which is fine but you will have inevitable downtime.

As my server is up for renewal very soon I am wondering, should I try the Grid Server or look at the Virtual Dedicated service. The specs of the Grid server are obviously tempting, but since launch it would seem they’ve had a few problems with their service. I’ve noticed at least two blogs that are hosted on the Grid Server but have been unavailable due to MySQL problems.

The only other issue I have is that I am seriously evaluating Django and as yet there is no support for Django on the Grid Server, though hopefully at some point this would be added.

So what are your views, is the Grid Server too good to be true or the best thing to ever happen to web hosting?

If you are reading this then everything has been successfully transferred.

Granted, hardware does fail from time to time but the apathetic support from Amenworld has been appalling. Hence I am voting with my feet and moving over to Dreamhost. Dreamhost are very friendly in every way and any questions you ask are always answered within a few hours, not to mention that they have 24 hour support in contrast to Amenworld’s weekday working hours policy.

Once again I have set everything up to be a smooth as possible during the transition to the new server. If you are reading this then you’ve made it! If you notice anything odd please do get in touch via the contact form.

The feeds are all up and running and I have made a few adjustments along the way. The things that I decided to change were pretty minor; a few styles have been tweaked and markup has been improved in the few places that I needed to (in pursuit of perfection). The greatest thing about this move is greater control and freedom and hopefully things will work out just fine.

The whole site is running with wp-cache so I don’t expect to be hammering the server too hard. wp-cache is very well executed and is just what I was looking for to replace the full caching I had built into my own system. The Gravatars plugin I am using caches the gravatars which will come in very handy for the odd time that Gravatar.com goes down as well as making sure the pages load as fast as possible.

I have set up handling of all of the old urls and everything should be found through redirections if it has moved. I took the opportunity to dump the www subdomain from this site whilst carrying out the move, so if you have any links to my site feel free to change them. In any case anything that comes in to www.muffinresearch.co.uk will be swiftly redirected to muffinresearch.co.uk.

Having just moved over, please do let me know if you find anything has gone a bit awry. If you wish to get in touch then please contact me via the contact form.

As a result of the move expect this site to be a little quiet for the next week or two as I start to get the new WordPress equipped version on the road. At the same time as moving content across I will take the opportunity to make a few tweaks here and there and hopefully get everything sorted before SXSWi with some time to spare!

In June Work paid for me to attend @media2005 and following the second day’s presentations in particular, I was inspired to raise my game as a web developer and to really focus on the details, doing all I could to create sites the ‘right’ way. This enthusiasm on the back of @media allowed myself and my good friend and colleague Tim huegdon to be able to bring about change at work and turn other members of our team on to web standards.

This new drive towards web standards lead to the development of the new Rentokil-Initial site which was then subsequently featured on Stylegala.com. From there on the web development team at Rentokil has been steadily moving in the right direction and we will be continuing to work towards developing with standards into 2006.

Right after @media I decided I needed to fix some of the mistakes I had made with my site’s current design. So I began to tweak the existing design into the fixed/fluid/elasticated/dropping columns site you see before you now. The markup was cleaned up, the CSS overhauled and I added funky caching to my homemade CMS. All of this culminated in the Fall CSS reboot but I felt like a bit of a charlatan as there wasn’t that much of a visible change between the old and new design.

October saw me finally make it over to the dark-side and I purchased a second-hand 12″ Apple Powerbook. Since I’ve had it I’ve loved using it and can’t wait to get my grubby little hands on one of the new Mac-Intel powerbooks so I can run OSX, Ubuntu and windows all on one machine!

In early November I got the chance to attend the d.Construct Web 2.0 conference held by clear:left. I picked up a lot of useful information from the event and found a new love for collaborative editing using subEthaEdit. I also met some great people

Next up was Molly Holzschlag’s Geek dinner which was great event and I had a great time meeting up with everyone there. I really hope there will be another event like it when Molly is back over in the UK in February.

On the 1st of December I was really surprised to see an email from Paul ‘Scrivs’ Scrivens saying I had been accepted into the 9rules network. As we go into 2006 I am really looking forward to being part of the network and to keep improving this blog.

As 2005 is coming to a close I am looking forward to what 2006 may bring. As far as the plans for Muffin Research Labs go, there will be plenty more quality articles coming up and in 2006 I am hoping to be able to bring about a community project idea I’ve had for a while now. More on that in due course.

Here’s wishing everyone a great Christmas and a happy New Year, now I’m off to bed as I have a plane to catch in 4 hours time. Catch you all after Christmas.

As I have quite a lot on at the moment with various projects and continuing to maintain ‘the Lab’, I have decided to move from my custom made CMS (Joornal) to Textpattern. After reading Jon Hicks’ post on some of Textpattern’s templating features I was inspired to check Textpattern out and install in on the server. Having taken a look I’m pretty sure that it will meet my needs and the time I would have spent continuing to develop Joornal can now be devoted to other more exciting projects.

I am pleased to announce that Muffin Research Labs has joined the 9rules network. I’m totally chuffed to be joining a network with sites such as Roger Johansson, Molly E Holzschlag, Particle Tree, Johnathon Snook and Robert Nyman to name but a few.

For anyone that’s reading this thinking; “Oh no, not another web development blog”. Don’t worry, I’m hoping to be able to add my own flavour to the mix and produce some different and original content along the way. Above all else I’m truly interested in helping other developers whilst continuing to spread the word about good practices in web standards.

PS: I think it was the promise of beers at SXSW that swung it!