Error on Line 155

January 19, 2009

Ok, if you haven’t noticed, and you might not have, I broke the blog over the weekend. I wrote a seemingly harmless piece of html for a linked graphic and tried to place it in the sidebar as a widget. It immediately sent strips of error messages about arrays and headers across every page of the website and my WordPress panel. Cool, but bad cool.

Remember that steaming hot cup of coffee you got with the email subscription button? Gone. My favorite books list? Gone, too.

It seems I broke the executable php widget somehow. And yes, I tried uninstalling it from my server and reinstalling a fresh copy, but I still get error messages. Alas, I must be php widget free for awhile until some coding night in shining armor comes to slay the “error on line 155″ dragon and sets the Blue Duck free.

I emailed Harry and he found a double “http” in my code (can you say DUH?), and was very patient and helpful with all my squawking. (Thank you Mr. McLeod. Your generosity is not unrecognized.) I saw James on Twitter and told him I broke the blog, and he wasn’t the least bit surprised. I think he was amazed it took me so long. Well, Sir James, I fully intent to restore the Duck to its original splendor, and I promise to experiment only on my other blogs from now on. The Blue Duck and it’s amazing Men with Pens design will remain pristine.

I guess my days of poking it with a stick before I read the owner’s manual are over. It’s time for a crash course in coding.

This led me to a string of useless ponderings. I was wondering why coders can’t use regular words in their script? Words that actually can be edited for error by the average person? All those abbreviations just beg for typos! Writing a page of code must be exhausting!

They should make a special keyboard for coders with little “http//:” and “a href=” buttons! It would make a coder’s life easier and keep people (like me) from breaking things with simple typos.

So, your Coming Soon sequel is delayed by technical difficulties today. (Plus, I am waiting on a little surprise in my inbox to go with it.)

As an aside to this rambling useless post, I just received a New Year’s pile of SEO goodies to pour over. Once I have digested the contents, I’ll begin a new SEO series for all you serious website owners.

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. everyone. I’m off to Circuit City, or what remains of it, to find out where to take my Toshiba for repairs since the blasted Circuit City people are bankrupt! (I feel the need to insert an “I have a dream” pun here, but that seems tasteless, and I have more respect for Dr, King than that.)

So have a cup of coffee, and head over to Everyday Thoughts from Life for a little storytelling fun for today compliments of Sal and Jess.

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Posted by Jamie | Filed Under Blogging

Comments

poddys

Ha, don't you love it when you just make an eentzy-weentze typo that is too obvious for the eye to spot and the whole blog goes down the plughole!

Just be grateful for the fact that you are not alone - we ALL do it, some more than others, but it's really frustrating, especially when someone points out the minor mistake to you.

At least you got it fixed though - right now I have been trying to get help with a small piece of code, since my php is limited, but can I get someone to help me? It's been two weeks and I know my innovative section of code should prove useful to a lot of people as well. Oh well...

Nice blog by the way, I really enjoy any articles that have a sense of humor, because that's the way I like to write too, straight from the heart, and the funny bone...

<abbr>Tony´s last spectacular blog post..Tagfoot - Social Bookmarking Redefined</abbr>
James Chartrand - Men with Pen

Hehehe...

You know, you bring a good question to mind. Why do you feel that you need to learn this stuff and know this stuff? What does that give you in life?

Think of this: I have a car outside. I own it, it's mine. But you don't see me picking up a manual on small mechanics, do you? Sure, I know how to change my oil, change the tires, patch a leak and grease the zerts. Do I do it myself?

Hell no.

<abbr>James Chartrand - Men with Pens´s last spectacular blog post..Putting the “Social” Back Into Social Networking</abbr>
Jamie Simmerman

Hmmm... good question. Must be the neurotic tendencies and compulsory quest for knowledge that plagues me. (Did that sound good?) Ok, I get it. I'll get a professional. :)
Writer Dad

I feel ya. If I didn't have Dave and Eric, I'm sure WD would have been scattered and shattered long ago.

<abbr>Writer Dad´s last spectacular blog post..SEO Content? Maybe…</abbr>
Jamie Simmerman

UGH, I might have to enlist Eric's skills before long. Glad someone knows what they're doing!
kathy

Jamie
Oh how I can relate to this post. A while back I crashed my blog too. I did manage to reinstall and salvage it, but I'm still not sure how I did it.

Just today, though, one of my readers sent me an email because she couldn't get to the comments on my last post. It appears that my recent code tweaking to add stuff messed it up in Internet Explorer again. I just don't know how to get it to look nice in IE, so I've decided to stop trying and encourage people to use Fire Fox or Flock or Chrome for their browser instead.

Sometimes you just have to pick your battles.

<abbr>kathy´s last spectacular blog post..Stop Complaining! Can you make it to 21 days?</abbr>
Jamie Simmerman

Hi Kathy, I about peed myself when I saw that code shoot across the screen. All I could think was "James is gonna kill me!". :)

This techno-stuff is fun, but it can be a handful, too. I know just enough to get myself in trouble.

Glad you got your site up and running without "professional" help. I think mine's gonna need a shot of thorazine as a motivator. :)
BJ Keltz

You, too? Crystal broke her hard drive and has to send it for replacement. Y'all quit this, okay? LoL.

<abbr>BJ Keltz´s last spectacular blog post..We are Book People</abbr>
Jamie Simmerman

UGH! I hope she backed it up! Speaking of which, the Mac has been squawking about Time Machine being overdue for days now. Gotta take care of that! (BTW, Sean lost his hard drive a few weeks back, too. Maybe it's contagious! )