And the blog is...?

You might be asking just what's the point of having a blog on a dictionary site? Surely the words are all there to be read so... ?

Well for starters it gives us a chance to ramble about the site, and changes or improvements etc we make. Also we can add in links to news about slang or interesting developments we've read.

Also, hard as it is to believe, there are dozens of *other* sites out there you might find of interest so we'll select a few of those and get a bit of critical assessment up for you.

Loads to do eh? Best get down to it then. Back soon.

The ODPS Blog rides again!

Some two years after it's last post... and after several iterations and layout changes, the blog is making a reappearance.

As you can no doubt see I've left *all* the posts from the previous version of the blog extant (I like that word :)) so you can read some of the problems we had back then!

For now... this will do. Maybe one day I'll get 'above myself' and add an incarnation via Wordpress or similar, but for now... this will do.

Feel free to comment, write rude words, jump and shout... even offer marriage... so long as you read the site and have fun my work'll be done. Sorta :)

Not gone again surely?

Well nope... apologies for those who arrived to find the site dead as a dodo last night. All thanks *must* go to Phillipa who kindly let me know.

The problem turned out to have been a server error which deleted the entire database!! Because of Phillipa, I was able to get to the host and get the database rebuilt before anything was overwritten. :)

We are now up and running again... and just as offensive as ever we were :)

Hello again!

Long time no see! Where've I been? Well actually I've been updating another little site I run called Talk Tidy which is an odd little place... but I like it.

I've also been looking at ways to integrate the current installation of Glossword with Mambo... and guess what? Can't do it. It *is* possible to integrate the two (up to a point) but it appears it's only possible with new installations of both Mambo *and* Glossword. Now you might say... so? Well this is because you've not tried to manually enter the 4500+ words and definitions we have in here :)

So.. I'm still looking at installing the forums here instead of using the forum/blog site but I'm not sure yet how we can make the sites work together. For example, It would be relatively easy to link the CMS/Forum to the Dictionaries, but the problem comes when I try to link *back*.

To make the dictionary functional you need the linkage to take you to the words... but if I add a link *back*... where will it land? Well it'll land back in the CMS/Forum instead of the front page of the dictionary.

Anyway... I *am* going to work on it... but I think until I can get hold of Dmitry again and ask him to do the work for me (well it *is* his software I'm using ) integration will just have to be a bit of a dream :)

Ah well... enough of the rambling.... back to work. :D

The Forums? Oh... perleease!

Actually, I *have* just installed forum software on the Forum/Blog site but you can't see it just yet :)

Actually I'm looking for a way to integrate the blog with the forum so they share a common theme... not easy apparantly... something about them not sharing much coding... ah well. If you'd like a sneak preview of the 'bog standard site'... then click here where you can register, post, or whatever... it just doesn't *look* quite right yet :)

Ever felt like a parrot?

Not this isn't some gastronomical quiz, not is it an advert for some fetish group. It's just that I seem to be constantly repeating "Who's a silly boy then?"... or some similar theme.

Talking of themes... that's what I did... changed the theme on the forum/blog site to one that wasn't 100% ready for use... and sort of... killed it :)

Kyte - bless her little cotton socks - has fixed the theme. and I'm currently uploading it. My assumption is that it'll repair it self and all will be well... tell ya... this blind faith is an amazing thing!

'Corse it might well *not* work and if it doesn't I'm of a mind to scrap the whole thing yet again and take it back to a 'proper' forum... maybe using 'Simple Machine' software this time. Xoops was just a bit heavy for what was after all more of a blog than a forum.

Anyway... less chat - more action. It *might* yet work... we'll see!

Oh Lord, I can be SO stupid!

After all this time I've realised why we weren't getting the usual floods of submissions... I changed the 'mailto' address to a gmail one... and it all *bounces*. Flaming Google probably thinks it's spam or something..

Problem fixed - it's back to the original one - but how many words have been lost forever.

People who feel like kicking me - form a line :(

The March Back Begins!

I've been looking at the stats and it looks like the ODPS is beginning to recover. Of course we still need more submissions and similar but at least visitor numbers are increasing so... we're on the way!!

By the way - you might wonder where the new words are... well... as yet another excuse for not doing any work I've had my sister and brother in law staying here for the past few weeks and to be quite honest... real life beats the virtual one hands down! We've been out doing the tourist stuff and having fun... but she leaves in a day or two so then is when I'll get back to it... honest... so send 'em on in and they'll be up there by Monday ok??

And slowly times change!

After some short deliberation... oooh... a good ten seconds... I decided to totally remove all traces of the 'old' forum site and create a new 'forum/blog' site built around Wordpress... which I might add is a nice bit of kit!!

Ok it doesn't have the same 'feel' as before, but it's a lot more practical to manage and update. So far it's there... with a couple of posts... but little else:) It'll fill up slowly as things start to happen with the Dictionary... but in the meantime... if you'd like a sneak preview... try here... it's at ODPS Forums/Blog - what else would it be called?? :)

Seedy Songs indeed :)

Finally finished off re-entering all the playground songs and rhymes I found in the database. There *are* more out there... millions of them... I just need you to send them to me! Well ok... maybe not only you... maybe your friends? family? strangers on the street? We always need new material and since the site has been down we've lost a lot of the impetus. Let's go guys!!

And now... let's get to the 'Dirty Ditties' of the Rugby Songs!

Getting there slowly.

At the time of writing I've managed to get 175 terms re-entered into the 'Seedy Songs' dictionary. There're still another 200 or so to go that are still in the database, but the work is at last going on. Give me a week and it'll all be back up ready to put in the *new* entries. Then I can get on to all the filthy lyrics in the Rugby songs... now *that* ought to be a giggle! :)

My fingers ache!

I've spent most of today uploading entry after entry to the 'Seedy Songs' dictionary and have so far made very little headway relatively! At least I mananged to extract a database dump of the 'old' entries which is allowing me to do it. The thought of having to look through four years of mail trying to find the entries one at a time still gives me the shivers! On the other hand, looking through all the entries again has been real fun... some have made me laugh as much as they did when I first entered them :)

Anway, for those of you new to the site you'll have *no* idea what I'm talking about so just ignore me and go enjoy yourselves... for the regulars... well it will take me days, maybe weeks, to get each entry ready for inclusion so bear with me. It is happening. Soon the site will be restored to its former glory... so go get your friends and relatives and get more slang, songs, and games. C'mon guys... let's get the ball rolling again!!

The Times they *are* a changing!

Well - this time I really *am* back. The slipped disc is sufficiently recovered for me to start working on my sites. I've already revamped my 'personal' blog and sorted out the forums on Talk Tidy which is another dictionary site dedicated to Wenglish, the English dialect spoken around the place of my birth, i.e. S.Wales, UK.

The time has come to look closely at the forum site (odps.net) which also seems to have suffered a total collapse while I've been away. My feelings on this are to pretty abandon it in its current form and to simply replace it with either a vanilla phpBB forum or reduce it still further to essentially a 'blog' site. In fact, I've been wondering whether to simply extend this occasional blog/update window to fill the other site and allow it to accept comments etc as a means of communicating between each other.

As usual I'll be guided by the comments I get to via contact/feedback mail I get via the link above.

I'll move onto the main ODPS site - i.e. here - once the other sites are in place. There is simply too much to do here for me to be able to work on the other sites concurrently and, since they are all far smaller, I may as well get them updated and functioning before settling down to rebuilding this.

On that theme, after the eventual debacle surrounding Dmitry's rebuilding and loss of the backups [grrr... ] I'm looking round for a new source of dictionary building software. If anyone has any suggestions I'll be pleased to take a look - even commercially sourced software will be acceptable!

Finally, once more this blog is seeing me apologise for the mess the site is in and the way it deteriorated so badly. It really wasn't intentional, and despite my best efforts I have just been physically unable to give the place the attention it deserves. Hopefully, this will be the last apology from me for a while, and from here on I'll just be posting *good* news :)

Eeehhh..... I'm *so* mad I could crush a grape!

I *thought* I had the backups for the other dictionaries... but it turns out they aren't onsite at all. I'm now searching through the old database files in the vain hope I can locate something to let me rebuild them. Grrr.....

Errr.....

Well ok.... so I might've exaggerated a bit about how soon I'd be able to get onto the site to improve, sort, include, add... etc, etc.

I can come up with all sorts of excuses... bad back, sickness, new foster kids, Xmas, New Year... err.... well all sorts of things... but at the end of the day I've just not had time to get into the site propery... well ok - at all... honest!! Would I lie to you??

However... for those of you who've put up with the months of crap and inactivity... I'm sure you'll all be ecstatic to learn I've finally started to get things going again. I've located the backups for the rugby songs and playground songs... and will be hard at work over the next week or twenty getting it all back to its pristine glory.

How? Well for starters the kids are finally back at school... in Oz remember summer holiday time is over Xmas so things really *have* been hectic.

Anyway.. on with the motley... drop by tomorrow evening... or morning depending on where you live... and you'll see things starting to happen. Tra for now

Almost there, we're almost there...

Yes... Dmitry has managed to overcome my gross misuse of his software and has got the whole slang section of the Dictionary back online - well done Dmitry! Lord knows how you did it but I am *so* grateful.

We still don't yet have the playground games, playground songs and chants or the rugby song collections but at least the worst is over. And yes, there are 'errors' on some of the entries... but over the next few weeks I'll be going thru the entire dictionary updating the entries and making sure all is looking as good as it should.

I also have a ton of *new* entries to load in so keep watching this space and... as usual... if you have corrections, complaints or more especially new words, phrases, anecdotes or whatever to send in... we'll be more than happy to get them.

By the way - if you hadn't noticed, Xmas is coming round again... so now is the time to get into the bookshops and order your copy of the print version of the site... if you're like me I'm sure there are wowser relatives you'd like to annoy the hell out of?? You *could* always buy it from Amazon if you wanted?

Was I frightened? Wouldn't you be?

As you can see, the site is on it's way to recovery. Dmitry has upgraded the software to the latest version (1.6.4) and as far as I can see all he needs to do is import all the terms. From now on I think we need to make sure the site is upgraded version for version so avoid major jumps... and also to do regular backups!

At the very least we owe Dmitry a large vote of thanks.... I will be so relieved to see the place back to its previous 'glory' with all 4 dictionaries and all 3500+ terms in situ.

Panic over guys - bear with us... just a little while longer :)

OK... something ain't right here!

Well ok Dmitry is working on the site... but currently we seem to have lost all the dictionaries.... in fact the entire site other than this page!

Come to that the logos have changed to display the Glossword native ones. Err... I hope he can fix this!!

I'll be on pins now 'til its sorted :(

Bear with us.... I'm sure it'll all be alright soon.... won't it??

Well... I'm back!

Unfortunately it looks like the site isn't - all I can say is aaarrggghhh...!

Anyway. My abject apologies to all who visited and found they were greeted by a blank page when they tried to access the dictionary. Apparently during a server upgrade the index file was corrupted and so the site won't load. Of course the data is still there hidden in the depths of the database so I've got on to Dmitry who developed the Glossword Software and he is going to do a full software upgrade and rebuild the site for me.

I don't know how long this will take but no more than a day or two I hope - but since it appears the site has been down for a month... perhaps a few more hours won't matter too much?

From now on I'll be checking the 'public' access a lot more often as well as simply loading new words into the dictionary via the admin access.

Sorry it's taken so long - and I hope this doesn't happen again!

Strange but True
 
Since the ODPS forums opened, new submissions have dropped to an all time low! Maybe visitors think the forum is the place to leave new words, but when they get there - find it's weird and forget :)
 
If you want to leave new words, games etc, either fill in the submission/feedback form at the top of the page - or just mail me direct!
 
All mail is read and all submissions are received gratefully - especially reminiscences of schooldays.