Hurray!

I managed to create a blog roll type in Drupal. Blog rolls had to be handcrafted before CCK, the content creation kit, came round. And now the Link content module simplifies it even further.

So I have been cloning my blog roll views to create a block per blog roll category on this site. I even exported the view to one of my client sites. Check it out at www.treptower.com

I'm a happy, happy camper!

Now if I could just get views to create a summary entry with individual listings for every category associated with a blog roll type, my life would be complete.

I finished my xml to ical project on Monday, well at least the beta version. I still need to make one small adjustment, test it and deliver it to the client.

I am very happy with how this project turned out. It is for a local yoga studio and I may get a free class out of it. It was, however, actually a labor of love.

Way back in ancient history, I had monitored both the developing xml spec via the W3C and the vCal spec via the IETF. My last research proposal was actually a precursor to both the RSS and iCal specs -- I wanted to create an java based xml calendar that would be updated by a webot crawling for compatible DTDs.

I submitted the proposal right before the first of several culture killing mergers. I never got to create that calendar. I even proposed it to several community groups before the rss spec was finalized.

But here was a project where I could finally scratch that itch to create calendars via xml.

I am so happy.

On new installs when setting up sandbox sites, drupal sometimes has problems finding the correct database.

In phpMyAdmin, make sure you have root set up with all privleges for all databases on localhost. Then use root as the user in your settings.php file.

Once I changed the user to root, with the appropriate password and database name, everything worked fine.

Another infamous Drupal problem.

So okay, when you try to login, you are either returned to the login screen and/or get Access Denied. When you check your watchdog table, you notice two logins, one for yourself and the infamous user 0. And the session table lists at least two current sessions for your ip address.

In my case, it was probably caused by my creating a backup of my database while I was logged in and then downloading it to use on another site. It is caused by the browser storing multiple cookies for your drupal site.

The fix, using the developer toolbar in Firefox, delete all the session cookies. You may find yourself already logged in when you try your site. So logout then log back in. Everything should be fine.