a blab by idle

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I had 500 or so entries I needed to define a default category for. I did about 100 with the entry bulk change GUI but even that was abysmally slow. I figured this had to be stored in a table somewhere, so I started poking around the database to see what I would find. mt_entry indeed has a "category_id" , but it curiously turned out be NULL for every entry, even ones with a single, default category. I pried around for about an hour to no avail until I was saved by Google leading me to a post by Mike Kruckenberg on his blog about Movable Type categories. Turns out that MT abandoned that field a while ago in favor of a linking table for mt_entry and mt_category called "mt_placement" (like that name was obvious) which allowed for primary and secondary categories. So after a bit of learning, translating my Oracle SQL to the MySQL dialect, I came up with the following one-stop query to set a default category (17, determined by looking through mt_category) for just one blog's entries that didn't already have a category assignment. In case it saves anyone the hour or two of hair-pulling, here it is (but be sure to change the blog ID and category ID as appropriate for you):


INSERT INTO mt_placement (placement_entry_id, placement_blog_id, placement_category_id, placement_is_primary)
SELECT e.entry_id, 1, 17, 1
FROM mt_placement p RIGHT OUTER JOIN mt_entry e ON p.placement_entry_id = e.entry_id
WHERE e.entry_blog_id = 1
AND p.placement_is_primary IS NULL;


Note that this does not catch the screwball case where an entry has secondary categories but no primary category, and would still post a primary category for the entry. (I'm not sure if the MT software actually would allow such a condition to occur, however.)

ピタゴラスイッチ, known in English as PythagoraSwitch, is a darling little NHK children's show that seems to be a highly focused left-brain cousin of Sesame Street. There are segments throughout the show known as "Pythagorean Device" (ピタゴラ装置) featuring Rube Goldberg-esque devices that are incredibly reminiscent for me of the Pinball Number Count segments on Sesame Street. (Come on, you know you know them and loved them, even if you didn't realize that it was the Pointer Sisters voicing it.) Anyway, Cliff Johnson's website pointed me to a YouTube-hosted collection of the best of ピタゴラスイッチ, and they range from amusing to truly incredible. The fact that they seem to be all made at home with pretty much nothing but standard household items really takes the cake.

Check it out; it's well worth the watch. Totally safe for work, too. (Not that I'm suggesting anything about where you should watch it… um, wow, look at the time; gotta run!)

This guy is really funny. I'd digg him or give him some other kind of blogosphere cred if I knew how. But I don't, so I'm just posting a link to his blog.

I've seen the future, and it transcends the blogosphere.

…okay, well, at least it's good for a laugh. Read all the little juicy bits for maximum smilage.

I updated to Movable Type 3.34 today, after Wednesday's release. One of the promises was integrated and instant FastCGI support. However, there's a small environmental change you have to make to get it that instant support running; unless you read the announcement carefully, you might miss it. Furthermore, that doc is only linked to from the release note, which itself does not come up (nor does anything but a changelog) if you do a documentation search for 3.34 at sixapart.com.

I'll probably make those changes within the next day or two; I'm curious to see if FastCGI makes any difference on this system at all.

[6:32 AM] Update: Tried moving the five core CGIs to .fcgi to make them run under FastCGI. mt.fcgi, however, seemed to blow a gasket in the middle of a site rebuild, so I had to backout the AdminScript change and rebuild the site again. I've left the other four; let's see how that goes through the day.

Got the Jan 07 Oracle Database Insider in email today. There was a news link there about their "Free DBA Toolbar", which intrigued me, so I clicked through. I can't tell you how tickled I was to read the following first sentence:

The Oracle DBA Toolbar (available for Internet Explorer only at the moment - yeah, yeah, we know; a Mozilla/Firefox version is forthcoming) gives you one-click access to key DBA resources on OTN.

I wonder if it launched like that, or if they changed it after getting deluged with "BUT WHAT ABOUT..." emails.