Sean's blog

Old articles from isono.my

I had this great idea to write about politics and open source software, and rented isono.my for a year as a domain to do it on. I decided after a few months that I wouldn’t continue with it, for … the same reason I’m not going to finish this sentence. It’s a pity to let the articles just disappear though, so I’ve copied them from the now defunct blog to this one.

Copying articles from one WordPress blog to another

It’s very easy, just go into the Dashboard of the origin blog and use Tools..Export to export the articles to a file on your own PC. From the Dashboard on the new blog, use Tools..Import to import the articles! You’ll notice that all the image links are broken – unless I did something wrong yesterday. All my articles had links to images on isono.my, when the images are now on blog.lolyco.com/sean. My solution to this was to use SSH to login to my hosting account, and use the mysql command line client to run this SQL statement:

update wp_posts set post_content = replace(post_content, 'isono.my', 'blog.lolyco.com/sean');

I’ve just re-typed that from memory, as the command seems not to have been stored in my command history when I checked just now. Be very careful to double-check the command before you use it yourself, and remember to do a backup first!

After running the SQL command, you should be able to reload a page (perhaps after clearing your browser cache) and see the new URL, and hopefully, your images too. If you don’t have access to a command line, perhaps your host gives you access to a graphical database admin tool like phpMyAdmin. Ask them if you don’t know.

The isono.my articles

Everybody should question

as a stranger in Malaysia since 2005, I still can’t get used to the idea that nobody ever says “You what?!” when another person is obviously mistaken – at best.

Where is Pakatan Rakyat HQ?

the Opposition coalition doesn’t really exist, so perhaps asking where a non-existent political entity has its headquarters is unfair. Gape in awe at the prospect of a political party skyscraper.

Political Party Logos – part 1

the Opposition flags are nice and simple – you can use open source tools and the open SVG standard to make sure everyone can use them, and they look good at any size.

Political Party Logos – part 2

Parti Keadilan Rakyat’s flag makes a good target for a tutorial on how to go about converting a bitmapped image into SVG using InkScape

Political Party Logos – part 3

DAP’s logo is the most complex of the 3 – but it’s still simple! DAP also put a bit of effort into explaining the symbolism of their rocket. I’m not totally convinced they’ve got it right.

Where in the world was Altantuya?

We know where she shouldn’t have been. Susan Loone asked “when and where” on her popular blog. I show how to estimate place, time and time of year from shadows in photographs.