Well that was odd

Fired up Scatterthought today and got a weird error message. Did you see it? It was something about being unable to configure Akismet.

For the record, Akismet is a WordPress plug-in that I installed after the casinos started bombarding Scatterthought with spam comments. It was working fine (beautifully, actually), and then something weird happened. Yesterday it let a bunch of spam comments through. I checked the admin interface and the plug-in was deactivated, so I re-enabled it. And today I got the weird error message.

It’s all well and good, now. I deleted the plug-in through FTP and reinstalled it, and everything’s back to normal. But I gotta say that I was a little worried there, for awhile. That’s the thing about this database-driven Web stuff. If it goes down, then I lose everything. Whereas with the old HTML, I always had a local backup.

Not that it’s a big deal…I just have to back up my database, and there’s a plug-in to do just that.

In other news, I had a wicked busy week at the office. I got everything done, and next week will be just as busy with new challenges. Woo hoo.

Also, I got a new cellphone this past week. Funny thing, that. I’ve been a Telus/Clearnet customer since February 2001. I went for three years with my first phone, so when it was time to change it, I got a new one on a three-year contract. I figured that since the first one lasted so long, it made sense.

Yeah, right.

The new phone was bad. Like, it sucked. So I got rid of it and bought a phone on Ebay. That one lasted me about two years before I cracked the screen on it (the first time I ever damaged a cellphone). It still worked just fine, so I picked up a new plastic case for it on Ebay. Wow, was that a mistake. It was a pain in the ass getting the tiny screws out of the old case, and as a result I could barely get the new case on properly. It was kinda loose and the phone would turn off sometimes because the battery wasn’t always in contact. Not exactly useful.

Anyway, in December my dad upgraded his phone, so I took his old one. Great phone and it was working well for me. Until I dropped it a couple of weeks ago and the battery catch broke. So I had to put it in a cheap leather case to keep the battery on. And then last weekend I cracked one of the screens while moving some furniture. Oops.

So here I am, 2.5 years into my contract, and my third phone in that timeframe is broken. Sheesh.

I went to Telus and asked them if I can get a new phone on a new contract. Turns out that they can do new contracts when you’re within six months of the end. I was just over six months away, but they were nice and let me do it anyway.

And since you’re wondering, no I didn’t get a three-year contract. I went with one of the phones that’s free with a one-year contract–a UTStarcom 860–so all I had to pay was the handset transfer fee. And to my pleasant surprise, they didn’t extend my contract…they replaced it. So in a year’s time, I’ll be contract-free.

Of course, by then I’ll have probably cracked up my handset and need to replace it. I hope not, though. I’m really quite pleased with it. Despite being one of their cheapest phones, it has all of the features I want (voice dialing) and some I couldn’t care less about (camera). It’s not as thin as the uber-popular Motorola RAZR phones (which I don’t really care for), but it’s lighter. And like I said, it cost me nothing.

I’ve never quite understood the whole contract thing with cell companies. How much of the hardware costs are they eating in order to secure my business for one, two, or three years? Or are they just overcharging like crazy if you don’t get a contract? I’m sure it makes sense to them, and if I did a little research I could find out. But I don’t think I care that much.