Hey hey! Once again I'm clacking keys from a cloudy Stockholm, 27/5/2025.

I took a walk on 13/5/2025 to a local restaurant hoping to have some seafood stew with saffron and hand-peeled shrimp... but there was none left!!! Got a good walk though. Sunshine. Much like today.

Much like today too the same item is on the menu!

I'm tempted to take another swing at it. Another shot at that tantalizing trencher. Another stab at that shrimp fondue. Another violent way of saying I'd like to once again head off to the races (it's a restaurant by a gallop track) and feast on the festive fodder of the sea... but our fridge is full, so I'll let it be, for in just a few days we'll (hopefully) once again be on our way. Up North. By car. Farm time.

All the days between 27/5 and 13/5?

I've been digging up the garden! I've been prepping for the farming. I've been carrying out benches, and warming the sauna, and swimming by ice sheets in the cool blue, as I wait for the grass to grow greener and the summer season to once again greet me with its sheen and radiance...

It's been good. I'm starting to tan. I'm eating carrot puree for assistance.

Harry Mack put out another banger recently. Fire in the booth. Literally. Forward to 15:24 for the best part, IMHO. Art's special. Yes art.

He does re-use some one-liners in this one. Rappers in fear, the booth, get open, get loose... still though: this huge.

Also, if you haven't heard of Cosmic Hill, then check out this Low Fresh Song. It's @CasualBreather y'all! From the recent collaboration.

In national aviatory news plane ticket prices are up again now! Even ones on sale. I'm glad I snagged the ones I needed this summer while cheap...

Regarding the recent hosting issues: Since 4/5 the new host feels... a lot more steady? Faster, and stable even in the afternoons?

Did they get some DDOS or bot attacks sorted? Some server misuse?

Whatever it was I am *fingers crossed* glad it's better... I can load the site fine even at night now, and afternoon; basically all day. :) It may be that CF is now shielding me from the brunt of the attack, and that the issues this caused for the host have thus been mitigated too. I've no idea. I'm keeping a relatively updated mirror of the site on a backup host just in case, but right now it seems like I probably won't need it after all.

What else... did you ever wonder about that small house in old IBM code? And do you know Raymond Chen? He's been working with Microsoft for the last 30 years, and blogging throughout! Role model.

That's all I got. This may be the last blog in a while; I'll be away a lot.

It's summer... soon.

Just gotta share my latest collab y'all! It's a good one.

You can find it on NG and on CDB so far - and I hope to do more with @CasualBreather in the future! We've been chatting it up both before and after the track, and it turns out we actually have surprisingly much in common... whoda knew? Suddenly I have a friend in France too...

The playlists were down here on CDB for a few days this week - which doesn't affect individual tracks like this, but if anyone's been trying to listen to full albums... that's fixed now.

The problem had something to do with the CSP I added earlier. Which seemed simple to use in theory, but in reality... ugh. Why would it block even internal scripts? Isn't the point to block only external ones? How does it work? What did I do wrong? I have no idea! I've opted for a plugin instead, since I apparently have no idea how to properly configure this myself. Check the security headers score now. Not bad eh. :)

What do those checks mean though? I have no idea either.

I mean I have a general idea, but browser security is not my field of expertise. I barely knew about security headers at all until I by-chance stumbled upon some tips on what headers to implement while looking for ways to speed up my site, which is since the recent server move still not consistently performing ideally in the performance department...

I don't even know if I'm maxing out on resource use or no, the control panel shows nothing. The server seems a bit misconfigured, and support non-responsive, so I'm currently testing a move to yet another host, which seems both more stable and more capable; hopefully I'll soon know if the ongoing issues are in fact server-related or no...

All this troubleshooting's taught me a fair share about server configuration though, and I've done quite a bit of optimization. No bad thing without some good to it.

Regarding the server misconfiguration on my current host: it seems to also have the unintended side-effect of bypassing the server account quotas entirely, and not measuring how much data I have on my account, so that's pretty cool... in the world of shared truly unlimited is pretty rare.

I just hope I'm not sharing this apparent misconfiguration and lack of limitations with everyone else on that account. Oh well. Backups.

In other news? I just revised three reviews, and felt like I'd been efficient enough to take a break and write a bit instead, so I'm writing this. There is much to be done yet on the revision front, I'm working through it...

Those first impressions of Eschalon: Book 1 are up now too, and second impressions are ongoing! I'm really liking this game... even though I've played through it already when I write this. It's one of those worlds where you feel there's more to explore even when you've been through it all. You can play it in different ways, as different characters, with different stats and abilities, and I wondered how it'd be with a different one, so I'm trying one now... though maybe it's more so that the game's a bit short, and so even when you finish it you don't want to give it up just quite yet.

It's not that short though - I'm 50+ hours in at this point, and on my second run. It's going better than the first one. I'm taking care not to sell off equipment I want to keep, and to be more strategic about skill points, and the optimal order of character evolution... like for example you can train yourself in certain skills in-game, and thus save a lot of extra points on not learning those skills at all beforehand, and certain skills are more helpful to hone earlier in the game than others are, like cartography... though then again you don't need cartography to complete the game at all, you could focus entirely on honing your combat. It's just helpful.

I think I'm getting a cartography addiction. I just want to map the world. I run into enemies without realizing it sometimes, while just following the edge of the forest and trying to map out the groves between the trees...

Anyway I can't wait to play the second book later on. But I'm taking my time with this one. And after this one I'm taking a break! Movies, next...

Reviews, and revisions, and the ongoing site stuff... that's the gest.

Been a long week!

I cleared out the old server on the first days of it.

I'm not sure what the usual personal integrity process is like when you terminate a hosting account - back in the day I didn't care much about such things. Now I wonder if they run a few extra writes on your account data, as to really erase all traces of personal info - or if servers are written to so continually that there is very little risk of any data actually being traced.

Or is this even a consideration with a server-based OS? Does their storage work differently?

I don't think other hosted customers have any kind of access to drive-level data anyway - and certainly no ability to rewrite parts of the drive, but I did my due diligence anyway, and properly cleared out all files that I had there. Settings and databases too. Making sure to go through everything one final time, and see that no new data had been added that I'd be losing, and that the backups on my new server were now working alright.

They are! Updraft is a breeze. Cron's running fine too now, and I still haven't had any downtime since the move.

I have, however, still had issues with the site loading abnormally slow for me in the afternoon, and I'm not sure I can do anything about this.

I noticed my bandwidth was getting eaten away pretty quick, so I went through Cloudflare's security settings and tried enabling bot protection. Suddenly bandwidth usage dwindled, and CF started mitigating around ~50,000 hits per day on the main domain (the only one that really uses data).

I still get the legitimate hits: search engine crawlers and what-not, but hopefully much less of the malicious or just unnecessary stuff. CPGuard (which is new software to me - I had Immunify 360 on the old server) is stopping much less since I activated CF's built-in settings too, so now the bad traffic is getting throttled before it even hits the server, and that's a good thing! Less hits on the site = less overhead and resource use.

Since my site is getting this level of interest though - and it seems it wasn't before the move - I wonder if the reason for the afternoon slowdowns could be that the entire server is then for a time under attack. And that the slowness I'm noticing does not correlate to resource usage specifically on my account, but to the server as a whole.

Either that or there are some other sites on the server that are using an abundance of shared server resources every afternoon...

I hope my host figures it out, and gets notified if it goes overboard. If they don't I reckon I'll ask.

As it is everything's fine for most of the day, yet if I try editing posts later on I have trouble reloading pages; getting images to load; being anywhere near productive enough with my workflow. So I work a bit more with my sites earlier during the day now! And that's alright.

It could of course be that my own IP is somehow throttled. That either server, CF or WP firewall doesn't like me.

I discovered while trying to login from another computer that CPGuard keeps people away from wp-admin entirely if cookies aren't enabled, too.

The page doesn't even load, you just get redirected. So that's... good I guess. I just hope similar things don't happen for legitimate visitors, on other areas of the site...

Like you, dear visitor, how does the site currently load for you? I'd be interested to know. I know playlists are currently broken. Working on that...

Still not sure if the server's the issue otherwise, or if I'm the issue, or if there's some totally unrelated anomaly or complication somewhere along the line that's giving me issues. Like my ISP, or my connection to the IP in Germany that this site is now using...

I had some issues with email forwarding/SMTP working initially too, but that's fixed, which means I'm receiving weekly firewall reports now! Among other things. Seems those send-out's didn't work on the old server.

Guess how many blocks I get each week (or got, before the CF thing - it'll be interesting to compare the next report with this one)? Here's a glimpse:

I'm keeping the full reports to myself. :) Maybe more on those later.

Anyway: Outside the site-related stuff good buddy Andreas has been visiting this week! We've been walking lots, playing table tennis at a country house/manor, sauntering through a nice Spring market that served delicious almond-based gluten-free saffron pancake with whipped cream and raspberry jam, trying obstacle courses, eating rock fish at Bro Park, and overall not getting nearly enough sleep, but it was a fun visit still!

Also been working a bit more than usual. 4/5 days. Extra hours.

Also, did you know about the international Free Comic Book Day?

There is one comic book shop in Stockholm that gives out free comics too apparently! Every year. The first Saturday in May. If I'd have been better prepared for it maybe I'd have gone.

This Saturday I was recouping from the recent visit, low on sleep; possibly a little down from consuming (delicious albeit) Bro Park sourdough bread with gluten, but for next year... gotta write this down.

I've booked a few plane tickets too.

Suddenly prices between Stockholm and Luleå (the national route I need to take each year to get to/from the wild wild North) dropped ~200 SEK per ticket. And they had a sale, with a 20% rebate, so suddenly flights were like half the original price!

Unfortunately I book most of my travel in advance, and already paid double the price for four flights, but the July dates may not have been cheaper now anyway...

My summer now is fully booked. The first trip's coming up quick, in just about two weeks. And right before it I'm headed off on another cruise...

On NG I have a few musical collaborations on route (and this recent one), I'm trying to make time for a little more Eschalon: Book I (new game I'm playing - it's good - I'll have a first impression post up soon), and have been trying to get in a little more exercise and time outside in preparation for this quickly approaching summer, too...

Isn't it strange how when you think you finally have a bit more time to spare, that time just disappears, and suddenly all is booked in and you have not enough time for anything anyway? It keeps happening!!!

Also, new OK GO video y'all. I'm late posting that too.

Speak more soon.

After all these other trips, it was time for a digital one.

I've moved this site - and all of my other sites. After 18 years with WHB, it's time for a new chapter: CDB is now loading from a new host!

You may have noticed the move, despite my best intentions to keep it seamless, since the main page briefly (for an hour or so) showed nothing but a 500 error earlier this week, as I scrambled to figure out what settings I'd missed to adjust in the transitioning process.

Turns out it was the directory structure.

Some plugins/settings store the full server-based directory structure, rather than a relative path, and though domain-based paths stay the same even with a new IP, the directory structure on a server generally does not.

Why store the full path though? Do they really have to? Even when they link to files that all exist within the public_html directory; under the branch of the main domain?

It seems unnecessary, but that was the one thing I missed with the move anyhow. I fixed it, and the site has been running... relatively OK since.

Loading times do seem to vary a bit throughout the day, and I'm not yet sure if this is a host-related issue or a me-related issue.

The new firewalls are different than the old ones, the server architecture too, not all the same PHP extensions are enabled or installed - and some are that weren't previously. The database is newer, the control panel is different... there's a lot of new to go through!

I'm experimenting with server-side caching and other new settings, but it seems sometimes the site loads blazingly fast - faster than it did before, yet sometimes not so. Sometimes it's aggravatingly slow. But it works. The uptime so far is still 100%.

I'm not sure I'll stay with this host, and so I'm not revealing any details as to who I'm using yet - if I do I'll write a proper review in time, but let's give them the benefit of the doubt and see how it goes shall we?

I'm also intrigued to hear how you experience the new. Are things loading faster? Is the site stable? Is something else buggin'?

Now then, now that the pleasantries and practicalities of the move are out of the way, how about a long-form rant on why I'm swappin' servers...

Read on...

I've changed my backup plugin. Finally.

I didn't plan to really, even with the ongoing issues.

However my settings with BackWPup disappeared with the recent move.

I first tried to dig up some information on where these backup settings were stored in the database to restore them - if they were stored there at all, but couldn't find any information thereof, so... I figured maybe it was time to start fresh and try their new version. The one they claim now meets all user demands, fourteen versions after the trialed and tested 4.1.7 that I've stubbornly stuck with, that still worked so well...

So how was this new 5.1.3 variant? Not good.

Why? Well let me tell you what's currently wrong with it; what they have not fixed - or rather what issues currently plague the plugin, despite their ongoing and increased attempts to right all wrongs:

1. When you install the plugin, you're forced to go through a configuration wizard to get started. There's no way to skip this - I consider this a major usability flaw for anyone who's already used the plugin, or just doesn't need a wizard. But it gets worse...
2. Once the wizard's complete, the plugin makes a complete backup of your account! There's no way to skip this either. A complete backup for me currently weighs in at ~24GB. I don't want a complete backup - I manage those via the server! All I want is a regular database backup, or selective file backups, with only files that have actually changed.
3. The settings you toggle via the wizard don't work either. If you try to change '15 revisions' to another number - both with file and database backups, nothing happens. (You can change these numbers later, but this initial toggle is completely broken.)
4. The option to select either database or file backup - or both - doesn't work either! The plugin generates a complete backup regardless, and both settings are turned on - even if you toggle them off, until said first complete backup has been generated, and further setting adjustments and toggles start working.
5. The UI is a mess. The most useful options are hidden away, the controls are big and clunky, they've opted for a custom font that further increases load time, and the design overall is just... very unprofessional and unnecessarily 'bloated'. The old was better.
6. Finally - and this is the big one - the 'Backup Now' button does not work either! On their support forum they recommend you uninstall, and reinstall, and reactivate the plugin, and then it should work. But no, it didn't! I tried this. All I got was another full ~24GB backup.

I wonder if this could've had something to do with my performance issues with the site this week, that I assumed had to do with the new server...

There are still options missing compared to the more usable 4.1.7 release, too. And you still can't use a backup directory outside the public_html directory, which is a 'feature' they introduced after version 4.0.1.

'For security reasons', they wrote then.

For what, for worse security? To let users potentially download your backups when they're stored in a publicly accessible directory?

It seems a bigger security risk to have your backups located within this directory than outside it, if someone somehow manages to get around whatever directory protection this reliable plugin has implemented to keep people out of it.

I don't understand their reasoning.

I don't mean to keep beating a dead horse here though. That was just the first problem I had with this plugin - or rather the first downgrade in functionality I noticed, and there are still problems...

I tried downgrading to one of the earlier versions of the plugin after my failed attempts at using the new version, but faced some time-out issues with the server then (possibly related to a sudden increase in data and resource use?), and saw it as a sign it was maybe time to leave this be.

I tested a few more backup alternatives since the last post too, but I think I'm done now. I settled for Updraft after all - the by far most used backup plugin available - even though the feature set's comparatively limited.

So far it's worked great though. No bugs! No problems.

At least not big ones.

The cron wouldn't work properly for a while, but that may have been a server migration issue too. Or even a BackWPUp-related thing...

I like the Updraft interface too. It's simple. Not clunky. And they have some useful maintenance/server tools included along with the backup stuff.

Currently, Updraft seems like a safer; more tested alternative than BackWPUp - although version 4.1.7 of the latter is still good. BackWPUp was extensive, though inevitably will also fall behind in terms of security and framework updates now, if you refuse to use the newer versions.

Anyone up for starting a branch on that version? And further developing it as it should have been developed, with the full set of original features and functionality intact?

For posterity, here's the list of changes BackWPup have gone through since the last time I posted about them:

Read on...

Ain't that something too? Hell yeah it is! :)

We're actually up at 2,500 movie reviews already, but I forgot to post about this milestone, so here it is.

Here's to the next 500! 🎉