Watching MacGyver

This morning went on the pinternet, and checked whether my websites were working properly now. They were, but the php.ini file that had magic_quotes_gpc turned off in it had gone MOOA (Missing Out Of Action). I can't remember deleting it myself, although it is possible. I think it's more likely that Evohosting deleted it when trying to fix PDO for me. So I messaged them to ask them to make the php.ini file again for me.

After that I vaccumed my room, then went on the pinternet again. I went in the garden, but there wasn't much to see, just a small black slug sliming its way across the concrete and a small fly that flew away. I came back inside and did a japanese lesson. After that I got up to date on the dpreview canon lens forum and HotUKDeals.

I checked my email and had received a reply from evohosting, saying

We have changed the php.ini.bk to php.ini. In that, we could see that magic_quotes_gpc directive is set to "off". We hadn't added any custom php.ini values to your domain. We have added the AddType in .htaccess to fix the issue with your PDO. The PHP directives will take all other values except "magic_quotes_gpc" from server's main php.ini file. We could understand that you are not having any problem now. So there is no need to make any other change.

So I checked phpinfo() and whilst PDO was listed in the configuration options, it wasn't listed in the details section for each extension. I tested my PDO test script, and it didn't work. So I had a look at the .htaccess file evohosting had made to fix it, which had the following:

AddType application/x-httpd-php5 .php5 .php4 .php .php3 .php2 .phtml

So, I guess that would fix PDO if previously .php files were being executed with php4 instead of php5 (PDO requires php5 and above to work). Anyway, their fix didn't work. So I had a quick look at the php.ini file evohosting made that I had saved from the old server and did a quick internet search. I copied the following lines to the php.ini file on the server and it got PDO working again:

extension=pdo.so;
extension=pdo_mysql.so;

So it took about a month, but seems now that I can carry on working on my site without having to worry about the server not being configured properly (hopefully I haven't spoken too soon!)

Had lunch, then after lunch I activated my new credit card (replacement for the last one that got cancelled due to unauthorised transactions). I haven't received the pin for it yet. Then I called HMV, who had sent me an email asking me to call them because my card had been declined for an order. Strange that they don't just take the money when you first place the order (as my old card wasn't cancelled then). I checked first that the tel. no in the email was correct rather than a phishing scam, and it was correct. It seemed a bit strange that they wanted you to phone rather than just update the order on their website. I guess they're still not quite used to doing business on the web yet.

Anyway, I called them, they said their system was very slow, so it took them ages to look anything up. First I gave them the order number, but they said they couldn't find it, so they took my email address instead and then checked my name and address. After that they said they needed to check with their supervisor because I needed to pay with a different card to the one I originally ordered with. When they had checked they took my card details, and said they'd get the order updated. The call took quite a long time, so it was lucky that HMV put a UK landline number in their email for you to call if you're overseas, so I called that for free rather than the expensive 0845 number.

After that I went on the rowing machine for a few minutes and watched 3 episodes of MacGyver.

After dinner I went on the pinternet then watched Lost with Mac and Ben. Earlier today I read a thread on thewebsqueeze.com about SEO friendly URLs. I don't think I can use Apache's URL re-writing module (mod rewrite) on my site (although when I get that far I will ask Evohosting to make sure), so I did a google search for "mod rewrite alternative". The main suggestions seemed to be either to add the query string after the page address, as per normal, except to use slashes instead of the '?=;' characters, or to use non existant page addresses (effectively what you are doing with mod rewrite) and then redirect them using a custom error 404 page (example, see 2nd and 3rd posts down).

After that I watched Autumnwatch, then checked hotukdeals and deviantart.

Food
Breakfast: Crunchy nut cornflakes; orange juice.
Lunch: Vintage cheddar cheese with lettuce sandwich; apple; ½ lemon marmalade toast sandwich; gold bar; cup o' tea.
Dinner: Slice of ham, sausage and tomato quiche, slice of bacon, chicken and mushroom quiche; potato; peas. Pudding was spotted dick with custard.
Supper: Hot chocolate; 2 x choc chip cookies.