WiseSam

The last couple of days I have been reading about the MVC design pattern.

I also spent quite a lot of time today trying to find out why previews weren't working on a wordpress site I look after. The preview would load, but it wouldn't include any changes that had been made. The only way to see the changes was to publish the updated page.

I first tracked the problem down to the database, and then to the wp_options table, and then to the permalinks structure entry, and finally down to my server settings. The issue was that I was redirecting requests for non-existent files to index.php by using try_files. What I didn't realise is that unlike rewrite, this doesn't automatically append query parameters. So you need to do

try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args

.

Seems obvious now, but took me ages trying to track the problem down until I realised it was probably a problem with my nginx config.

I got an email today from someone asking to use one of my photos from the sxc.hu website. They said that sxc had changed it's policies recently so that people wanting to use a photo in a manipulation must request the copyright holder's (the photographer's) permission first. (Previously you only needed to do this if the photographer explicitly stated they wanted contacting for permission first). I was kind of surprised at this, as I thought sxc had been left for dead by Getty soon after they bought it.

So I checked the site, but it still appears to be left for dead. Maybe Getty just decided to change to rules for some reason, but leave the rest of the site as it is. It's funny since the front page still has the latest news as being 28 July 2009 Getty Images is proud to welcome Stock.XCHNG into its family of companies..

Now, according to the news article:

Most of all though, we want to keep doing all the things that have already made SXC the success it is, and see it continue to grow and thrive.

So Getty thinks that making it harder for people to get files approved and removing the forums is the same as keeping doing all the things that made SXC a success? In truth their statement should have read:

Most of all though, we want to stop doing all the things that have already made SXC the success it is, and by doing this, see it start to falter and die.

Further down the page, underneath the news item, they still have a piece of text as follows, even though the forums have been removed:

Chat with other members in our forum! Looking for something? Need an opinion? Have a question? Post a topic, and someone will definitely help you out.

Just checking wikipedia now, apparently the founders of sxc.hu started a new agency (not owned by Getty) called stockfresh. I checked their website and they have a counter that shows how many files they have available. This counter keeps going up all the time. I thought it didn't seem right that they'd be constantly adding new files, and it seems they aren't. If you refresh the page, it will just go back to what it was before. So it's just a fake counter.