An Eclectic Mind

Help me find entries that are missing pictures or need work.

I spent the first five hours of today sitting around the house with my PowerBook, trying to get the content for the site and blog back online. I faced two problems:

1. When I restored the blog database after the February 17 crash, any special characters (like em-dashes, cents symbols, degree symbols) turned into question marks. They had to be stripped out and fixed, one entry at a time.
2. The pictures accompanying the blog entries weren’t backed up (because I am an idiot) and were lost in the February 17 crash, so I had to restore them manually.

I also lost all the formatting for the site, but I’ve since chosen a new WordPress theme and modified it extensively to meet most of my needs.

I just went through about 100 blog entries to check and fix them. But there are 300+ online. And although I sometimes enjoy reading my own writing, five hours of it is enough for a day.

So here’s how you can help. If you find an entry that has some weird question mark characters (usually 2 or 3 in a row, like ?? or ???) or an entry that is obviously missing images, use the Comment link at the bottom of the entry to tell me about it. This will help me find the link (I am notified of all new comments) and it will help prevent others from reporting the same problem entry.

I’m willing to pay for this assistance by turning it into a contest. The person with the most valid problem URLs reported between now and April month-end will get a B&N.com gift certificate valued at $20 or an autographed copy of any of my current books.

Deal? Let the game begin! I’ll report standings periodically in this blog.

The next day…

Stop helping!

I went to sleep, woke up with a power failure and couldn’t check my blog, and goofed around at the airport for a few hours. When I got back and the power was restored, there were dozens of comments pointing out posts that needed help.

A big thanks to Mary and Larry for their help. Larry wins hands down. I haven’t counted all of his comments yet, but he’s already scored more than 20 and claims he’s gone through all the entries. Now I have to destroy all the bad characters he found.

And I was hoping to get just a comment or two a day…