Indigo Jo Blogs

Update: This site was down overnight, because my web host upgraded some of their software, and had backed up my files before they did that, and restored them, destroying all the work I did yesterday morning. I've now had to do the whole upgrade again. The new post about the bombing of the Yazidis in Iraq is below this one.

I've just upgraded this site to the new version of Movable Type, version 4. This has meant sacrificing my "paid customer" status, because they don't offer personal paid accounts, although the only two things I got from that that I actually use are the right not to declare "powered by Movable Type" on my blog, and a code which I could use so that any new entries would be announced on the MT website. I'm not sure if the latter still works - I made three attempts to ask them, and have not received any reply. One of the blog posts I made to this effect was not even published.

Anyway, I had to make the upgrade because there are a lot of advanced features that weren't there in version 3 - among them, the "pages" feature that Wordpress has had since 2005, and much more flexible page templates (and flexibility, such as in dynamic publishing, is why I moved back to MT from Wordpress in late 2005). Unfortunately, comments are currently broken, because for some reason it still tries to load the comments script on my old MT install. On the bright side, that means no more spam for a day or so ... Also, anyone who comments through TypeKey needs to go into their profile and tick the box which says "When you comment on a weblog, send the weblog owner your email address". Otherwise, when you try to log in, you will just get an error message.

Posted by Indigo Jo at 12:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As-Salaamu 'alaikum everyone

Apologies for not posting anything for the last few days. Initially it was due to lack of material to write about, then it was tiredness due to work, and now there has been a death in my family. I was planning to write about the recent talk about racking up the anti-terrorist laws yet again, the recent wave of shootings (most recently of the former boxer who was shot for asking people to stop smoking, and of a 16-year-old Somali boy in Stockwell) and of the appalling story of Bisher al-Rawi, who helped the British security forces (MI5) keep track of a known extremist preacher but who was thrown to the dogs (i.e. the CIA) by MI5 (Kashif has an opinion on that). But it'll have to wait for a day or two.

Posted by Indigo Jo at 10:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

For anyone who's been wondering why I've not posted much in the last week or so, the reason is that, since last Friday, I've been either working on a private programming project or else working, which for me usually refers to driving jobs in a distant (at least, in public transport terms) part of London. This often leaves me too tired to write blog entries in the evening.

Insha Allah, I've got a couple of blog entries to come up in the next couple of days.

Posted by Indigo Jo at 8:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As I'm writing this I'm just getting packed to go away to Wales for a week. Insha Allah I'll be back next Saturday (with some photos!) although I might be able to get a post in mid-week. We're going to Tywyn, a small seaside resort near the southern end of the Snowdonia National Park (near Cadair Idris), although insha Allah I'm going to go south to Aberystwyth, my old university town, for a couple of days as well. This likely means I won't be able to moderate comments; here's your time to get a TypeKey ID, which will enable you to post unmoderated.

Posted by Indigo Jo at 8:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Getting the blog spammers to hang up their affiliations (Guardian Unlimited Technology)

An article from today's Guardian Technology supplement, about the intricacies (as they seem to me) of affiliate schemes and how they help spammers. The important part of this article is how difficult it was for the reporter to get straight answers out of the affiliate schemes themselves. 94% of blog comments are spam, and I get hundreds every day. Also, see this BBC article on "botnets", meaning networks of compromised computers, and their role in spamming and other online crime. Up to a quarter of all computers with internet access are thought to be in botnets, unbeknown to the owners.

Can I remind regular readers that TypeKey, which allows unmoderated comments on this site (unless I decide your comments are garbage, in which case I can ban your ID but allow you moderated commenting), is free? And unlike on TypePad blogs, you can leave your own link with your comment rather than the link going to your profile or email address. I don't like having to moderate comments from regulars, as it slows down discussion, but I don't want the comments sections to become forums for "debate" with bigots, as is the case on certain other Muslim blogs. If you are a regular, please use TypeKey and you can discuss whatever comes up here freely.

Posted by Indigo Jo at 6:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Greetings and as-Salaamu 'alaikum to my overseas readers,

Some news outlets have reported that a "severe tornado" had struck London today. While there were severe storms in many areas of London, the tornado itself was a small one and its damage was confined to a few streets in north-west London. I was not caught in any of it; I was indoors, a few miles away, through the worst of the storms.

Posted by Indigo Jo at 9:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

As I hope you can all see, I've just installed a new theme for the blog as I was getting bored with the old one ... so here it is. I found it on the Movable Type Style Contest site, on which the people behind Movable Type try frantically to narrow the gap between MT and Wordpress in terms of the variety of themes available.

The original of this theme was very primary-colour heavy with a yellow background and a picture of a red bus or tram car in a place I don't know, so I adapted the Almost Spring colour scheme to the structure and substituted a New Malden street photo, with a red bus (and it had to be one showing New Malden as the destination) going up the High Street from the Fountain (which is in the roundabout behind it) towards the station. I hope the original author doesn't mind. (No, I'm not releasing the CSS - I don't want anyone to have an identical blog theme to mine.)

Posted by Indigo Jo at 11:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

I've just discovered the blog of a regular contributor to the British Muslim free-sheet, The Muslim News, namely Shelina Zahra Janmohamed. I discovered this today when I picked up the paper at Dar al-Taqwa in London having gone there in an (unsuccessful) attempt to pick up a copy of the latest Q-News. The article I saw, duplicated at the blog, is about a Muslim who was refused private health treatment (by a consultant who also treated the patient on the NHS, in the same NHS hospital!) because his wife refused to shake hands with the male consultant.

Posted by Indigo Jo at 4:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Basically I've been in bed most of this week, with a nasty case of diarrhoea which suddenly appeared on Saturday evening as I was about to go to bed. I'm almost finished a post which insha Allah will appear tomorrow. Other than that I've been too weak to do pretty much anything although my strength is returning.

A couple of unrelated issues, though:

Continue reading "Where I've been" »

Posted by Indigo Jo at 10:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

As-Salaamu 'alaikum again

I'm back ... I cut short my break in Wales by a day for various personal and financial reasons, so I'm back blogging and should, insha Allah, have at least two big articles in the next couple of days. Comments are back on again.

Posted by Indigo Jo at 6:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

As-Salaamu 'alaikum everyone,

Today I'm off to Wales for a short break. Comments have been disabled until then to stop the tide of spam. Insha Allah I should be back on Wednesday. Make du'a for me.

Posted by Indigo Jo at 7:10 AM | Permalink

Someone just attempted to post an entire article - an attack by Fern Sidman, a well-known Jewish Defence League activist, on Norman Finkelstein for being a "self-hating, anti-Semitic Jew" - as a comment on one of my articles. I don't know if it was Fern Sidman who posted it, as the email address doesn't reflect the name. Anyway, it says very clearly, in the policies section near the top of the left sidebar, that whole articles should not be posted here as comments. If the article is published elsewhere, leave a link. If you want your own blog, there are numerous places that offer them for free. If you want me to publish it as a guest article, my email address (backwards) is ku.oc.oohay@ku_ojogidni, so mail me and I'll consider it. Unless it's by a JDL nut, of course.

Posted by Indigo Jo at 11:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

I've just discovered that the former Reflections of a Muslim Mind has moved to Wordpress.com: MK-UK (hat tip to Omair Ali at Deenport, who linked an article he posted). Most recently he posted a piece entitled "Why Blog?", something I often ask myself. It needs some comments. Also, Quddus Ali has a new blog called Ya Allaahoo. And Channel 4 News have started a new TypePad site, News From Iran, in anticipation of a series of broadcasts from the country starting next week.

On the other hand, Safiyyah Ally (SAFspace) has taken down her blog, at least temporarily, for personal reasons she told me but I'm not sure if she'd want everyone else knowing.

Posted by Indigo Jo at 6:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

For some reason half the internet seems to be down tonight. I can get to my own blog, to UZ's, to anything hosted on TypePad or Blogsome, and to BBC News, but not to Hotmail, Yahoo or Google. Which means I can't collect my email either, and my adverts weren't loading, which is why I've suspended them for the time being as they were stopping the rest of the page from loading. And some things stop loading at the last minute (as with anything at Blogspot). Strangely enough, I can't access my ISP's website either (bt.com, btyahoo.com, btinternet.com and btopenworld.com are all inaccessible), but I can access those bits of the internet that aren't down, or on the same side of this missing link as me. And the BBC has nothing on why three of the world's biggest websites are inaccessible.

Anyone got any ideas?

Posted by Indigo Jo at 9:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Sorry for the slow pace of posts recently, everyone ... I've just managed to get the Windows half of my laptop working again (read: got some anti-virus software cheap in the sales; the last time I used Windows on there I got the Blaster worm which sabotaged some of the software I was using) and have been working on my old Qt programming project rather excitedly now that it's been released for Windows as well. Hence, no massively long articles for a few days. I'm sort of hoping to do a review of Lynne Truss's book Talk to the Hand, a commentary on what she calls "the utter bloody rudeness of everyday life", insha Allah in the next few days. This means remembering to pack it in my rucksack when I go out, rather than a 400-page tome on computer programming.

In the meanwhile, Izzy Mo has got back from her trip back to New Orleans and has a Flickr slideshow to show for it. This includes pictures of what look like her house, given by the fact that two of her artworks are hanging on the wall. Very sad sights, although the mosques don't look badly damaged. (Interesting to see the old pre-Civil War buildings turned into mosques.)

Izzy Mo's blog - I'm Back!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by Indigo Jo at 1:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)