Tarski – Not Your Average Engineer

February 2, 2013November 15, 2021

VaultPress Saves the Day Again!

A few days ago, I updated the Tarski theme that I use on my website to the latest and greatest version. My custom CSS file and header image disappeared once again. And once again, I ignored the recommended procedure of backing up the custom theme files. Luckily, I subscribe to VaultPress.

After a couple of clicks on the VaultPress dashboard, I had the files I needed and was able to restore my site to its normal design. Without VaultPress, I would have had to rebuild my custom CSS file from an outdated backup. I also would have had to dig around in old backups to find my custom header image. VaultPress not only saved me the pain of reconstructing my custom CSS but also saved me the time that I would have had to invest in doing that. Considering how important it is to have a functional, professional-looking website in today’s world, I am very happy that I subscribe to VaultPress.

As I have stated several times in the past, my blog is my memory. Everywhere I go and everything I do that is significant to me is posted here. If I were to lose my blog posts, it would be like losing family albums, my diary, and all of my important records in a devastating house fire. Even with my (at times lax) periodic backup snapshots that I keep locally, I have great peace of mind knowing that VaultPress keeps continuous snapshots being kept in a secure facility separate from my hosting and separate from my local backups. Thanks VaultPress! Keep up the good work!

September 14, 2011July 1, 2020

VaultPress Saves the Day!

Yesterday I upgraded the Tarski theme on my website to the latest version. In the process, my custom style file and header image were deleted. Today when I went to check on things, I realized that my site was broken and quickly discovered the reason. At work, I don’t have a snapshot of my site readily accessible. But I do have VaultPress.

Through a few clicks, I was able to download a snapshot of the themes directory from the day before I upgraded Tarski. A few more clicks, and those files were uploaded back to my server. My site is once again fully functional.

Thank you, VaultPress, for providing such a robust, easy to use service! Rather than having my site down for the rest of the day, I was able to fix the theme problems and get it back up and running in under five minutes. In my opinion, that is well worth the monthly subscription fee. And that’s saying something considering that I’m a poor, starving graduate student.

As I have said before, my blog is my memory. Everywhere I go and everything I do that is significant is posted here. Were I to lose it, it would be like having the family albums, my diary, and all of my records burn in a fire. Even with periodic backup snapshots kept locally, I have much better peace of mind knowing that there is a continuous backup being kept in a secure facility.

December 3, 2008July 1, 2020

Tarski 2.4 RC1 and fixing some Gravatar problems with WordPress

The guys that develop the Tarski WordPress theme released 2.4 RC1 today. I already have it running on my site and am enjoying some of the new features.

One problem I was having prior to and after the upgrade to Tarski 2.4 was my gravatar wasn’t showing up on comments I made. Granted, this isn’t a particularly popular destination on the internets but there are a couple of comments here and there. What I’ve been able to deduce was going on is that my comments had the wrong email address attached. I was using a different email account as my admin email for a while. Switching it over to the email address I have registered at Gravatar.com cleared up the problem for new comments but the old comments still refused to show my gravatar.

Some more poking around led me to realize that WordPress hadn’t switched over the email address assigned to my old comments to my gravatar-friendly account. A quick trip through the comment edit menu and everything is right in my blog once again.

An interesting note is that in the default WordPress theme, I didn’t have any problems and all of my gravatars showed up without having to edit anything. Perhaps there is some sort of unforeseen interaction between Tarski 2.4RC1 and WordPress 2.7RC1.