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Export blogroll for WordPress

Update: Please see this recent post regarding this WordPress function.

I wanted to help out a friend earlier tonight by importing a blogroll from a hobby site (running the latest version of WordPress) to hers (also running the latest version of WordPress). For the life of me, I could have sworn that WordPress had the ability to export to OPML.

Boy was I wrong! Not only did WordPress NOT have the ability to export blogrolls to OPML, it had absolutely no blogroll exporting capabilities at ALL.

I got the bright idea that maybe I could just export directly from phpMyAdmin. After looking at the structure of my WP tables, I decided that I didn’t want to sit and have to go through the exported data and re-structure by hand.

This was quickly becoming a lot more complicated than I needed. “OK,” I thought to myself, “No problem, I’ll just find a WordPress plugin to do this for me, no biggie.”

Google to the rescue! Or not …

After about an hour of searching and finding absolutely nothing — or rather, nothing helpful — on the topic in the WordPress support forums, in the WordPress Codex, or on the web in general, I decided to broaden my search from exporting blogrolls in WordPress into OPML format to just “export blogroll in WordPress.”

The first and pretty much ONLY helpful hit was for a plugin to export a WordPress blogroll for del.icio.us. It wasn’t exactly what I needed, but after looking at the plugin’s code, I decided that the quickest way to get to where I wanted to be was to hack up that plugin.

It’s pretty simple and I’m surprised that there aren’t more out there like it. It has one configuration option: whether to export all links ‘as is’ or export by a specific category or public/private links. Of course, the last version of WordPress that it supported (listed on the website) is WP 2.2, and the links/categories structure has been redone recently so exporting by category was not an option (and didn’t work at all).

I would have to re-categorize by hand once they were imported — not the solution I wanted, but by this point I would be happy not to have to add each link by hand!

Put on your coding hat

I had to re-design the plugin’s output format, as del.icio.us’ format was nowhere near OPML-friendly (and by this point I had wasted over 2 hours on this crap). So, this is what I did:

I made sure that the export option was set to export all links:

/* ********************************* */
/* [ THIS IS THE VARIABLE TO EDIT: ] */
/* ********************************* */

$option = “”;

Then, in the “DO NOT EDIT BEYOND THIS POINT” section, I modified the export_blogroll_admin() function to this. (could not post code in here, click the link to view .txt file!)

Afterthoughts, FYI…

I snagged the OPML formatting from one of my blogrolls on Blogrolling.com. (If you login, go to “Get Code”.) The ‘lastmod’ time is of course VERY off, but it doesn’t matter once it’s imported into WordPress.

Of course, any URLs with ampersands in them WILL NOT import, so remember to convert those &’s to & — also, look out for any link titles with odd characters in them, those will not import either.

It’s more complicated than it needs to be, and honestly I’m surprised that this capability is not already available in WordPress. While I had to go a round-abouts way to do this, it’s a bit overkill IMO. Think: Fat guy in a little coat meets midget in plus size clothing. (RIP Chris Farley)

What the Hell, Saban?

I’ve tried very hard to keep a positive outlook about our team and our coach. We started the season out great last year, but quickly fell into an abysmal losing-streak that continued through the end of the season — it seemed that we just couldn’t get out of the rut, couldn’t get things together in time. I’d had a lot of hope for the next upcoming season. But little by little I can see that the coach I *thought* we had, we don’t really have at all.

I’m fired up, I’m mad, and I just gotta say: What the Hell, Saban?

Within the 14 month span of your reign at Alabama, eight football players have been arrested. Five of which occurred on The Strip. If you ask me, it’s high time you institute some tougher rules, a curfew, and light a fire underneath the ass of each and every one of those boys!

What Alabama needs is a coach who can LEAD these boys and turn them into men, but we don’t have that. Apparently we have the ACLU Coach of the Year. What the hell happened to your infamous “rough” training regimen? Or the leadership we’ve been promised?

Let’s examine recent events …

There’s starting linebacker Prince Hall, who has been “suspended indefinitely” for “for violating team rules.” And this isn’t the first time this has happened for Hall either. In fact, he began the 2007 season with a one-game suspension for “violating team rules” and went on to be suspended for a half later on in the season.

It sounds to me like he needs a “come to Jesus” talk with you, Coach.

Earlier this week, Rashad Johnson was arrested for disorderly conduct at The Strip (what a surprise!). This guy is a team captain, and he is setting a VERY BAD example for the other (younger) players on his team!

What are you doing about this, Coach?

And then there’s redshirt defensive end Jeremy Elder who was arrested last week for robbing two students. Last I read, he’s been dismissed from the team and withdrawn from the school altogether. While I agree that the punishment in this case was swift and just, the fact of the matter is that he didn’t have the notion impressed on him enough that he needed to stay OUT of trouble in order to play.

Anyone with half a brain can remember that if they screw up they can’t play anymore, IMO.

Moving onwards back, we have two walk-ons who were arrested in December for assault. Quarterback Thomas Darrah and fullback Jacob Vane were restricted to “scout team duty” and were not allowed to play in any games. That’s a good start, but again these boys didn’t have the notion impressed on them enough either.

In August, Simeon Castille was arrested for disorderly conduct — at The Strip.

In July, Roy Upchurch and Brandon Fanney were arrested for disorderly conduct — also at The Strip. (Anyone seeing a pattern here?) In that same incident, Brandon Deaderick was arrested and charged with criminal mischief, resisting arrest and providing a false name to police.

This is just me, but …

If any one of these were my kid, I’d get in his face and say, “Screw up again, and you’re out of here.” It’s not hard, and you need to seriously grow a set and show these kids that if they act like punks, they’ll be treated like them — toss ‘em out on their ass!

Note to WebRing managers

If you allow your ring participants the option of using HTML code, don’t bitch when they actually do use it! There have been a handful of rings I’ve left recently for various reasons, most commonly for bickering over the use of the HTML code. (or my using ‘custom’ HTML code … it still validates and the WebRing system recognizes it, bitch!)

For instance, one ring manager emailed me earlier today. He/She didn’t like that I use the HTML code AND that I have my rings compressed under a clickable header. It’s not hard to find, and any idiot can understand what “Click to view/hide” means! He/She suggested I use the WebRing javascript code and keep the WebRings section unfurled by default.

Uh, hell no.

The WebRing js code is ass ugly as hell and most managers have screwed it all up to Hell and back with gaudy images (or worse, broken image code!), formatting so huge that it breaks my sidebar, etc. (you get the idea)

I don’t get a huge amount of traffic from WebRing. In fact, the amount is so negligible that I could drop all memberships immediately and probably not even notice. However, I’ve used WR for a long time and many of my hobby sites do well there, so I keep it for shits and giggles.

But … too many more emails like from these ‘tards, and I’ll just say “fuckit” and delete ‘em all.

Note to WR managers: Before you bitch, make sure your ‘rules’ are clear about what you will and will not tolerate. If you want people to use only the js code, then fuckin’ SAY SO. If you don’t want webring listings compressed or ‘hidden’ in any way, fuckin’ SAY SO. To do otherwise is like sending tankless water heaters to the Amazon, or putting an elevator in an outhouse — it “just don’t make sense.”

Don’t bitch to your users if you don’t like the way they put things on THEIR site. Be grateful they joined your puny ring in the first place and are helping to support it.

How smart can you be?

I’ve often heard it said that those who are high up in book smarts have no common sense. I see this theory in practice almost every single day. For instance, a particular multi-PhD/MD user came to my department wanting to know how a spammer could use her email address without her permission. Now, I only overheard part of the conversation between this user and one of our techs, but apparently she had received a recent increase of spam (who hasn’t these days?) and one alarmed her because it had the name “Logo Pens” with her email address in the Reply-To field.

Honestly, wouldn’t *most* people who had enough common sense know NOT to open such blatant spams???

So anyways, this genius decided to open it and replied wanting to know who this person was and what they were doing with her email. :shock: (Yes, I know, I know … bad user! No cookie for you!) Imagine her astonishment when her reply instantly appeared in her Inbox. After that point, she came to us naturally wanting to know how to make spammers stop using her address when they send stuff out.

I had to leave the room to keep from laughing in front of her. :mrgreen:

What are you doing?

That’s the question Twitter asks me, as do a few other social networking sites/services … what are you doing?

My last Twitter (prior to this post) pretty much summed up my day:

I hate hate HATE hsbc auto, I swear this company employs the most moronic imbeciles on the face of this planet.

Over the past 3 months, I have tried to get my name and contact information corrected on my account with HSBC. They have had our email addresses and phone numbers wrong ever since we bought Jim’s car. I put off correcting that information because I knew I’d have to get my name changed after the wedding.

November: I called and requested the procedure for getting my name and other account information corrected. I was told to mail in a copy of our marriage license and an outline of what I wanted changed, and sign and date it, and a confirmation letter would be sent to me when the account is updated. So I did. A month later, nothing updated in my account, no letter from HSBC. So I called, and was told that they must not have received my letter. So I sent another with another copy of our marriage license, even included a screenshot and highlighted the information that I wanted changed. I waited another month, heard nothing, account still not updated.

I called in just after the new year. I was told that “something was received” but there were no changes to the account and the CSR couldn’t tell what had been sent in. I explained my frustration, and was transfered to the clerical department. I was then asked to fax in a copy of the letter that I had already sent in TWICE and wait another week to check back on my account.

So a week ago, I faxed it in. I checked my account this morning and my name was finally changed, but NOTHING else had been touched. At this point, I was beyond aggravated. I called HSBC Customer Service. I explained why I was calling and quickly summed up my previous efforts to get my account updated. The first person I spoke with was not helpful in any way. She told me that my account had previously been updated, I asked why the updates were not reflected in my account online. She said she didn’t know. I also asked why I didn’t receive a confirmation letter stating that my account had been updated. She told me that they don’t do that. When I asked to speak to a supervisor next, she wanted to know why I wanted to speak to her supervisor.

Why the hell do you think?

I told her that I had a grievance and wanted to speak with someone who could help me. It wasn’t my intention to complain about her, but that didn’t stop her from putting me on hold and transferring me back to their AUTOMATED MENU SYSTEM. I was furious. I called back, and got her again. When I told her that I was still waiting to speak with a supervisor, she hung up on me.

At this point, I was livid. It was bad enough I had to keep calling back, and each time I had to hunt through their automated menu system to find an option that would get me through to a real person — they removed their “speak to a customer service agent” option some time ago. I have not spoken to a CSR that actually SPOKE ENGLISH in over a year. On top of that, that pinhead was not only being non-helpful in the worst way, she was PISSING ME OFF!

I called back again and finally got through to a CSR. I explained who I was and why I was calling and that I needed to speak with a supervisor. I finally get through to a supervisor and of course his English is broken. I explained why I was calling and the trouble I had been having trying to get my account updated. I think I frustrated him as much as I was frustrated by the previous CSR because I had a hard time understanding him and kept having to ask him to repeat himself.

In the end, he agreed to get a letter out to me confirming the account updates. I’ll tell you this much, I will not ever again use them as a financing institution. I get letters all the time from them for things like auto insurance promos, offers for home insurance quotes, and so on. They won’t get any more of my business — as soon as we’re able, I’ll be re-financing with someone else.

What lessons are we teaching our children?

Yesterday, Jim and I spent a good part of the afternoon at Chuck E. Cheese — better known as “Hell on Earth for adults.” My nephew, David, was celebrating his 5th birthday. I managed to snap off a few shots with my cell, or rather I tried. (it’s hard to snap still shots of sugared up kids, LOL!)

Zooomr seems to be “mostly up” and I was able to upload them and create a photo set:

Isn’t Jessie charming?

Anyone who has ever visited one of these establishments can attest that it could be best summed up as “kiddie chaos.” It’s loud, there’s always bright/flashing lights, and add kids running wild all over the place: et voila, instant migraine! Ugh. So yeah, yesterday was hell. Honestly though, what really struck me most was not the aforementioned mayhem, it was the over all lack of manners and common courtesy that I observed. Not only did I witness children of all ages running amok as if they were raised by wolves, but also adults who behaved this way.

For example, Jessie came to me and told me that some kids pushed her away when she was trying to play one of the basketball games. I followed her to where she had been playing. There were two kids who were still playing (apparently using Jessie’s tokens). I asked one of them if that was their game (meaning did they put in tokens to play), he said he didn’t know he was just watching his sister. The game ended and they moved to the side. Jessie stepped up and put in a token and started to play. The little girl pushed her away and grabbed the basketball from her hands. I took it from her and told her that it was my daughter’s token and therefore it was her turn. She bared her teeth at me and made the meanest face she could and said, “Mine!” I told her “No. It’s our turn now.” Well, that girl SCREAMED her little head off, which of course caused her mother to come running. I explained what had happened and told her that her daughter was shoving my child and kept stealing her tokens and trying to take over her games. Her mother yelled at me saying that I had “no right” to deny her daughter to “do whatever she wants.” She had the gall to tell me that she didn’t believe me (or any of the other parents standing around who witnessed this!) and that I should be ashamed of myself for picking on her poor little girl, and causing her “grief and emotional trauma”. :roll:

Oh give me a fucking break. Do me a favor, lady. How about you teach your kids some manners and common courtesy?

I know I can’t be the only one who’s noticing this disturbing trend and is concerned by it. I was reading an article in the Selma Times-Journal Friday talking about children’s behavior and the increase in bad behavior seen in area schools:

Parents have a responsibility to teach their children to behave themselves from the moment those children are born. Children do not learn manners by osmosis, although little ones do imitate their parents or other adults they are around.

I think what worries me most is that the parents of these kids either don’t know or don’t care about the harm they are ultimately causing.

Women’s health and the “Big C”

Big of warning to you menfolk: there may be a bit more information here than you’d care to know about me and/or the subject of women’s bodies and their monthly ‘cycle’ in general. You’ve been warned.

I was skimming through the headlines on the MyFoxAL blog feeds and ran across this one: “Study: The Pill Protects Against Cancer.” Thinking that sounded familiar, I looked through the archives over at That’s Fit to find this article, “Taking the Pill reduces cancer risk,” from back in September. They weren’t exactly the same in content, but both conveyed the same general idea: women who take the pill lower their risk of developing cancer later in life.

YAY! Good news for folks like me!

While there is some dispute over which cancers are prevented and which ones aren’t differ, it is good news overall. Given my family’s medical history (cancer on both sides), I’m willing to take this as a plus. That said, it helps to know what to expect when going on ANY kind of birth control. I know some girls who would read the above mentioned articles and go ask for the pill right out!

Ladies, you first need to really know what you are putting into your body. While this is sound advice for any medication, it is essential when we’re talking about birth control. Think about it, people: these are hormones! These products are made to intentionally interrupt and re-arrange your body’s natural timing. Some of these products may be dangerous! For instance, most commercials I’ve noticed on tv nowadays aren’t for “the ye olde pill,” it’s for the newest super-pill, or a patch, or a ring. Has anyone ever wondered how safe those products are? Remember the Nuvaring commercials? That product died a quiet death after studies had shown that its users were experiencing ‘severe side effects’ — yeah, I’d say the deadly kind!

Hello, can we say: Pulmonary embolisms? Strokes? Anyone? Bueller?

What’s worse, many women are completely unaware at the side effects that may come with birth control. I personally ran into a whole stint of problems and my gyn at the time put me through several different drugs. For whatever reason my ‘plumbing’ stopped behaving as it should. I stopped getting periods. After 3 months, they ran a pregnancy test (of course they never believe you when you tell them you’re “not pregnant” :roll: ), and when it came up negative, they ran all sorts of tests and ultimately told me, “We have no idea why it’s doing that. Just wait another month and we’re sure your cycle will correct itself.”

Three months and a whole myriad of tests later, still no period. I went back to see the doctor and he put me on Seasonale. It was a little weird. I was told to expect to be on a pack for 3 months, then have a short period. Ok, no big deal, right? On the third month of the pack, I kept having really painful cramps and more headaches. I called the doctor, was told this was normal. I completed the pack, and was told by my doctor that I didn’t have to have a period and could start right away on the new pack, skipping the sugar pills. Two weeks later I started hemorrhaging. Alarmed, I called the doctor. He told me that break-through bleeding was “normal” and not to worry.

Me: This isn’t just a little spot or two. This is full on gushing blood here. How the hell is hemorrhaging normal??
Dr: Is there a possibility you’re pregnant?
Me: Not unless you’re expecting another Messiah.

So I’m told to come in for another exam. They find nothing wrong and I’m told that I’ve lost a lot of blood.

No shit, Sherlock!

After this point, I’d had enough and went to see my GP — who, honestly, I should have seen in the first place. I told her what was going on and told her about the various medications I had taken, and about the problems I’d recently had with Seasonale. She told me that she wasn’t surprised, and that Seasonale had just gotten their fannies smacked by the FDA (pdf), and she’d heard from several other women had experienced the same thing I had just gone through.

Note: I was told by several sources it’s been pulled from the market altogether, but can’t find anything in print right now.

Anyways, she switched me to a low hormone pill. When I asked about the other kind of rings, patches, etc. She told me she didn’t trust them, and they increase your risk factors for blood clots and certain types of cancers (among a whole horde of other things).

I’m on Loestrin now. What pisses me off most was that when I was put on all those other meds before by my gyn, I asked if there were any side effects I needed to be aware of. I was never told about the cramps, the bleeding, the headaches, or the extensive list of other side effects I could possibly encounter. All in all, I’ve learned that yes, having a period is a pain, but it also serves a necessary function, and having one every few months is better for my peace of mind.

Anyways, the whole point of this rant is: ladies, talk to your doctors! Whether you’re a user of a patch, a ring, or a pill. Find out if you need to get more calcium, if OTC medicines or one of your prescriptions could counter-act it (as well as various drug treatments), if you may gain weight (a biggie with EVERY woman I know, myself included!), … There are a lot of myths about the pill that have been around since our mothers and grandmothers were on it, and it amazes the hell out of me how many doctors DON’T talk about this sort of thing. (And too many women either don’t know, or are too scared, to ask.)

Snowballing

I’m now on Day three of the sickness. I feel like hammered shit. Throat hurts, head hurts, back hurts, and now I’m starting to cough uncontrollably. I can’t find any chocolate in this house (it’s my fault, I didn’t buy any so I wouldn’t eat it), my temperature’s back. And to top it all off, Fred Thompson just dropped out of the race.

Dammit, dammit, dammit!

I should’ve stayed in bed …

My day yesterday, and I think we found our cake

Had pretty much a shit day yesterday. It wasn’t just the thing with Mother, several factors really. I was aggravated because I spent a good part of the day working on a web app in .NET that kept borking every time I published it out to our development server (ASP 2.0). It could see our SQL server and connect to it, but for some reason would bork every time it tried to pull data out of a particular table. It turned out to be a really obscure permission setting. By the time I left, the only problem I had left was that my stylesheets weren’t showing up when I published from Visual Studio, but by that point I was so pissed off I could care less. (I just wanted to go home!)

I had to deal with a room temperature IQ user who kept blabbering on about not being able to access her site, but when I asked her three times where it was, she couldn’t remember. I assumed it was one of our SharePoint sites (as that’s the main focus of my work) and I FINALLY found out at the end of the day that it turned out to be a system to which I have no access, so Monday I’ll need to pass her off to someone else which will piss her off, and I’ll have to listen to her bitch and whine some MORE. Oh good GOD these people don’t honestly know how good they have it compared to other places I’ve worked! Get over yourselves, people!!

So yeah, I came home in a huff, and in a bad mood in general. Jim, God love him, greeted me with a big smile and says, “Guess what honey? I found where we’ll buy our wedding cake! C’mon, drop your stuff and let’s go!”

I could have decked him. :lol:

Good thing he’s learned to read my moods over the years and recognized that I wasn’t ready to go cake shopping JUST YET, and needed a few minutes and a heavy dose of migraine meds to recover. (Hooray for my doc’s office for fulfilling my meds like I asked!)

So fast forward a few hours, I’m feeling better, headache’s gone and off we go … I got a chance to look at the book Jim and Jessie looked at earlier and we picked a style and layout of cake:

The first one is the style, we’ll get it with red accents, but the second is the layout we like. Her prices were a good bit cheaper than the other vendors we’ve spoken to so far, and she’s in Gardendale, which isn’t too far from the reception. The only thing is that she doesn’t deliver, so Jim is insistent on him picking up the cake and handling that. I’m not happy with that, but we’ll see what kind of arrangements can be made. I’m hoping some kind of arrangement can be made with the hotel to have the cake delivered early. (Maybe … I’ll have to speak with our rep we’ve been dealing with about that.)

We stopped by Wal-mart on the way back from the shop and I saw the CUTEST line of mp3 player/speakers: I-cy (penguin), spi-Dog, iDog. They also had iCat and iFish but were out. These are made by Hasbro and were around $20 at Wal-mart. I’ve been looking online on eBay and have seen then for a LOT more, up to $40!!

They light up and dance to the music. I might go back and get the I-cy one today after my dress fitting. Those are adorable!

While I was there I also snagged a new pair of slippers … what can I say, I’m a sucker for frogs.

(And besides, the proceeds go to a foundation to benefit kids with cerebral palsy. Win, win!)

Welcome to the Rant-o-rama!

I like to think I’m pretty careful. Whenever possible, I try to avoid spoilers to books and movies that I have every intention on reading/seeing. I don’t mind when people post spoilers, just as long as it’s prefaced with a very blatant spoiler warning, or in the case of LiveJournal, WordPress, Blogger and similar blogging services, hidden behind a cut (aka “read more”).

But what REALLY pisses me off is when some asshat decides to just post a spoiler in plain site with no warning. So plain that you can’t HELP but see it and instantly the movie, book, whatever you’re looking forward to seeing/reading is instantly ruined. I swear, some people apparently have so little of a life that they can only get their rocks off by spoiling the joys and anticipations of others.

You assholes deserve to smacked into next week. And to the bubbleheaded fuckwad who posted the Harry Potter spoiler to Girl Gamers, the admins there are a LOT nicer than I am, but you totally deserve everything you get … get over yourself.

And while I’m hot and bothered and ranting, I’d like to share something I read on The Terminal earlier today:

Watch your speed!

Especially if you’re planning on driving through Malfunction Junction anytime soon. Governor Riley has assigned six more troopers to the state’s busiest interstate interchange (connecting I-20/59 with I-65) to enforce the speed reduction from 60 m.p.h. to 50 m.p.h.

According to information obtained for this report, more than 3,900 tickets have been written since the speed reduction was implemented in late March. Motorists complying with the speed limit change have been left in the dust by those that still disregard it.

There is no word as to if or when the increased patrols would end.

Great, just great. It’s bad enough that he kept lowering the speed limit on the highways and interstates, now the busiest interchange in the city will become more fucked up than it was before.

Take an example: I drive the current speed limit in the SLOW LANE and still nearly get run over several times. 18-wheelers are the worst because they try to pass me while glued to my bumper. Mind you, as opposed to most of the mental midgets around Birmingham, I normally go the speed limit through the Junction while in the SLOW lane. Now just image how fast the other lanes are going … and this is during RUSH HOUR! Take into consideration though, 50 MPH is not really even needed for people going straight through the Junction as the speed limit drop was ORIGINALLY for the 18-wheelers flying through the exit ramps and turning over. But the local law enforcement isn’t ticketing the 18-wheelers … they’re ticketing everyone else! Why? Because the government won’t limit the speeds of the truckers, that’s “picking” on them. (*cough*unions*cough*) :roll:

Anyways, that choke point is in dire need of widening — AGAIN. Also, it would be more to our benefit if law enforcement would enforce speed of the 18 wheelers that they’re not ticketing now. From then on, keep others under 65-70 during rush hour and have a lovely fucking day.

Speed doesn’t kill people. Stupid people kill people.

I witness more “almost wrecks” than I care to, and quite honestly I’ve seriously thought about decking out my car with video recorders and similar equipment to better make my case to local governing bodies. Every damned day I see this shit! I see people dart in and out of lanes of morning rush hour traffic while doing speeds all under the speed limit. I see aggressive driving and excessive tailgating. Then there are the morons who are going 20 MPH *LESS* than the other 3 lanes of traffic around them, but they STILL won’t get out of the fucking fast lane!

*proceeds to bang head against wall*

I’ll say it again … stupid people kill people.

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