Beer, friends, and computers.
I'm a recent graduate of UC Davis with a BS in Mathematics. I love photography, programming and learning.
My personal website is at mathburritos.org. I also have a twitter account: @philipn. My email address is [email protected].
"Our minds are finite, and yet even in those circumstances of finitude,
we are surrounded by possibilities that are infinite,
and the purpose of human life is to grasp as much as we can out of that infinitude."
-Alfred North Whitehead
2015-01-15 12:23:12 Thanks for the tip on table fixing. On some of the bigger ones, I might just do that (like the recurring events page). On the smaller ones, I prefer doing it by hand to look for other things that are out of date. —DavidGrundler
2015-01-21 09:21:49 Thanks Philip! I was confused by that button when I clicked it because most link tools I've used have a space for the URL and a space for the display text. —MeggoWaffle
2015-01-26 13:47:13 How do I *actually* create a new page with a business template format? That was embarrassing. —JudithTruman
2015-01-29 12:58:32 Absolutely. I'll try to give you as much info as possible to track it down. —JabberWokky
2015-01-29 20:17:42 Do images not show correctly within tables? Take a look at the bike recovery page. When I edit the page, you can clearly see the image, but it does not display on the finished page. —DavidGrundler
2015-01-29 20:30:48 Thanks. I'll put a little more thought into it before fixing the rest of the entries. Looking at the source, it is easy to see where a table starts and ends. How everything is now, it is hard to delimit where each entry starts and stops. I spend more time looking at the source. —DavidGrundler
2015-01-30 11:40:49 I was editing the bike recovery page again, and the same thing happened with the images. Looks like when I copy and paste images using the WYSIWYG editor, it automatically adds the "height: auto!important;" attribute. —DavidGrundler
2015-02-07 22:23:25 I just had several 500s in a row a minute ago. Reloaded and they all came up. One was for https://daviswiki.org/Roommates_Wanted/_history/2015-02-06%2018:47:31.381295... Internal Server Error The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request. Please contact the server administrator, [email protected] and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error. More information about this error may be available in the server error log. Apache/2.2.22 (Ubuntu) Server at daviswiki.org Port 8084 —JabberWokky
2015-02-08 19:12:30 After being familiar enough to make sure I'm not simply reporting changes in UX, I have a few oddities and errors documented with screen shots. What's the best way to get them to you? —JabberWokky
2015-02-09 22:05:30 Im using chrome, I think it might be because the Dental questions page is so long. we could archive all that and post a link but it has been so long since I did any editing like that so I have forgotten how. As it stands editing the Dental Questions page is just murder since the new format started and I just cant stand it anymore. —DagonJones
- The same thing was happening to me when I tried editing it with Safari on my Mac. Lot's of flickering and very unusable. I moved a majority of the content to an archive page, and the main page doesn't exhibit those problems anymore, but the archive page does. I will look into it some more to see if it because of the volume, or if there is something else in the content that is causing it. I would like to break that page up into sub-pages based on the content. -DavidGrundler
- It appears to be related to the vertical scroll bar that shows up when there is a lot of content. Every time I type a character in the WYSIWYG edit mode, the scroll bar alternates between on and off, and each time it does so, it redraws the page. -DavidGrundler
- Checkout how the screen is redrawn after each letter is pressed in the following sequence of pictures. Each time the scroll bar cycles on or off, the layout changes. You can see this by looking at the last visible word on the bottom of the page. The further down the page you are, the more dramatic the effect:
2015-02-10 16:48:45 Mac OS X 10.10.1 with Safari 8.0 (10600.1.25.1) —DavidGrundler
- Does not seem to happen when I use Firefox on the same Mac.
2015-02-10 17:40:46 Still happening —DavidGrundler
-
Can you try again? Hoping it's a browser caching issue.
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Better. Instead of toggling on and off with each character, it seems to happen each time I go to a new line. That's a huge improvement.
- Does the scroll bar stick around after creating a new line, or does it disappear after a second?
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Better. Instead of toggling on and off with each character, it seems to happen each time I go to a new line. That's a huge improvement.
2015-02-17 18:08:50 Hi P. The "Compare" function doesn't work anymore (on my pc that is. Other people?). The check boxes are elongated and do not longer work, you can no longer check boxes to compare two. —ConstantiaOomen
2015-02-17 19:37:53 Yes, it's fixed now. I use Google Chrome, Firefox and Safari on my iPad. Thanks. —ConstantiaOomen
2015-02-23 18:26:00 HI Philip N, Heron Technologies was the parent company of Davis Computer up until august 2014 and was owned and ran by khanh pham one of the two original founders. You can surely talk to me and edit as you feel the need. I currently own and operate Davis Computer and am trying to edit the page to reflect its current operation status. I don't know if Heron Technologies is still in operation but it seems to be as we have mutual customers or did and they have stated Khanh is now working under Heron Tech again. Thanks —Evan-gray
2015-02-25 14:00:25 I've attempted several times to remove the map on the StarFixIT page, and I keep getting the following: Looks like something went wrong and we're unable to display the page you requested. Please try again in a few minutes. —DavidGrundler
2015-03-03 02:42:36 Thanks very much for the tip: I couldn't for the life of me figure out where the content text went.... —BJSangwan
2015-03-05 15:13:28 Do you have some documentation on what you're doing with the map search method for automating those lines? I'm assuming that that's an automated (or partially automated) method. If so, it looks like a useful technique. —jefftolentino
2015-03-06 20:38:17 "
-
removed tag "cum trees".
PhilipNeustrom - new added tag "cum trees". 107.0.114.75
"
lol! —ConstantiaOomen
2015-03-06 20:43:03 "Cumbleberry Trees" - In fact, I find this so funny I want to share the page on Twitter. And now I miss a "Share" button! Idea? —ConstantiaOomen
2015-03-18 11:41:11 Hi Philip. I just tried adding a comment box (like this one, I think, from the puzzle piece pull down tool bar menu) and it fails to appear on my page. Any idea why that would be? --jeffp —jeffp
- When I click on Jeffp above, it directs me to his user page on localwiki.org. But when I edit his page, it appears to edit on the 95033 blog. -DG
2015-03-18 15:50:07 The time appears to be off on the server by two hours. —DavidGrundler
2015-03-18 17:53:00 What was going on with my user page? And how do I better message you in the future? —jeffp
2015-03-18 19:14:34 Any specific reason to remove those tags on that Community/big changes page? People are looking for that page all the time and I tested the tags and they worked! —ConstantiaOomen
It's good to just use a couple of tags which are short, simple and could be used on a wide variety of other pages. Please see the tag guide for some advice on this. 35 tags is too many tags for a page like that, and you can find the page using the search function using any of those phrases. Tags aren't good for "keyword loading" a page with every iteration someone might search for - and Google, etc will actually penalize us if pages have lots of tags like that. Instead, they are good for just a couple of short words that complete the sentence "This page is a ___", usually. Some exceptions of course. So in that case, "Wiki Community" is a good tag.
Okay, gotcha. I clicked on your link and it says: "You can add as many tags as you like!" ;-) But I will only add a couple then. Thanks, — ConstantiaOomen
2015-03-18 19:46:49 PS: How are the Davis Wiki stickers you promised us coming along? Picnic Day and WEF are coming soon. Would appreciate it (and please let me retag that Community/big changes page, maybe with only ten tags then?). —ConstantiaOomen
2015-03-18 22:46:58 Sorry, I was just teasing you with adding your name as tags. Because you removed all of the tags I assembled with such care. But it does make one wonder: do we need the tags? If I know your name, I can just search for "Philip". —ConstantiaOomen
2015-03-20 02:51:31 Can you point me to some instructions for building a Classic Wiki Business Information data table with the alternating pale blue and white stripes? —JudithTruman
2015-03-21 03:08:35 Hey Philip! Long time no talk. I had a recent resurgence in editing the wiki despite no longer living in the area. I sure missed my days of copious editing! I'm doing the best I can to be helpful from a distance. I love it. Now, an issue arose and I'm hoping there's something to be done about it. I was making major updates to the Dam Haus page and had not saved my changes yet. My browser, Firefox, then suddenly crashed. Are all my changes lost forever or is there an auto-save of sorts built into the wiki at all. God, it's gonna suck if I lost all the edits. It was a major update to the page. Sincerely, Elise —EliseKane
2015-03-22 22:50:52 Hey Philip! Thanks so much for getting back to me. All I can say in response is NOOOOOOOOOO! I will try asking a couple people if they know whether or not my browser might have saved the page somehow. Thank you very much for that tip. Now if only the thing can be restored. I'll let you know what shakes out. ALSO. Thank you for the kind and encouraging words about my edits and additions! I hope you DO dig through YOUR photo collection! I know you'd have excellent items to contribute. Thank you again for the reply and kind words. Peace out for now, brutha. =) —EliseKane
2015-03-27 14:54:10 Good to know the comment/edit and IP address issues are being addressed, thank you! —ConstantiaOomen
2015-04-06 05:43:11 https://localwiki.org/davis/Roommates_Wanted/_history/2015-04-06%2003:10:23.428909... is sent out by the RSS feed, but results in a 500 Server error (as of this morning). —JabberWokky
Thanks! I think this may be a know recurring bug. Could you please file these issues on the bug tracker if not? -Philip
2015-04-19 15:29:43 Hello Philip. Thank you! Yes, so I noticed. I think, Davis Wiki should have at least one representative in UC Davis staff and students representatives. It should be a part of their effort. —ConstantiaOomen
2015-04-24 18:58:18 Question! Front page: Explore nearby regions Dixon Woodland West Sacramento Winters Sacramento Elk Grove When I click on either of them, I land on the front page of the Davis Wiki again. Is this on purpose? :-) —ConstantiaOomen
2015-05-07 19:12:08 Hey Philip, do you know if there's a tracker to show how many new pages a wiki member has created? I seem to recall there used to be one but I don't know where to find it now. —EliseKane
2015-05-10 21:33:13 Looks like the person who deleted all that Ali Baba's stuff did it on Sept. 6, 2014, 12:15 a.m.; maybe on accident while they were uploading all those pix? —EliseKane
2015-06-13 01:20:40 Need help with spammer. Somebody is messing with the "Classified ads" and I don't see a quick fix. Can you help out? Thanks! —ConstantiaOomen
2015-06-13 01:23:06 I don't understand. Did you delete the "Classified ads" page? (See history) —ConstantiaOomen
2015-06-13 01:24:42 Confusing, but thank you for quick fix!! —ConstantiaOomen
2015-06-29 14:26:37 Hi. I can't delete my Roommates Wanted ad because I am not allowed to edit pages any more. I have no idea why, because I don't think I've edited anything beyond posting and removing Roommates Wanted posts. So...can this be fixed, please? My email is [email protected] Thank you. :) —KirstenOlson
2015-07-06 14:48:57 Hi Philip. I don't see the place in Davis Wiki to change my password. I want to change it. Thanks in advance... —ConstantiaOomen
2015-07-06 16:52:53 OK, thanks, I was looking at that, but thought to ask you anyway. Unfortunately, my PC and mobile phone (and possibly even my iPad) have been hacked by a fraud Dutch medium (if you want to know, just look at my Twitter account, I hope that one will stay uncompromised) and his criminal friends, because I have been criticizing him in public since 2005. We are taking steps now (like re-installing), but it's a lot of work. I am changing a lot of passwords. Maybe this one isn't necessary, but anyway. Advise always welcome, I'm in a bad place now. —ConstantiaOomen
2015-07-06 17:32:54 I use Keepass right now. I will send your link to Jeroen, I don't know this "onepassword", I need to look into this... Back then, in 2005, when I started criticizing this fraud medium, I didn't know he would turn out a, and this criminal; he has gathered a group of fraud/criminal minds alike around him and unfortunately, it turns out, they have access to one or more 'professional' hackers. He's kind of active in the States too (!) and has an American patron that helps him. They had gained access over my Android phone that contained over 500 backupped photos (I didn't even know that they were still on my phone, I remove photos almost on a daily basis), they sent them to me through my own phone to my gmail account (thus proving they controlled my cell phone), and they emailed me a photo that was on my computer too (one not published), so this proves they have gained access to both my computer and mobile phone. —ConstantiaOomen
2015-10-01 12:48:44 Thanks for adding to 'Tragic Events' (September 30, 2015). Was it somebody active on the Davis Wiki too? Condolences, I understand you knew him (very) well. And I understand he was kind of a famous Davis resident. —ConstantiaOomen
2016-02-09 15:49:23 I'm new to LocalWiki, but I would love to add a lot of substantial content to the Quad Cities LocalWiki. Our current admin hasn't been active for over a year, and it seems it was mostly for promotional reasons. Because some features are exclusive to admins, like changing the front banner from the default map to a picture, I would like to become an admin while getting this page updated over the next few months. However, the Local Admins Hub doesn't actually link to a space where I can become an admin and I can't find another resource to do so. Am I eligible to become an admin? If so, can you point me in the right direction for becoming one? —vdrews
2016-02-23 13:00:48 Thanks for informing me/us on these serial spammers. It's crazy, what is going on? It's like they want to destroy the Wiki, who's behind it? Is it really spam or is there more to it? —ConstantiaOomen
2016-02-25 20:05:44 Thanks. That fixed it. —DavidGrundler
2016-02-25 20:10:35 Is there a reason why the community alert is not showing on the front page? Is it a cache issue? —DavidGrundler
2016-03-15 17:47:40 Good times! —DavidGrundler
2016-03-15 18:28:55 I think this "rogue" Davis Wiki was created by accident: https://localwiki.org/davisapartment/ —DavidGrundler
2016-03-18 19:12:20 The server times seems to be off by 2:13 (unless it is a different time zone, in which it could be off by just :13) —DavidGrundler
2016-03-20 21:33:55 I got an error message when trying to connect to the Wiki: "daviswiki.org uses an invalid security certificate. "The certificate expired on March 20, 2016 at 1:49 PM. The current time is March 20, 2016 at 7:19 PM. "(Error code: sec_error_expired_certificate)" —JudithTruman
2016-05-28 14:44:15 Can we *please* get the Events Board back? I did like being able to see what was going on in town, and my mother would reference things from it as well, to see what we could do during Parent Visits. Additionally: I'm troubled by the lack of adding-pages and town-page maintenance from the userbase. I don't have a smartphone/laptop to do it with, but it seems like re-surveying downtown and updating A through G Sts, 1st through 8th would be highly useful. I see more fresh content on Yelp than on Wiki these days. —JudithTruman
2016-09-17 15:09:10 Can we re-consider how tags are implemented across-the-wiki? They seem to be used as comments rather than indexing (to replace cross-linking), and rarely in a useful way. —JudithTruman
2016-11-11 04:43:53 I seen your website.. It's Ssoooo Cool! Thank u :) —marlafiji
2017-02-23 13:18:47 I restored several pages to remove spam from 45.-----. I could not restore the Roommates Wanted page. Either spinning beach ball or error message. —SueHjerpe
2017-04-22 21:51:47 Hi Philip, is it possible to upload a batch of photos?; one at a time is testing my patience... —ConstantiaOomen
Longterm Davis resident spends many, many hours developing a cool new map, joins the wiki for the first time, and creates a page. Page is summarily deleted and linked to in a place that new editor will probably be totally ignorant of, now just one link in a sea of links, no outreach to new editor. Well done!
2017-12-29 19:21:47 This is not Neal. You've got a security problem that is logging folks in as Neal even after they clear cookies. This is repeatable, and so far it keeps coming back to the Neal account. One test edit was made to Neal's page, and this comment is being left. Please fix this security hole. —NAParish
2018-11-02 15:06:22 Could you be so kind to remove this original image, I accidentally didn't obscure an email address and name of "J".> https://daviswiki.org/Con_Artists/_files/IMG_7394.JPG/_info/ >> the first image of these I upoaded. It's okay to leave my email address, it's a public known email address anyway. —ConstantiaOomen
2019-07-21 20:30:08 Nice catch on the zipcode page. I assumed it was a zip code info site. Also, I hope you're doing well, man. It's been a dog's age. My profile is woefully out of date, but Sarah and I are still in Nashville. —JabberWokky
Hello Philip. Good to see your face again on the Davis Wiki. I had the intention to go over the whole front page (and hoped others would join), but already after a couple of days, the task seems undoable. I just clicked links like Music Scene, Dancing, Media, Noteworthy Published Authors, These would be my next to do pages, I wanted to go at it 100% systematically, because that seems to be the only right way to do it. But I simply can't escape the feeling this is too much, even for a "endurance cyclist" like myself. There are often literally hundreds of links on each of these pages, and when you click on these, pages follow, and then follow their links, even more, as often, broken links appear.
And then look at the whole front page, this is just a monster, I am being very honest here. I think, the people who gathered this, never realized what kind of monster was growing. I noticed too, there are pages that very much look alike and overlap. Yes, I feel this is not thought through, events, dancing, whatever, they appear on several pages and this goes on and on. The same spots keep popping up, like these places where quizzes are held, we all know them, de Vere's Irish Pub and several other very well-known spots.
I feel something radical needs to be done. About the Front Page that is. Call me brutal, but I feel the front page MUST start with a clean slate. Must be built up from scratch, but with no more than 10 links, not more. Nobody is clicking these anymore, and why would they: most links are broken. I can tell this for a fact now, after a couple of days of working on these link to link to link et cetera pages. It's like a neverending story!
I don't say the Davis Wiki needs to be erased, on the contrary, if the Davis Wiki wants to survive, the Front Page must rise like a Phoenix from its ashes. I thinks most links must go, people must find pages through entering search terms.
Then another task must be performed. I know dead/broken links checkers exist, because in the (long) past, I used them to automatically find all dead/broken links on my websites. I can assure everybody who reads this, these machines do work, they really come up with broken links. Then, with their result list, all these links must be deleted or altered. This is a task I feel I could be up to, with help of a group of others.
I feel I am on a dead track here, a no-through street, no outlet, with wanting to update all links to links to links et cetera via the Front Page. I don't want to lose weeks, months in this, to discover the whole thing is a Frankenstein Monster that's still alive anyway.
The third thing that must be done is to educate people about the use of links. To even forbid the use of (very) specific urls, because they have created this Frankenstein Monster, this one is built on two million dead links (maybe there should be a contest: let people guess how many broken and dead links there are on the Davis Wiki, my number is 2M. I am quite serious! ). Most! of these dead and broken links are the ones linking to the www. These are the ones that must be watched (over) like a bird of prey would watch his prey. Very strict rules should be maintained: ONLY home/main page-urls!!
So, this is my idea: "delete" the front page (yes, all these links), make it empty, come up with a couple of real cool links and let people find stuff on the Davis Wiki just by using the Search box.
And the rest of course, the dead link checker, the education and awareness how to use links.
Well, I guess I have offended people again with my comparison of the Davis Wiki Front Page with a Frankenstein Monster. But I feel quite entitled by now, I got the feel of him last couple of days, and this is a big one! And I don't want to fight him, he just needs to go at once. Greetings! Constantia
2019-07-27 02:42:40 Most people find pages via a search engine or using the search box. Having lots of links in an organized fashion on the front page helps search engines rank pages well, and makes sure that pages aren’t “orphaned.” If the front page didn’t link to many pages then the problem would still be there.
There’s certainly lots of broken external links on pages, (but they’re not on the front page?). It’s an unfortunate reality of the passage of time and people’s lack of interest or ability to maintain URLs over the years.
A script using the LocalWiki API to find broken links and replace them with archive.org URLs could be written by someone and would definitely help the broken external link problems. —PhilipNeustrom
> Do you know how huge this problem is? Can you publish some kind of statistics, visitors curve over the last, say, ten years? The dead links are practically on the front page, they really are cracking the surface. Focus now should not be search engine rang, but the likability of the Davis Wiki for visitors. And the participation level imo proves this likability factor is at its steepest point.
Constantia
Rather than delete the links on the front page (which I like and think are very valuable), better would be to just update the pages linked to, fixing broken external links, etc. I can start with a couple myself. --Philip
>> Philip, maybe read responses I made today at Gene’s user page. Do you know Google Search Console and what it really means? Google knows Davis Wiki is full of broken links, too small pics and outdated content! And this all is connected to Google search results. To be quite blunt with you, I think the Davis Wiki is already suffering.
Constantia
2019-07-27 19:51:42 I think you may be misunderstanding what I’m saying. —PhilipNeustrom
2019-07-27 20:25:29 Hi, Philip, no, I don't think so. I did read you acknowledge some of the things I am saying. But in the end, you are not planning to make big differences, because you feel the links have a purpose (search engine wise) ánd you like them. But I countered that with Google knowledge, I think I am starting to get a clear picture here. The Davis Wiki is in desperate need of involvement. Hardly anybody is involved anymore, and again, I feel entitled to make this bold statement, because now I have been here long enough to see things clearly. Every-year, since years now, nobody is uploading photos of events anymore, couple of months ago there was a real long period of hardly nobody doing anything anymore, and the last years in fact have been like that. I think I have been one of the few left to be active with photos and news integration. There were a couple more, like with this Natalie Corona case. I am starting to get the feeling Google has to do with it.
You would be awstruck in a bad way if you would sign this "website" up for Google Console. You would be getting so manny error messages and grave and non grave warnings that you múst improve, you would wish you could run away as fast as you can. Because I use Google console and I had the tiniest "mistakes" on my websites (like a small number of too small pictures), immediately Google started mailing me about them. And then when you correct, it takes a couple of days at least for them to come back at you with their results, and then they are pleased, and then, yes, you start showing up better in the Search results. If this is not the only reason, it must have to do with the likability of this website. If people would be thrilled, they would be more involved, do we need to doubt this "assumption"?
--- That Google really does care and can help ór be an adversary if you fail to comply, is a proven fact, another i.e., I was asked to deliver proof of the ownership of my websites for my own Google knowledge box (claimed by me). When they accepted my proof, suddenly I saw a big spike in visitors. That has equaled out a bit again, but there is no doubt my website (s) is/are showing up better now. I don't see any reason why Google would treat a Wiki different. Well, I am not working on this front page, link-wise, anymore as I feel it's a waste of my time, because I believe hardly anybody clicks those links. And I feel sooner or later, Google will even start warning the Davis Wiki for "invalid" stuff, even without signing up for the Google Console Help. And then you would be out, like in a ballgame. —ConstantiaOomen
2019-07-27 20:30:33 You aren’t understanding what I’m saying. I don’t disagree that there are broken external links on pages. I think you’re expecting me to go and fix them? I’m just a volunteer here and try my best to keep the lights on in the limited time I have to help LocalWiki. —PhilipNeustrom
2019-07-27 20:38:26 Hi Philip, but you were here all along, weren't you, co creating this? I am addressing you, as one of the starters of this project, because I know exactly what will happen if I start to change the front page, link wise. It will be reversed immediately and if I am out of luck, I even get a (temporary) ban. I don't feel save making any changes, so I won't. But believe me, I would, because this Davis Wiki needs an injection of renewal badly. I am getting a clear picture in my mind now about Google too. I wouldn't be surprised if one day, Google will start to give warning signals about all the dead links. Maybe even block the site with a red flag.
---You are a programmer and one of the people here with power, I am not, I am not an admin and people won't accept anything I will undertake on the front page. But they will, if you do. And the whole Davis Wiki needs to be filtered with a dead link checker. The whole Davis Wiki! Only admins like yourself have access to do stuff like that, not me. —ConstantiaOomen
2019-07-27 20:50:53 Yes, I agree a dead link checker script using the LocalWiki API would be beneficial. It would be easy to write. Maybe I’ll take it on at some point if nobody else does it first. —PhilipNeustrom
2019-08-26 23:34:09 Hi, agreed there must exist some flexibility, but I clicked on the given link and then I read this: "Lecture (3 credit hours)". This is not a big project, and I don't expect tons of enthusiastic participants. The beginning of this non-regional Wiki "mappain" is not strong too. The professor (??) "pjack" is adding a couple of pages with no content, even states on one "What do you know about...". "Not much". Well, that is not the kind of thing I would expect from a professor, but hey, maybe it's all not so "high up" as I always deemed universities and professors. —ConstantiaOomen
2019-08-26 23:50:47 The professor emailed me, so I assume it’s legit.. —PhilipNeustrom
2019-08-27 00:21:15 Hi Philip. Yes. Of course I believe that. But I find it a bit odd to use the Wiki like this. There is no explanation, just a big and arrogant “Go ahead, don’t delete this region”. And it’s not even a region. From a new person on the Wiki. Especially in science I expect a bit more than that. —ConstantiaOomen
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