Month: April 2013

After more than a year of struggling and searching around, I have finally found why the comments on my blog were not working any more.

So the good news for all my readers is this: You can finally comment again!

Since the time I upgraded from MT 4.x to 5.x, the following error message started appearing whenever one attempted to submit comments:

Your comment submission failed for the following reasons: Invalid request.

As it turns out the problem was trivial but extremely difficult to pinpoint. Here's how I figured it out.

I loaded an entry page, activated Firebug, entered some text in the comments field, and hit the submit button. In the Firebug console, there was a javascript error, namely the following:

mtCommentOnSubmit is not defined.

This must mean that mt.js wasn't being loaded in that page. Indeed, upon inspecting the source code, this file was not present. At the same time, another anomaly caught my eye, namely that the file utils.js was being loaded twice.

In addition to the standard "JavaScript" template which outputs the mt.js file, I had created my own user-defined template called "JavaScript Utils" which outputs the utils.js file.

So far so good you might think. Well, it turns out that the following template tag, which I have defined in the "Header" template, doesn't always render the same output:

<script type="text/javascript" src="<$mt:Link template="javascript"$>"></script>

For some strange reason it normally renders mt.js, but in the entry page it incorrectly renders utils.js instead. That's why it was appearing twice, once because of <$mt:Link template="javascript"$> and then again because of <$mt:Link template="JavaScript Utils"$>.

The solution is to rename the template="JavaScript Utils" to template="Javascript-Utils" and the problem is solved.

Now I expect many new comments to appear as the droves of my visitors are unleashed to share their many ideas with me.

Try it out yourself and see if it works.

I gazed up into the sky. To my utter amazement, I witnessed the formation of an intricate pattern of criss-crosses all over the place. What struck me immediately was the realization that this was nothing more than a huge net created by a very powerful being. The one and only purpose was to completely capture the world, consume it in one gulp, including me. I realized that no matter how hard I tried, I would not be able to escape the inevitable. Just waiting to happen, time ticking away, no doubts about it. I accepted my fate with open arms and a smile, continuing on my merry little way.

So it turns out that my wife has won the national lottery. No less than thirty-one million euros. She's been buying lottery tickets since I've known her, and finally it has been worth the effort. Thirty-one million euros, and that's a lot of money. Unfortunately it has transformed my wonderful wife from a fun-loving beautiful person into a hateful greedy monster. And she's got me under her evil control.

It all started the day afterwards, when my wife insisted that we rush to the nearest bank first thing in the morning and withdraw the full amount in cash. All in one go. Didn't make sense to me, but she was very eager to have it in her hands. Before anyone found out, we had to hurry and then hide it away some place safe.

I had this old cardboard box with the bottom falling out, and we dumped all of the money in it. There were a couple of big cloth bags of change and it weighed a ton, as well as stacks of bills. The bottom of the box kept falling open, with the bills and change spilling out onto the mall floor. The bills were being blown away by the breeze and the coins were rolling every which way. People stared at us, but for some reason no one noticed that I had thirty-one million euros in that box.

My wife was a greedy witch and I was her slave, tagging along hurriedly at her side carrying the treasure. She rushed towards the exit and I had a hard time keeping up with her. Hurry up before anyone finds out. The box was very heavy and the muscles of my arms were strained to the limit, the box bottom kept opening up no matter how hard I tried to keep it closed. Coins and bills scattered in my wake and people started to notice. Quick, we got to get away.

Then my wife noticed that there was this big sale at a clothing store to the left. She had to rush inside and take a look. Always brainwashed by those sales: thirty percent off, everything half price. She told me just to put the box down on the ground in front of the store window, we could pick it up later on our way out. This is crazy, I thought. Anyone could just walk by and steal the thirty-one million euros and it would be gone forever. My wife has become completely crazy and I must save her.

I decided to play a trick on her, the greedy evil woman. When she walked into the store, I took the money out of the box and stuffed it all in my pockets and inside of my jacket. When she came out I pointed to the empty box and started blaming her for her carelessness. See what you caused, someone has stolen all our prize money, how stupid of you. There was shock in her eyes, a flash and some sparks, and I was prepared for her to explode in angry tirades and lash out at me. That's when the miracle occurred: she transformed back into the beautiful loving woman I used to know and care for. A good enough time as any to wake up and return to reality.

This might have been a really weird dream, but underneath there is much truth in it. My wife has asked me in the past what I'd do if I won the lottery. My answer is always the same: I'd give it all away as quickly as I could. I do not believe in winning so much money for doing nothing, while there is so much pain and suffering in the rest of the world. So much money for nothing is evil, unethical, and against nature's ways. My wife is also very careless and loses everything. I also like to play mean tricks on her to teach her a lesson. We joke about how much she's into sales and buying things on discount all the time. Whenever I compliment her on her nice new outfit, the first thing she tells me is that it was seventy percent off.

My greatest fear is that with so much money the family will be torn apart by greediness, and forsake our love for each other by immersing ourselves in a mad frenzy of buying fancy objects. In the end, I am glad we did not win the lottery and it was all just a stupid dream.