Jason Cosper

Month: November 2011

  • Cleaning Up Unicode Cruft in WordPress

    While helping someone with WordPress move earlier this week, I noticed a bunch of weird Unicode cruft (like ’ and –) in their posts and comments. Apparently, MySQL databases don’t like it when you switch their default character encoding. But different web hosts have different ways of doing things — so default character encodings can (and sometimes do) change while you’re moving a site around.

    Anyhow, after a bit of digging, I found a really handy set of MySQL commands that fixed things up. But I like to save time, so I made myself a Gist for future use and decided to share it with y’all…

    Hopefully someone else out there finds this useful! I know I’ll probably use it at least once or twice a week now that I’m doing a lot more work with MySQL imports.

    Good luck!

  • CMD + Conquer

    When I started over at WP Engine earlier this week, a brand new MacBook Air came into my possession. It’s very pretty and lightweight and I kind of love it more than any other computer I’ve ever owned. So much so that I made the decision to break with my normal tradition and keep this hot little number sticker free.

    That declaration only lasted about a day and a half tho…

    Why? Well, I just came across the Command Bamboo Back from Grove. And I really want it. Like in a bad way.

    It’s not a traditional sticker tho. It’s made out of real bamboo. And the shape carved into it actually changes that (somewhat ubiquitous) glowing Apple logo into something that I love so much that I put it on me forever.

    Anyhow, they’ve got a bunch of clever and novel designs over there. If you’re looking for something a bit different, do yourself a favor and browse around their shop.