some site news and updates
The following news feeds are pulled from other public RSS/Atom feeds and aggregated here for convenience.
[ Blog | Issue Tracking | Pastebin Twitter | Slepp Twitter | GitHub Projects | Old News ]
Pastebin and Slepp's Blog
- First public release of Filebin source
At the request of some users, I’ve released the filebin.ca source code to the public with some minor changes (such as removing the custom SSO for the other Pastebin projects) and making it slightly more portable.
If you’re interested, check it out on github.- Pastebin now supports embedding content
I’ve been meaning to put this feature in for some time, but now you can embed Pastebin content right into your web page with an IFrame or Script. Like this, with an iframe:
Or, if you prefer a simpler embed, you can use the script version:
- Updated image for Pastebin.ca
I’ve rewritten a large portion of the layout of pastebin.ca (it’s about time, huh?), and added in some new features, like direct posting to Twitter, and other sharing services. Take a look at the new site at http://new.pastebin.ca/ and let me know what you think.
- Pastebin moved entirely to Lighttpd
Because Apache2 seemed to have a lot of problems with load bursts and hanging PHP processes, I’ve replaced the Apache2 installation for pastebin.ca with Lighttpd instead. So far, so good. Let me know if you find anything out of whack, though.
- Pastebin add-on version 1.2 released
I’ve just released version 1.2 of the Pastebin add-on. It has a bunch of bug fixes (as seen in the version 1.2 link), as well as a few new features. If you already have the 1.1 version, it’ll update itself sometime. If you haven’t tried it yet, now is a good time!
I’ve also setup Redmine for tracking the projects.
- First public release of Pastebin.ca Code
I finally exported all of the newest development code base to github today. This is a different base than that which runs the live Pastebin (many, many differences), but the core of it is there. It’ll be updated a bit over the next week or two with all the CSS, images, etc. needed to get it going quickly, but in the meantime, those that are really curious can go ahead and start poking around at it.
Check it out at http://github.com/slepp/pastebin.ca
Some other projects will show up there shortly, like TURL and the new Pastebin.ca Firefox add-on.
- Server hardware replacements
Hi all, the Pastebin (and other sites) server needed a desperate upgrade of hardware because of some horrible power issues as of late. All the disks have now been replaced with newer, faster ones and the CPU/RAM upgraded. Hopefully this will have a good improvement on some functions of the site. Sorry for the 12 hours of outage, though, leading up to the upgrade.
- Pastebin Changes for Paste Permissions
Well, almost 1,000,000 pastes so far, and these days the inappropriate uses of the Pastebin are increasing. It’s really disappointing to watch, but it does mean inconveniencing everyone else. All pastes are set to expire by default, are non-cacheable by search engines, and if things don’t improve, user accounts will be required.
If you find anything unusual, please report it to me, so it can be dealt with properly. Thanks.
- Automated Pastebin Post Removal
At the start of February, I finished up the automatic removal process for the Pastebin. At the bottom of each paste, there is a link right below the source titled Remove Paste. Just find the paste you want to remove, click on that link, answer the question on the next page (spam bot protection), and it will automatically be removed from the database. You can remove a set number a day. If you hit the limit, the site will tell you, and you can request removal through the form on the blog here.
Hopefully the automated removal feature will be useful and help everyone’s peace of mind.
- Server Outage and Development Preview
Yesterday, a bad stick of RAM took the Pastebin server out of service for quite some time (nearly 24 hours). It corrupted most of the database, so I had to restore from backups and do a lot of tinkering to bring the data back into sync.
Hopefully everything is back to normal now, although about 500 pastes were lost for good. There are a few performance hits at the moment, while the system settles down and finishes indexing and re-backing up everything, but that should be over by the time most people read this.
Other things coming down the pipe include an open source variant of the Pastebin, which is nearly done being written and tidied up. It is a complete rewrite from scratch to give it more modularity and portability, as well as some backend abstractions to let people use other database systems. For those that just care to see it progress (it’s not done, of course), you can see the main view of it at devel.pastebin.ca. (Again, it’s not done, so anything posted there won’t show up anywhere)
Pastebin on Twitter
June 15, 2009 at 23:24 MDT: @morgoid The porn bots are what keep everyone on twitter looking special, don't worry. :)
June 15, 2009 at 23:20 MDT: @morgoid I was too late to follow you to make myself #180..
April 13, 2009 at 04:48 MDT: Updated the Pastebin news with aggregated RSS from a few sources & colour contest canceled, not enough entries. http://pastebin.ca/news.php
April 1, 2009 at 15:54 MDT: Put up a challenge for anyone who wants to pick new colours at http://pastebin.ca/colour.php - $20 to the winner :>
Slepp on Twitter
February 22, 2010 at 10:45 MST: @mspixieriot Excellent. You'll be relatively close to our place (Montrose).
February 22, 2010 at 10:41 MST: @mspixieriot Yay! Congratulations. Where at?
February 22, 2010 at 10:33 MST: @sublyme When are you? :> Anything going on for Jordan's birthday?
February 22, 2010 at 09:54 MST: First the garage, now a 700mbit DDoS attack. This morning is going great! Oh, I'm also getting sick.
February 22, 2010 at 09:32 MST: @peterurban The damage doesn't look too severe when just looking, but the wall is definitely off kilter now.
February 22, 2010 at 09:27 MST: Someone ran into my garage overnight, pushing one wall back quite a bit from where it used to be.. Great thing to wake up to.
February 20, 2010 at 15:15 MST: Anyone up for joining @vixvarga and myself for Chimprov tonight at 11pm? I can pick a few people up if needed. Maybe food/drinks first. #yeg
February 15, 2010 at 23:55 MST: Ottawa, here I come. Yay! #yow
February 15, 2010 at 12:47 MST: A busy day before flying off to Ottawa. Just love the red eye :> #yeg #yow
February 6, 2010 at 01:59 MST: The improv at Varscona tonight was quite good. I really need to go more often. #yeg
January 31, 2010 at 17:54 MST: That's how I feel about the weather. RT @morgoid If today was a person, I'd punch it so hard I'd actually feel bad.
January 31, 2010 at 14:52 MST: @stormbrew That makes more sense. Also, #codejoes is just what I thought then. We'll see if @vixvarga and I get out of the house.
January 31, 2010 at 14:39 MST: @mustbetuesday Now I'm just confused. :>
January 31, 2010 at 14:38 MST: @mustbetuesday What's that then?
January 31, 2010 at 14:14 MST: @mustbetuesday I just got out of bed, so I'm guessing we missed #brunchwar. Mmmmm. #bacon.
January 30, 2010 at 20:56 MST: @CervantesX Ouch. Well, enjoy getting drunk then :>
January 30, 2010 at 20:10 MST: @CervantesX There's always a certain Black Adder party :>
January 30, 2010 at 19:38 MST: Anyone hungry? http://yfrog.com/ausuhnj
January 30, 2010 at 19:30 MST: @sublyme Are you and Jordan coming by for Black Adder?
January 30, 2010 at 19:29 MST: There's probably more vodka in the punch than juice. This should be fun.
GitHub Projects
april 1, 2009
You can now follow Pastebin.ca on Twitter for quick updates about the new features and development track.
old news
may 30, 2007
Hello again. This news page has pretty much been made obsolete by the creation of the new blog for Slepp. For future updates, you should be checking the projects categories on the blog. Thanks!
august 16, 2006
Some database optimizations have been made, as well as rehoming the backend server to a faster, beefier one. So, the delays should be greatly reduced for page loads and other things.
Also, the entire site is getting pretty strict with regard to spam comments and posts. Please let me know if you find the spam protections are interfering with your regular use of the Pastebin.
may 4, 2005
An entirely new commenting system has been implemented on Pastebin.ca. There are three types of comments: general public comments, comments about a post, and comments about polls. You may reply to any comment that someone has already made, or make your own comment, on any paste or poll. The comments on pastes will show at the end of the paste itself, poll comments are available from the list of polls, and general comments are in the Comments section from the menu.
If you have any suggestions on improving the comment system, feel free to leave a comment in the general comments. I get e-mailed those ones.
may 2, 2005
Due to the gracious translation by ZeBob, we now have a completed French translation of the Pastebin. The German translation is still in progress at this time.
may 1, 2005
This was actually old news, but the Pastebin provides two RSS feeds for both news and posts. As more sections come online, it will also grow to include those. You can subscribe to the Posts RSS Feed or the News RSS Feed. The posts feed will provide an RSS feed of the most recent posts to the Pastebin for those users who are just endlessly curious about what is being pasted, while the News RSS is this information here.
may 1, 2005
The methods to do differences between posts is now in place. For an example, take a look at http://pastebin.ca/diff.php?id1=10741&id2=10742. Presently, to view a list of changes between posts, you would go to the Entire Post Tree/Differences from a post that has updates, or which is an update to another post. Then you can select revisions to see the differences between. Work is in progress for a more generic difference engine to make it easier to select which posts you want to compare.
This system is based on the modified preorder tree traversal methods of tracking pastes. It allows any updated pastes to be tracked back through their progression of posts over time. The trees look like this sample tree. This is the same tree as the differences available above.
april 28, 2005
I switched over from the previous syntax highlighter to GeSHi 1.0.6. Let me know what you think. Three languages, PL/I, Scheme, and Ruby are not in GeSHi, but I will be adding the support for them back in shortly. Also, there are some new languages available for highlighting (Action Script, Ada, Apache Configurations, Assembly (NASM), ASP, BASH Scripts, Delphi, HTML 4.0 Strict, JavaScript, LISP, Lua, Microprocessor ASM, Objective C, Visual Basic .NET).
april 25, 2005
I created the section to allow anyone to create their own sub-domain on pastebin.ca for hosting their own pastebin, private or public. Check out Get a Pastebin.
april 24, 2005
I've optimized a bunch of the SQL queries used by the Pastebin, so hopefully it is a bit faster in general. I cut down the page time from about 1 second under load to about 50ms under load. Not too bad, I think.
march 8, 2005
I have started on the translations from English into French and German. The little flags at the top right will change the page into the language the flag represents. Of course, I cheated and used Google, but I'd like to hear from anyone willing to fix up the translations.
february 16, 2005
I added a list of randomized 'Anonymous' names to the system, so instead of all the posts labelled Anonymous, there will now be a bit of a mix up in names so that it might be easier to identify untitled posts on the sidebar. Let me know if you have any suggestions of other random titles to set when it is left blank.
There are new features in the works, including (but definitely not limited to):
- Ability to update post titles in place
- Ability to delete and modify posts based on a password, user account, or IP
- Hinted in the note above, user accounts
- Improved/updated highlighting engine
- Language translations, if anyone wants to translate from English for me
- Changeable colour themes (just because I can)
If you have any other suggestions, let me know. Anyone interested in seeing more than text being able to be pasted? I'm cautious about that, but it might be useful. How about making the input text area larger? Or setting a default expiry time on posts?
february 7th, 2005
Advertising information is available for those who wish to look into it. I didn't want to step on any toes of the people who were asking, so I made it an open forum to try for advertising space. (Sorry)
january 1st, 2005
Someone offered a lot of money for the domain name, and I'm curious who. If it was you, I'd like to know. I said no, if anyone is curious.