This is just a little nugget that may prove useful to other users of Kindle for Mac (and maybe PC).  I noticed the other day that I had somehow acquired a book that I hadn’t purchased.  It appeared to be an Italian book… I’m not sure of the title as that kind of information wasn’t available.  It just kind of sat there.  When I tried to download it, I was told I had reached my limit and I was given the option of deauthorising a device or purchasing another copy.

Of course, I didn’t want to do either but no matter what I tried I couldn’t get rid of it.  And no amount of searching on-line provided any assistance.

Today, I took a punt and managed to rid myself of this un-purchased baggage with no complaints from the Kindle software.  So, if you too are afflicted with un-purchased items popping up in your book list, this is how you can fix it.

• First, find you Kindle content folder.  On the Mac you can do this using Finders ‘Go to folder’ option.  The Kindle content folder should be located in ‘/Users/<YOURUSERNAME>/library/Application Support/Kindle’.  If this doesn’t work, you can find where it is from the Kindle software preferences.
• Once you’ve found the folder, delete the ‘Cache’ directory (making a copy of course just in case).
• Start Kindle

And hey presto, if all has gone according to plan, the spurious book will no longer be visible in your list of books.  I suspect the same thing will work for Kindle PC, but I’ve not had the opportunity to try it so your mileage may vary.

Well, here’s something I never thought would happen… a knitting pattern… on my blog… and whats more, it’s all my own work

I actually only started knitting earlier this year, so at the most, 2 months ago… the reason… Sackboy. I found a knitting pattern by Alan Dart to make your own Sackboy, so after demanding my mum teach me how to knit, I got busy and knitted a Sackboy, who now lives with Spirit. But he was getting cold at night so she demanded I knit him some winter warmers.

So, I’ve knitted him a little body warmer (or gillet if you’re posh) and a little bobble hat, complete with pompom. I used 4mm needles and some Palette Collection yarn Series 019/219 (www.paletteyarn.com available from Hobbycraft in the UK, although it does look like the exact wool I used is now discountinued).

Cast on 60 stitches (thumb method)

1st Row: K2P2 to end
2nd Row: K2P2 to end
3rd Row: Repeat 1st
4th Row: Repeat 2nd

5th to 7th Rows: Knit

6th to 13th Rows: Stocking stitch beginning with knit

14th Row: (K2 K2Tog K2) Repeat to end (50 stitches)
15th Row: Purl
16th Row: Knit
17th Row: Purl
18th Row: (K2 K2Tog K1) Repeat to end (40 stitches)
19th Row: Purl
20th Row: (K1 K2Tog K1) Repeat to end (30 stitches)
21st Row: (P1 P2Tog) Repeat to end (20 stitches)
22nd Row: (K2Tog) Repeat to end (10 stitches)

Thread yarn through stiches and tie off, stitch up to make a beanie hat.

There you have it,a nice little beanie hat… pompom is optional And in a Blue Peter stylee, here’s one I made earlier…

Beanie with pompom for Sackboy

I should just add… the gillet… went slightly wrong, so I’m working on another one.

I’ve published the first draft of the majority of my LittleBigPlanet logic tutorials. Included in this first draft are some hints and tips, information about the Excel spreadsheet I use to sketch out ideas, some designs for the basic logic gates, an example of a complex logic design and some background details about my Tic-Tac-Toe level.

If you’re a vBulletin administrator (like me) and you want to stop people from using older smilies, here’s a quick tweak that seems to stop them being used in the post editor.

A word of caution before we continue. This tweak involves editing one of the vBulletion system files. If you aren’t comfortable doing that, then don’t do it!

I should perhap also state that because this involves editing a system file, you will have to carry out a similar modifcation the next time you upgrade your vBulletin installation. This mod was done on the codebase for version 3.7.4 with no patches applied.

So, on to the modification.

Locate the file includes\functions_editor.php, and go down to line 558. It should read:-


$smilies = $vbulletin->db->query_read_slave("
SELECT smilieid, smilietext, smiliepath, smilie.title,
imagecategory.title AS category
FROM " . TABLE_PREFIX . "smilie AS smilie
LEFT JOIN " . TABLE_PREFIX . "imagecategory AS imagecategory USING(imagecategoryid)
ORDER BY imagecategory.displayorder, imagecategory.title, smilie.displayorder
");


All we’re going to do, is to add a condition to this SQL statement that will allow you to manage which smilies are visible to users in the editor. To do this, add the following where clause to the SQL.


WHERE (smilie.displayorder<>0) and (imagecategory.displayorder<>0)


If you’re unfamiliar with SQL, then this is what your code should look like after you’ve made the change.


$smilies = $vbulletin->db->query_read_slave("
SELECT smilieid, smilietext, smiliepath, smilie.title,
imagecategory.title AS category
FROM " . TABLE_PREFIX . "smilie AS smilie
LEFT JOIN " . TABLE_PREFIX . "imagecategory AS imagecategory USING(imagecategoryid)
WHERE (smilie.displayorder<>0) and (imagecategory.displayorder<>0)
ORDER BY imagecategory.displayorder, imagecategory.title, smilie.displayorder
");


Simple enough, no?

Now, assuming everything is fine, to hide a smilie (or whole category of smilies), set the display order of the item you want to hide to 0, and hey presto, they won’t appear in the editor, but posts that use older smilies will still be able to use them.

And that as they say, is that