Tag Archives: wordpress

General, Uncategorized

Upgrade City

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The podcasting plugin that I use on the blog here finally upgraded late yesterday. That was one of the two still holding me back from upgrading my blog to the latest version of WordPress, and I’ve been waiting patiently (more or less) to get there.

So, I completed the upgrade on WP, even though I didn’t end up with the latest version of podcasting; I did find an older release that works just fine w/ this version of the blog, so I guess I’ve been waiting around for nothing. 😛

Anyway, there are a couple other things I’ve been kind of anxious to try in this newest version, so keep an eye out for a new feature here or there… nesting comments works a lot better now (or at least look nicer). If you register on the site, you can also customize a user avatar.

There was also a new version of the photo gallery plugin, and it seems to have a bunch of new features to try out.  I added an RSS feed for photos, and I’m going to try to figure out how to reinstate the “public gallery” so if you have pictures you’d like to share, you can.  So there’s a number of little things.

Hope your weekend is going OK.  I’m back to tinkering…

General, Hollywood, lists, Uncategorized

Present In Absence

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I just realized that I haven’t posted in a couple days.  It’s not for lack of work on the site, though.  I’ve been slowly and surely updating some tags and categories on posts that were imported from the old tikiwiki blog (or earlier).  My hope is that those updates will make searching the blog by tag, etc., a little more useful.  Hey, even if it doesn’t end up that way for you, I think it will for me  😛

I am also desperately hoping each day that one of the plugins I use that is holding me back from upgrading to the latest version of WordPress with drop with an update, already.  There are some features in the next iteration that I’m anxious to implement, but it just wouldn’t be senible to do so at this time.  Hence, I check, refresh, check again, and I wait…

Outside of the metablogging, though, what can I tell you about the most recent weekend?  The big BSG finale was on Friday night.  I went over to Jason H’s place to see it with him and Brian.  Jason has the 42″ flatscreen and HD cable, so… it was kind of worth it.  I took a look back at my ‘Final Five Questions‘ from January, and without completely rehashing them, check this out:

  1. Check
  2. Check
  3. Check
  4. Adequate checkitude
  5. Check

I was really satisfied with the finale and didn’t feel like any mysteries were left forgotten or issues left unanswered.  Yes, it is entirely possible that there is something I’m forgetting, but not going to change my mind about the fact that I had a good time with the end of the series.

For those of you that are even kind-of interested in sci-fi and you missed this show, I highly recommend going back to the beginning and checking out the DVDs.  I think you’ll find that it was one of those rare shows that was really solid from top to bottom and start to finish.

"Roll Your Own", General, Hollywood, Uncategorized

Fun With Fonts

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Like 20 thousand other Lifehacker readers, I picked up on this post a couple days ago that mentioned a website where you could generate your own hand-written fonts FOR FREE.  It took about 2 and a half days for the traffic to settle down, but early this morning, I was able to get in there and scan in a few different “Bocko” fonts.  The timing on the post was funny, because I had asked Michelle just a day or two before if she knew how to design one’s own font; I have a couple projects on which I’d like to use my own digital handwriting…

Anyway, I was really impressed with how they turned out.  I even changed a few default fonts on my system to use my new handwritten ones instead; we’ll see how long that lasts before it gets too annoying for words (I have a feeling that the first time someone else comes over to the house and sits down at the computer, we’ll need to switch back to something else.  But I can read these JUST fine…).

On the geeky-website-news front, I was excited to see that there should be a bug-fixing version of WordPress due out soon.  I took a look at the list of tickets that have been closed on version 2.7.1, and it seems like a couple of my plugin problems might get fixed.  I’m anxious because there are a couple new features in the next version I’d like to be able to implement here on the site.  I don’t think I’m going to bother testing the beta, but as soon as there is an official x.x.1 release, I’ll be on it.

On the geeky-television-news front, Jen figures that Sylar’s dad is invisible.  In more ways than one, Jen, in more ways than one…

On the sisters’-bithdays front, Christy is 26 today!!  I talked to her yesterday and mentioned that it’s time to start that next quarter-century– no lookin back now; next stop: 30!  Happy b-day, Kid.

Time to head out to work– have a fabulous Wednesday.

"Roll Your Own", Uncategorized

High-Maintenance?

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In addition to getting back to a more regular flow at work today, I had some blog-slash-site-related bid’niss I wanted to take of– namely, figure out what was going wrong that I couldn’t access my email from work (was it a problem with my server, my connection at work, my ISP, my god, WHAT???), and also runs some tests on my various WordPress plugins, with a goal of migrating to WP 2.7 (the newest version) sooner than later.

In the course of these efforts, I discovered a few things that it turns out I was excessively concerned with a couple items:

  1. The email problem was very simple– the extension I’ve been using in Firefox to check the mail is broken.  I can just check it with something else instead.
  2. The two plugins that are holding me back from the upgrade have not updated yet.  One of them probably won’t for a while.  But I should try to remember: the site will let me know when they do (!!).
  3. I briefly threw myself into a hissy when tried to subscribe to my podcast again using Songbird.  It doesn’t really work in Songbird.  However, right after I spent the time downloading and installing iTunes on my machine at work, I was reminded that I already tested iTunes as an option in a virtual machine at home, so I could, for the love of God, CALM DOWN ABOUT THE PODCAST PLUGIN ALREADY.

Anything you’re way too wound up about today?

"Roll Your Own", General, Uncategorized

Busted Stuff

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Kinda funny that it was just last week when I wrote about how satisfied I’ve been with WordPress this year, then over the last couple days, I’ve been frustrated with upgrading to version 2.7.

I should clarify: the software itself works great.  The issues that I’m having are strictly related to plugins that I’m using.  I suppose certain compatibility and seamless upgrading are the trade-offs you have to make when you start using a lot of 3rd-party extensions.  I was willing to roll with the upgrade and let one of my less oft-used plugins remain broken until it’s updated, but I’ve discovered I actually have 2 ((twitter tools and the DB backup plugin)) that aren’t working quite right, so I rolled back to WordPress 2.6.5 for now ((This new footnote plugin I installed seems to work fine, though.)).  Not that it matters much to you, Dear Reader, as everything appears exactly the same on your end.  (But the blog is sort of for my notes, too.)

At work, I was supposed to have a “day off” from seeing students today, but one of my colleagues called in, so I’m filling the gap.  Might prevent me from getting the newest podcast (which we recorded over the weekend) up this afternoon, as I’d intended.  I definitely need to do that today, though, since the rest of my evenings are booked up this week.  Dave invited me to an event at EAA on Wednesday night, and Thursday is our office holiday party.

Time to get some working done…

"Roll Your Own", General, Uncategorized

Satisfactory

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Not a bad Saturday, even if the rest of it goes to hell.

It’s a rare thing for me to set some goals of wrestling with technology and actually manage to knock them all out in less than a day.  When I got up this morning, I wanted to fix some busted plugins on the blog, maybe upgrade to WordPress 2.7, get my desktop machine with a freshly installed copy of Ubuntu 8.10 fully rokkin with all my favorite software, and also make that second display work just like anyone could expect on Windows.

Finished everything by about noon and still had plenty of time to do some prep for this evening’s podcast, AND create an “album cover” for the Last 80’s Rewind show.

Carry on, and make good on your Saturday…

"Roll Your Own", Uncategorized

Twelve Months In, All Good So Far

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It was about a year ago now that I started testing out a WordPress implementation of my blog.  For those of you who were with me in the aesthetically marginal days of tikiwiki (and the relatively abysmal incarnations that preceded that), I appreciate your willingness to “hang.”

I was reflecting on this change today, and I can say with certainty that it was the right move– I’ve been completely satisfied with this software, haven’t had any significant performance or data issues, and I was able to address all the things that were on my blog wishlist as I considered the switch, through a combination of updates to the software and the extensions that are available.

Also can’t believe that on the cusp of 2009, I am entering my 7th year of blogging.  Who the hell would’ve thought that this phemomenon would last that long?  Anyway, thanks again for your attention; here’s to another blogtastic year…

"Roll Your Own", Uncategorized

Working On a Coupla TwoThree Things

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I had a breakthrough yesterday in realizing that I was sending posts via email is not that difficult.  I was just not completing the process.  I can now pull in those emails pretty quickly.

The ones that I’ve grabbed, though, don’t seem to display correctly once they’re here.  I get titles that reflect the subject line, but the body itself is always empty.  I’m going to head out to the forums next to take a look at that.

Why I am blogging at 12:40am, you ask?  Just couldn’t get to sleep.  I was lying awake in bed about an hour before I decided that I would grab the laptop and see if that would make me tired.  It only seems to have made me thirsty, which doesn’t make a lot of sense.

"Roll Your Own", Uncategorized

More or Less Like Butter

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You probably didn’t notice unless you’ve registered (and you haven’t), but I upgraded the WordPress again today. Version 2.5 debuted over the weekend, and after taking a little time to figure out how, and consulting Mundschau on it, I finished everything up for upgrading this evening.

  1. Per Joe’s advice, I shut down the MySQL server, then copied the entire contents of the data folder for the site to my workstation.  Did the same with my WordPress base install.
  2. I seem to have an easier time un-zipping the new versions and then pushing them over to the server than doing a download straight TO the server.  So I went that route again.  Followed the instructions on WordPress.org very carefully, and everything seemed to go off without a hitch.
  3. My theme was broken when I first finished the upgrade.  I had to re-install it, but all the custom setups I had rokkin stuck around after the re-install.
  4. I had customized the login script so that you don’t have a to wait for an email with your initial password.  But that was messed up out of the box, too, so I’ll have to do that again.
  5. Tried to use the new “one-click-plugin-upgrade” feature that’s built in to this newest version of WordPress.  But that didn’t play very nice, either, cuz the script asked for my FTP credentials to the server– but Bocko don’t roll w/ no FTP, yo (SSH only up in this mofo).
  6. Speaking of which, the picture galleries are a little screwy right this moment, too (i.e., not present), but I know all the files are still there, so I’m sure it’ll just be a matter of updating the plugin.

Overall, I’m very satisfied with the ease of this upgrading operation.  Another piece of advice that Joe gave me that I’ll be trying my best to follow– learning how to backup my database with ‘mysqldump’ before it’s time for the next upgrade.

Also– update on my ISP problems: cable guy was here today, and without going into too much useless detail, seems like my speed problems are fixed.  Wordy was able to see the photos today at a reasonable speed, and isn’t that why we’re all here, anyway?  To make sure that Wordy’s time on the web is well-spent?  But yeah, I guess I’ll just keep an eye on it and hope for the best…

Off to fix my photo galleries!

"Roll Your Own", General, Uncategorized

That Was Unexpected

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Well, maybe I shouldn’t even admit this, but I got into work this morning, and all of a sudden, soloshootsfirst.com was pointing at my new WordPress site. Wasn’t doing that night when I went to bed. Is now. *shrug*

So, err, welcome to the new version of the site. Yep.

……

Update your feeds.

**UPDATE**   Talked to Joe and learned something new about Apache and needing to restart it– which I had to do this morning for a completely different reason.  But at least I feel better about not being a total schmoe.  Carry on!