Here.
The guys over at Common Craft have created an incredible resource for those that don’t really understand feedreading.
Feeds are an amazing. Seriously. Instead of having to go around to every web page I want to check everyday (trust me, there are a bunch), I simply go to my feed reader and see all the updates in one spot. I use the Newsgator online feed reader, but other popular ones include Bloglines and Google Reader.
Frequent readers probably noticed that I recently switched themes. I was using Hemingway Ex, a theme I still love.
But Hemingway-based themes are best when you don’t post all that often. This is because they typically just show 2 posts on the front page (better if you post less frequently), but if you post more often, you have relevant posts that readers can’t see very easily. And, it being finals time and everything, I have been posting more frequently (a trend I hope to keep up!).
The current theme is the newest version of a theme I have used before, Redoable. Now, I am using Redoable 1.2, which is indeed an incredible theme, created by deanjrobinson.
Redoable is an adaptation of the venerable K2 theme, which means it has many of the same flaws. The major issue with K2 (and, thus, Redoable) is something with the Sidebar options panel. In some cases, and of course mine, the K2 sidebar options panel doesn’t display.
My solution: install the sidebar modules plugin (which k2 bases their sidebar off of), and voila, a sidebar modules options panel should be available. You’ll probably want to copy over any modules from the /themes/redoable/modules/ folder you want to use, and put them in /plugins/sbm/modules/ folder.
I only have one other major issue, and that is the Firefox banner located at the top of the page, which is only visible if you are using Internet Explorer. Now, I hate IE (really badly; ask any of my friends, I want to convert them all to Firefox), but I don’t want to tick off possible readers who like IE by having the big banner at the top.
Supposedly you’re able to turn off the Firefox banner in the Redoable options panel, but I have the banner off right now, and it is still visible in IE (which bugs me). I really would like to find a solution to this problem, and the sooner the better.
*Update – May 3, 2007* I was able to fix the issue with the Firefox banner still displaying after turning it off in the Redoable options panel. I had to rig it, but it works, and hopefully didn’t tick off too many IE users. If you want to fix the same issue, remove (or comment out) lines 106 through 113 from header.php. I wanted to post the code here, but it wanted to display the html, not the code. Oh well. I guess one fix a night is good enough.
As I was trying to fix my WordPress install yesterday, I attempted to connect to the #wordpress channel on irc.freenode.net. In case you don’t know, IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat, an antiquated online chat system created in 1988. Think of IRC as an earlier version of AIM, Google Talk, or Jabber.
For a better introduction to IRC, check out this article from linux.com.
But I never could get connected. You see, the network administrators here at UGA have blocked the IRC ports from use, claiming that “there is too much abuse”. I would like to know how much abuse happens over IRC when the ports unblocked.
Anyways, I needed to find a way to get on the channel, as the WordPress forums weren’t providing me any answers. I next tried several online scripts that allow you to connect to IRC servers through your web browser.
First, I tried the PJIRC client, a java-based client. In fact, WordPress even links to a friendly install of PJIRC by Viper007Bond. Again, no luck. This implementation needs to use the same IRC ports as regular clients, so I couldn’t connect.
Then my roommate found a hosted-version of CGI:IRG at IRC @ Work. And it worked! Finally I was able to complete my subversive plans and get some help for my WordPress install.
In all honesty, I don’t know why the IRC protocol is blocked by UGA administrators. I’ve read that it can be used to facilitate computer takeover, control bot computers, implement denial-of-service attacks. How often this happens, I don’t know. I think that the few on campus that know what IRC is are most likely nerds and pose little threat.
If you need to connect to IRC servers from behind restrictive firewalls, I would completely recommend CGI:IRG and IRC @ Work.
Disclaimer: This post is solely for informative and educational purposes, and the author assumes no responsibility and will not be held accountable if you are caught breaking your network policy or local law.
So, I wrote a little while ago about the new version of WordPress (2.1). Well, it seems after all that praise, I had a little problem (ok, a couple).
You see, I have multiple WordPress installs (lol, if you want to know why, check the links to see the multiple blogs). On some of these installs, after installing WordPress 2.1, I could see the new Visual/Code “tabbed editor” thingie. But on other installs, I couldn’t see the “tabbed editor”. All I could use was the Code version of the editor (which is a nice thing, but I need to use the Visual window sometimes).
So how to fix this problem? Well, a couple of trips to the WordPress.org forums, and I found the answer. First, this post, and then the answer was on this post.
Go to your WordPress admin page. Then click on ‘Users’ on the toolbar. The click ‘Edit’ on your admin user. Now, click ‘Your Profile’, which is just under the main toolbar.
And, lastly, place a check mark in the “Use the visual editor when writing” and click “Update Profile”.
Ok, so we fixed that, but now a complaint: The redone “Insert/Edit Link”AJAX pop-out.
First, the developers switched which side of the bottom the “Insert” and “Cancel” buttons are on (yes, a major complaint, as I was used to the old system, so now I hit Cancel all the time and mess up my posts).
Second, after you insert a link, the “Insert/Edit Link” pop-out clears, but stays on the screen. Why? Who knows? But it is still on the screen, after the editor has inserted the link.
But, at least we fixed the major problem of the day, thanks to the wonderful WordPress forums.