Category Archives: BLog Technicalities

Information about the creation and maintenance of this site.

WordPress Power

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I start to tap into the power of WordPress for Web publishing.

WordPress is an Open Source blogging tool. At least that’s how it’s promoted. But it’s so much more than that.

WordPress is a highly customizable Web publishing platform. With WordPress, a server, and a little ingenuity, you can build a Web site with nicely formatted static and dynamic pages. New content can be added by anyone you give access to. Site visitors can add comments — if you allow them to. Best of all, because it’s based on a blog engine, blogging features apply: date-based content display, automatic archiving of content, support for pinging and trackbacks — the list goes on and on.

I started getting a real feel for WordPress when I started rebuilding wickenburg-az.com, a Web site I have been maintaining since 1999 to provide information about the town I live in, Wickenburg, AZ. I started off keeping it simple, choosing a nice looking theme called Connections by Patricia Muller to control the appearance of the site. I immediately started tweaking the theme, changing the link colors and the header image. Then, after I had some content added, I continued tweaking by adding more features: automatic article author images, Webcams, random list of articles on topics pages, random header images, site statistics, weather, donation button, calendar of upcoming events, and Technorati tags. I added some “under the hood” features, too: comment spam protection, automated database backup, and sticky posts (which can glue a post to the top of the Home page until I release it). Right now, I’m trying to add the Users Online feature I have on this site, but I’m running into a page formatting problem and still need to work out the details to get it to work.

Every change I make to the site teaches me something about the way WordPress works. I learn more about HTML, PHP, CSS, MySQL, and Apache every day. For years, I’ve avoided digging deeply into advance Web publishing coding because I knew so little about it. Now I’m forcing myself to learn by working with it daily. I love the challenge. And I love applying the things I learned yesterday to the things I do tomorrow.

I’ll be writing more about WordPress in the weeks to come, so if you’re a WordPress user or are just curious about it, I hope you’ll keep checking in. Together, we’ll learn more about this great Web publishing tool.

aneclecticmind.com Goes Live

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Ready for prime time!

This morning, I decided to take the new version of my Web site online. I did all the DNS and server stuff necessary to make the change and I expect that within 48 hours, anyone entering www.aneclecticmind.com in their Web browser will see this new site.

All the bLog entries aren’t online yet, but there’s enough here to keep people busy. I’ll finish importing the old bLog entries during the coming weeks.

I also need to add links to information about my books. Right now, the only thing you’ll find online is a list of the books.

I’ve decided to let some old content go: my old photo galleries (I’ll make new ones), essays (aren’t the bLog entries enough?), and a few ancient articles (who wants to read that old stuff anyway?). Out with the old, in with the new. It’s a new year and I consider the removal of that old stuff very early spring cleaning.

Comments? Use the Comments link. I’d love to get feedback about the organization and content of the site. If you’ve got something to say, don’t keep it to yourself.

Spam Spam Spam Spam

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I get my first spam comment on this site.

One of the features of WordPress is the ability to collect comments on each and every post. The idea here is to foster a sort of community with feedback and additional comments to enhance the original post. I’m looking forward the comments I get on wickenburg-az.com and have already gotten quite a few. I don’t expect to get too many here because no matter how radical the ideas I express are, few people are brave enough to step forward and comment about them. There’s that and the fear that the e-mail address they’re required to enter may be used for spam.

It won’t. I have better things to do with my time than fill other people’s mailbox with junk mail. Heck, I have enough of a time keeping the junk out of mine.

Anyway, comments are commonly used by spammers to insert advertisements and links for something that has little or nothing to do with the post they’re spamming. That’s why I have WordPress set up to require that I review every comment before approving it.

This morning, there was a spam message in there from some kind of online casino. I knew it was spam without clicking the link and I immediately disposed of it. It’s quick and easy: two button clicks and it’s gone.

If spam becomes a problem, there’s a plugin I can install that will prevent it from being automatically entered. The software requires the commenter to enter a code that appears in a graphic onscreen before the comment can be entered. You’ve probably seen things like that on other Web sites; it’s getting more and more common these days. It’s an extra step for the commenter and I’d prefer not to institute it, but I will if I have to.

I think that if we all just ignored all spam and stopped clicking those links they include, spam might go away. But then again, I’m often quite naive about things like this, so I’m probably wrong.

Anyway, please don’t think that I’ll delete a comment that argues a post it’s commenting on. I won’t — unless it’s abusive or libelous. I believe in free speech and this blog is my outlet for exercising mine. You can use it to exercise yours, too. Just don’t get nasty about it, okay?

Almost Ready for Prime Time

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Why I really ought to learn CSS.

I’ve been tweaking this site night and day, trying to get all the kinks knocked out of it. It appears that although the Theme designer came up with an attractive design for this WordPress theme, it was full of errors in the CSS. And because I really don’t know CSS, it was quite a struggle for me to fix the problems.

Among the problems:

  • References to styles that didn’t exist in the style.css file.
  • Omission of code to prevent the sidebar from dangling below the rest of the page without a proper background.
  • Incorrect references to styles (id vs. class; don’t ask me more than that).
  • Styles set to display: none; so anything the style was applied to did not appear at all.
  • Other stuff I can’t even remember (and don’t want to).

In fixing these problems, I introduced a few new ones. That’ll happen when you know just enough to make you dangerous.

I learned a lot. I learned that no matter how good and professional a theme design might look, it may have problems lurking under the surface. And I learned how to troubleshoot and fix the problems — or at least how to intelligently describe the problem to someone who knows what she’s doing so she can tell me how to fix it.

The she in this case is Miraz Jordan, who has been using WordPress for considerably longer than I have. Her site, MacTips.info, runs on WordPress. And she knows what she’s doing because she uses CSS all the time. She maintains “standards-based” Web sites while I mangle them.

So as I finally work the kinks out of the site and prepare it for general release, I need to publicly thank Miraz for her help. Without her, I never would have gotten the site to look half as good as it does.

And I have a new New Year’s Resolution (other than the usual “lose weight”): learn CSS.

Now if only I can figure out those PHP commands I need to add the RSS feed code…

Welcome to the New Home of Maria’s WebLog

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I combine Maria’s WebLog and the Maria Langer Web site into one site, using WordPress software.

You’re looking at the new home of Maria’s WebLog, which I’m in the process of combining with my personal Web site. If you’ve been following my WebLog, you know that I recently installed Mac OS X server on my old G4 and made the switch to WordPress to rebuild the wickenburg-az.com Web site I host there. This is the second big project for that server, and it’s quite a challenge. Not only do I have to get hundreds of pages of content from both sites together in one central place, but I have to modify the theme on which the appearance of the site is based — without knowing nearly enough CSS or PHP code to get the job done easily.

I do love a challenge.

So bear with me as I get this site put together. Your suggestions and comments are always welcome. Use the Comments link to let me and other visitors know what’s on your mind.