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Kicking the Tires

I am just barely making it to Day 5 of my renewed posting regimen – I have a headache that’s stopping me from putting together the post I had in mind for today, but I think it’s a good occasion to take a look at the site’s current form and see what I think. More importantly, I can beg for feedback or ideas.

  • Part of what made it easier for me to post this week is that I finally moved the site’s hosting from Globat to Bluehost. So far I am very happy with this choice. Globat occasionally would have some kind of odd hiccup that would make it hard for me to access the site or make changes. Bluehost’s control panel has been easy to work with and I had little trouble with moving the content. Which reminds me, I need to renew the site’s hosting contract.
  • I upgraded to the latest version of WordPress, which definitely makes a bunch of functions easier. I noticed it when I was moving content from the old forum – it’s pretty easy to click the right boxes and get the post up. And I found a theme that works with the new version. So far I like it, but I’m not wedded to it.
  • I’m still thinking about the sidebar to the right. Is having the Recent Posts and Recent Comments worth it? Does anyone find it useful to be able to click on a particular month’s archives, or does the Calendar serve that purpose well enough? I would like to add an Amazon widget. I don’t know if being an Amazon affiliate is even worth the effort these days, but I feel like I should give it a try. Is there anything else that should be there and isn’t?
  • There is now a link to Register at the top of the sidebar, so if you would like to leave a comment here, please feel free to do so. I would love to see if I could make that link more prominent. Maybe I’ll try to create a specific Register widget.
  • I really like the way this theme (Techozoic) formats posts. The date and headline look good, and it comes with social media buttons buttons built in so I can finally get on that bandwagon.
  • I should probably make the headline/title fonts a little darker, and get a Not News logo up somewhere on the page.
  • The blog roll definitely needs an update – I haven’t touched that in years.

So, overall, I’m happy with the way the site is functioning right now, and I hope that keeps me motivated to keep adding content. Thoughts, suggestions and feedback are always welcome, but right now while I have the time to do something about them, they’re particularly useful.

About

Born and raised in Philadelphia. Studied philosophy at Fordham University in the Bronx, where I made many great friends and met my wonderful wife. We moved back to Philadelphia, where I studied philosophy some more and became a teacher. Online and off, I'm looking for ways that we can be better citizens and build stronger communities.

August 5, 2011 @ 9:01 pm
Site Comments

2 Comments

  1. Ping from Earl Green:
    Friday, August 5th 2011 at 9:38 pm | 

    I’ll spare everyone the details of my own experiences with Globat, but getting off of that hosting service is as good a first step as anyone could make. I’ve heard good things about Bluehost too.

    As far as being an Amazon affiliate – I’d been meaning to tell you that your Amazon links were nigh-on-impossible to find, especially if someone’s going out of their way to make sure you get a few nickels out of a purchase that needs to made there. Hint hint. I may no longer be affiliated with them (for reasons beyond my control), but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to try to help out anyone who’s still affiliated with them. The fact that I just recently made a purchase there, with the final bit of store credit I’d accumulated over my last two months as an affiliate, is good enough reason to stay on board. At least until they have a falling out with all 50 states and put the kibosh on the affiliate program entirely.

    Updating WordPress is almost like a weekly activity these days; be prepared to stick with it. If you haven’t done that in a while, check your user stats and make sure there aren’t 20 users who don’t show up in a list, but do show up in the total number. WordPress, due to its ubiquity (which is due to its well-earned popularity) seems to have a gigantic bullseye on its back these days. They roll out more security fixes than Windows anymore… but at least they roll them out.

  2. Ping from Dave Thomer:
    Friday, August 5th 2011 at 10:04 pm | 

    Thanks for the User tip. I did a first purge, I’ll do a more detailed check to see if there’s anyone with 0 comments that should be deleted.

    Consider your comment motivation to get the Amazon widget back into the sidebar. Is it showing up for you now?

    I gotta say, the option to install updates automatically in WordPress is a nice touch. I’m sure it’ll be a lot easier to keep up with it if I have less FTPing to do. And if I keep up regular posting, I trust WordPress to be vigilant about reminding me to update.

    I still have a small but significant number of things to transfer from the old phpBB forum, but then I’ll be able to focus on one platform going forward.

    Have you tried any of these new post options in WordPress 3? I am intrigued by the Gallery checkbox, but I have no idea how it works. Another experiment for another day.