Saturday, October 13, 2007
5:46 pm
Daniel J. Summers
Today, I'm trying something new. One of my friends, Nick, will be joining the blog authoring team (well, I guess that would be creating a team, since it's been a solo effort up to this point). He'll be putting thought-provoking information from a viewpoint other than that of us in the VRWC.
I'm sure you lurkers will welcome him the same way you welcome me. And remember too - this is my house. G-rated language and civility on both sides will be unapologetically enforced. :)
Friday, September 28, 2007
1:13 pm
Daniel J. Summers
If you've ever been here before, you'll notice that it looks quite a bit different. I like this new theme - the city is alive! :) (Watch the image for a while…) There are still a few tweaks left, but I think it's about 95% ready.
Also, seeing how potent Akismet is, I have changed the configuration to no longer require a registration to leave comments. If spam starts seeping through, I'll lock it back down, but for now, if that's what's been stopping you, have at it. In fact, you can practice by leaving your comments about this new theme on this post!
Update (28 Sep / 1936 MDT) - I know the sidebar looks weird in IE6. Upgrade or change is my advice. :)
Update (28 Sep / 1945 MDT) - On the sidebar, there is now a section called “Choose Your Theme.” This will allow you to view the new theme (NightLight Idea), the old theme (Pool), or the two default themes that come with WordPress. You can still tell me in the comments which one you prefer. I made sure the theme switcher appears on all the themes, so you can switch back and forth at will. (Pool and NightLight Idea have been customized, while the others have not - so some features may not appear on the default themes.)
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
11:16 pm
Daniel J. Summers
If any of you are interested, I have converted the “Verse of the Day” on my sidebar from a theme hack to an actual WordPress plug-in. The details (and the download) are over on my tech blog. I plan to convert the category and archive drop-down lists to plug-ins as well - they will all be detailed in the “Programming » WordPress » Plug-Ins” category.
There are a few new features here for you to have fun with. The first is the addition of the box at the bottom of each post that says “Share This”. This allows you to add a link to the article you've just read to several online bookmarking and social networking sites, such as Digg, del.ico.us, and StumbleUpon. Additionally, it provides the ability to send an e-mail to someone with a link to the article - if you're logged in, it even pre-fills your name and e-mail address.
The other two changes work together with each other, to enhance the comments. Check out the “Let Are Kids Walk” article, near the bottom where the comments start. The first icon is the flag of the nation from which the commenter posted (yes, I know where you live!). The next icons show the browser and operating system they were using. For links from other websites (which you'll see a link from this post to that one), you'll see the country where the blog resides, and the blogging software used at that site.
For those who want the details on these plug-ins, here are their names, linked to their home pages.
Share This by Alex King provides the “Share This” box at the bottom of each post.
IP 2 Nation by Ozh (based on the ip2nation project by Per Gustafsson) provides the flags.
Browser Sniff by Priyadi Iman Nurcahyo provides the browser, OS, and blogging software icons.
You may or may not have noticed that you aren't on www.djs-consulting.com/personal anymore. My blog now resides at https://daniel.summershome.org. I've set up rules so that the links for the old address point to the new one, but if you have a bookmark, updating it to the new address will save you a little bit of time.
And now, back to your irregularly scheduled programming…
“This guy” is Signal94, a retired peace officer. His latest post (as of this writing) is entitled “One More Time” - here's a teaser…
Last night I watched a report on Headline Line News regarding the basement democrats trying to keep their presidential aspirations alive (they are in the basement as far as the front runners are concerned). The station played part of a Chris Dodd ad where he states that we are involved in an Iraqi civil war ... and I nearly threw my shoe through the TV set.
Senator Dodd, obviously you haven't been paying attention for the last twenty-seven years.
He also has an article posted on Friday entitled "Do You Know?", filled with interesting statistics…
Did you know that 47 countries have reestablished their embassies in Iraq?
Did you know that the Iraqi government currently employs 1.2 million Iraqi people?
Did you know that 3,100 schools have been renovated, 364 schools are under rehabilitation, 263 new schools are now under construction and 38 new schools have been completed in Iraq?
Signal94 is now listed under “Daily Reads” in the sidebar.
Friday, September 1, 2006
5:19 pm
Daniel J. Summers
Actually, it's not just bandwidth - I can't connect to this site at all from home. And, of course, authoring lengthy, high-quality blog posts is frowned upon from work. I'm not sure where the fault lies, though I'm pretty sure it's with the provider where I am. My apologies - look for more content beginning around the first of October.
Those of you who visit regularly may notice something different about this site. The last time I did a major upgrade, I upgraded to use something that I had written. There were still a lot of features that I wanted, but didn't have time to write. Finally, a few weeks ago, I was looking around at some of the packages offered by my hosting company, and it hit me - why waste time writing something when packages exist that will do what I want?
So, this is what I've got for now. I'm using an open-source blog generating tool to run the site, and it has all the features I was going to build - the ability to leave comments, a way to search all the posts, and a way to arrange the posts into categories. As far as the look, I was going to try to make it look the same, and just use this tool to manage it. I may still do that, but designing a theme for this package is more than I have time to tackle at the moment. Besides, I'd rather put my time into the content of the site. (This is my first post since mid-March…)
Another feature that this has is RSS feeds. These let you “subscribe” or make an “active bookmark”, then you're notified whenever there's a new post. There are feeds built in for the main blog itself, the comments, and each of the main and subcategories. I hope that this will allow me to write a bit more frequently, and this will keep you from having to check back if you're curious as to what I've said recently.
The old site still exists.(Edit: It's gone.) I will be importing the older posts as I have a chance - I've brought over a few, but they don't look quite the way I want them to, so it looks like I'll have some cleaning up to do.
The blog (and the other pages here on the site) were in need of a facelift, so I decided to give this look a shot. I tried to improve it without making it too busy, and still maintain a clean, professional look. What do you think? Let me know… (Especially if it's good!)
[tap] [tap] [tap] Is this thing on? ;)
Update: Link removed from this post; this way-old site no longer exists