Posts tagged with "WordPress"

Choose domain name which is taken. Choose another domain name.

Sign-up with Dreamhost despite recent bad press. All the other hosting providers look similar and all have supporters and critics and, to be fair, Dreamhost were quickest (and most helpful) to reply to a simple technical enquiry.

Payment processing takes a long, long time which is a little disconcerting.

Install WordPress 2.0.4 using One-Click installation. Shortly receive email stating 'Blog creation failed. Please try again later' which is worrying.

Repeat installation of WordPress which is successful.

Export existing blog from WordPress.com into XML.

Import XML into a local installation of WordPress 2.1 alpha (includes all comments).

Import XML into new blog. Everything imported successfully apart from the comments.

Install TechSailor plugin. Delete some posts with comments and repeat complete import. Existing posts are skipped and import includes comments for some posts but not others.

Delete complete WordPress installation, recreate mySQL database and empty blog.

Install TechSailor again. Import XML which works fast and without error. All posts, all comments, all categories are present. In fact, everything is intact.

Change theme to the stunning Barthelme which was the main reason for all this effort.

Upgrade Barthelme to the latest version (1.2.2).

Notice that the 'About' page wasn't imported and recreate.

Change permalink format to include name/date as used on WordPress.com.

Install widget support and configure sidebar widgets.

Activate Akismet plug-in (needs WordPress API key).

Install Google Analytics tracking code.

Stake my claim on Technorati.

Respond to amusing comment accusing me of blatant plagiarism.

Delete WordPress blog. Suddenly realise I didn't put up a closing redirect entry. Oh well.

Put kettle on.

After two months and two days, the music has stopped, the theme rotation carousel has travelled full circle and finally come to a halt.

WordPress.com offers a total of 40 themes (37 when I started) and I have experimented and laboriously captured screenshots of every single one.

I have tried out all the WP themes as they became available but it was interesting to live with each theme for a day or so.

My personal favourites were:

Andreas04 - I don't normally like three column themes but this was an notable exception. Light - simple, effective theme. If only it was a little wider.

Regulus - still probably my favourite (just) which rather negates the point of the whole pointless exercise. The header image clinches it. You never forget your first love.

Rubric - great looking theme with focus on the text but I feel Lorelle has made this theme her own.

Sandbox - a building block for DIY enthusiasts.

White As Milk - clean, minimalist look but narrow text.

And my hall of shame:

Banana Smoothie - not for everyone but undeniably very distinctive. Flower Power - not sure why this theme only uses half the screen.

Sweet Blossoms - too much colour, not enough screen.

I guess my perfect theme would be a two column, minimalist theme with an emphasis on the article text. In fact, Scott's Wallick's plaintxt theme is pretty close to perfection.

I guess I always could shell out 15 USD and build it myself on WordPress using the recently launched custom CSS.

Alternatively, I could just pay up and get my own hosted WordPress blog with complete control over everything.

So, review the Flickr set and cast your vote now.

RSS readers - don't sneer from the sidelines but tell us all what RSS reader you use and why.

The Sandbox theme recently added to WordPress is pleasant enough but the original themes developed by Scott Wallick from plaintxt.org are absolutely superb.

Clean, white, minimalist, striking, understated and refreshingly different from the thousands of themes out there.

One of the things I like about WordPress is the sense of community. Wordpress users (and developers) willingly help each other out on the support forums. There is also a FAQ with useful information for newcomers and experienced users alike.

You can find similar, related WordPress blogs of interest usings tags and you can also discover new material by examining the league tables of the most popular WordPress blogs, individual articles and the fastest growing blogs over on botd.wordpress.com.

So, imagine my surprise when I saw this humble blog nestling at No. 38 in the list of ‘Fastest Growing Blogs’.

My life is now complete. Almost.

Maybe a fraction too late for Doug Burns (whose Blogger blog has been recently hijacked) but WordPress have just announced the availability of XML import/export utilities, primarily for switching between self-hosted and WordPress.com blogs but may also be useful for backing up your blog and facilitating other platform migrations.

Tempting, very tempting

My mailbox is bulging with letters from recent and occasional visitors worried that they may have missed some WordPress themes in the recent blitzkrieg of posts during the ongoing and exciting Theme rotation policy.

Worry ye not. I am meticulously capturing screen dumps of each theme in a Flickr photoset so the poll will be absolutely fair and equitable (and Regulus will win).

The current theme is Banana Smoothie. I wonder if coffee enthusiast and cocktail maker, Jon Emmons, might be voting for this one.

Oh no. WordPress are now promising to add import/export functionality which is the only barrier stopping me from migrating to my own hosted WordPress.org blog.

That would open up a whole new world of plug-ins, themes, statistics...

WordPress has a total of 37 themes. I have recently fallen out with my long standing favourite and top scorer, Regulus 2.1.3, after he blatantly deceived me over the state of his CSS injury.

Consequently, I will be implementing a rotation policy (with immediate effect) to give each squad member a fair and equitable chance to stake his claim (hand in glove).

Then I will conduct a poll of all my loyal readers (both of them) to determine the winner.

Then I will reinstate Regulus 2.1.3.

You are currently admiring Solipsus 1.5 (aka Cartoon Network ).

Maybe Doug's right. Perhaps WordPress isn't a suitable blogging platform for serious technical Web journals (with 473 lines of 10046 trace) after all.

The latest theme (Solipsus 1.5) announced for WordPress is described thus:

Black & Brown design, inspired by Adult Swim of Cartoon Network.

That's all folks !

WordPress recently bought a ton of resilient hardware and have undoubtedly improved the quality of service for the 200,000 WordPress users.

Matt Mullenweg gave an interesting interview to Om Malik and Niall Kennedy about how startups can plan for future capacity, provide resilience and maintain performance & scalability.

The IT architects at the UK ISP, Blueyonder, should really listen to this podcast.