Category Archives: WordPress

How I would like a theme.

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1. Use post formats. They’ve been around for ages and if you don’t you can’t say you make themes. You just make “stuff”. There are so few themes that do this – you’ll be on a winner if you start.

2. When you use post formats remember that these are not always what used to be called Posts. Here is what I mean.
Typical Post:

This is my title.
Post on Date by someone

blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

Tagged in something, Leave a reply

That’s fine. Lots of content and a relatively small amount of information around it.
Now for the problem.
Typical Aside as treated by so very many “designers”:

Funny link.
–empty space–
Tagged in something on date, Leave a reply

Why the problem? There is 3 times more theme content around the two words someone wrote. Why?
Here’s what is should look like:

Funny link. (link text of user’s choice)(on the same line or immediately below)

No space, no cats, no tags, no date. The user’s choice of text is the permalink/comment link. All that extra doesn’t matter for the main view on a blog. It’s not a substantial post, it may well just be a throwaway link. A little background styling might be nice – but no words.

Having all that extra text around Asides makes a theme look messy once you have a few Asides. You are cluttering it up – you are making your theme look worse. Please stop. Or at least provide alternate layouts in your theme files.

That’s how I’d like a theme anyway.

No help

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I was going to blog at some point about a really nice theme I bought. It cost $89. But the “support” is so bad that they don’t deserve any sort of link. You’d think Premium theme means “We will read your email” instead of “Canned response for the THIRD time”.

Reduce your db

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A friend of mine just started blogging and I bought her the Tiny package at A Small Orange. It was the easiest to go with at that time but it is limited space at just 150mb. As a routine check that all was well I saw that her mysql usage was 23 MB.
She has 36 posts and 728 comments and 23MB is just silly. Browsing using phpmyadmin showed a huge number of revisions. So off I went to find a plugin and Delete Post Revisions had a good number of downloads. I exported her db and set it up here on MAMP.; Then I ran the plugin. It reduced the db from 23MB to just 4MB. That is both an amazing saving and a scary one. If you are going to migrate anyone you might want to run that plugin first and if you are on a host that limits size you might want to take a look too. A 19MB difference in such a young blog is far too much to ignore.

And Helen’s blog is here: http://planetgrief.com

Curses!

2

Got my first – that I recall – solid abuse tonight on the Playstation Network. Was playing Modern Warfare 2 on Quarry. I run into the main warehouse (for those that play it’s the one at the top with the rocket launcher) and get shot. I didn’t see it so I watched the killcam. It was a sniper at the back under the steps to the ledge. And he didn’t even quickscope me – he was zoomed in on the entrance. Nasty slimy little camper. I switched loadouts to a Tar with grenades, flashbangs and a grenade launcher. Ran past one door and flashbanged, went in through the next straight at him and threw everything at that corner – I got him. Nothing could have survived that onslaught and did I care that I’d not just shot him? No, not a bit. Seconds later I get abuse – I’m not even going to repeat it here – and a few seconds later I happened upon him again and killed him again. I got another abuse message. I don’t usually reply but I made an exception and he will have read ‘LOL’. Unsurprisingly for a camper he quit the game.
Yesterday playing this time on Afgan I called in a crate and as it dropped one of my team went to flashbang me. I saw it coming, spun round and spun back perfectly and got the crate (it was an AC-130). And after I’d used that the little cheater shot me (for those that don’t play this has no effect other than to show you are annoyed). So I grenaded him. And shot him. And knifed him. We spent most of the game I think shooting each other. I got the most kills but then with an AC-130 you should.
So that’s 2 days and 2 pathetic players. Of course on XBox I don’t get abuse just a stream of youtube links and voice messages with kids of about 8 inviting everyone to “try out for their hardest team”. Yeah right.
I have the abuse messages but will Sony make it easy to report this kid (his name was wolf1990)? No. No way to flag that message and call it abuse. For the service they offer this should be an integral part. But – and this is no bias, just fact – the voices of the players on XBox are from kids 90% of the time and on PSN from adults. Want to shoot kids? Get XBL.

In other gaming news I bought Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness in the Steam sales (along with several other games). I like it. I knew I’d like it when this was said – “HOLY SHIT!!! DID YOU SEE THAT FUCKING ROBOT?!!”

And in other gaming news I’d debating building a PC. Ask at reddit (r/buildapc) for the best spec and parts (which is the hard part I’m told, getting the bits to play nicely together) then click the bits to the other right bits. But it’s just a debate right now and it would only be for gaming, absolutely nothing else.

And in non-gaming news have you tried the Zen mode in WP? It’s fucking brilliant and in my opinion the best thing to happen in WP since version 1.5.3 (I loved that one) was released. Yes, it’s that good.

On some tarmac

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When I was a kid my Dad took some cine film of various things including my coming home from hospital (a big event), pushing a little truck thing around the garden at 11 months through to me at 15 on holiday in Menorca. No sound and the clips aren’t that long but it amuses Jacqui and the girls. Given I’m about to head over the Atlantic and half the Pacific (Akismet team meetup in Hawaii) there was sequence in 1971 which showed how far we have gone.
There is an expanse of tarmac and concrete, several piles of luggage and a lone policeman in case people got lost. Passengers – my Dad being one – quite literally took their luggage out to the tarmac and walked to and onto the plane. No luggage truck, no lines to follow. I’ve seen bus queues better organised. And then just as people drop out of the close shot the pilot starts the plane and rolls onto the runway. The days before Health & Safety – and the hijackings of the 70′s. Quaint.
I expect to be searched and stood in the plastic box in the center between the security lines. It’s happened before. But this time I have hair! Maybe this cunning disguise will mean the TSA and others won’t judge me to be a risk and they’ll let me on without the stoppage.

I’ve been watching for seats too. I hate more it than you can imagine when someone reclines their seat in front of me. As far as I am concerned I didn’t just pay for a seat I also paid for the space between my head and the chair in front. I expect to be able to read, see the film etc. I was going to hope for an aisle seat so I can at least stretch one leg but looking this morning I found that 40D was available. .
$30 later and it’s mine. Hopefully no family need it and if they do hopefully there are other seats on an aisle without some selfish person in front who wants to recline. Seriously, you should have to pay the person behind for adversely affecting their comfort. I’m 6’2 so the seats aren’t good anyway and reclining just means I have to bury my knees into the back of the chair in front so my back doesn’t hurt. So fingers crossed that 40D stays mine. I have an aisle seat for the LA – Hawaii part so that’s not too bad. Can’t book a seat on that one.

I really like airplane food.

7 years

1

Here it is, my first post to a blogging tool.

Why use WordPress ?
Not just that it’s incredibly easy to install (all through the browser), but the interface, the CSS and the whole shebang when put together are pretty damn close to what I wanted. I did not want the tool to get ‘in my way’, and so far this does not.

It’s very new (what you are seeing is v1.0.1), but already image uploading, blogging by email, moblogging, bookmarklets, smilies and other stuff is available. It’s written in PHP and mySQL, so there is no annoying ‘Rebuild’ feature and for all you other blog users, tools exist for you to import all your stuff to a WP install.

I’m keeping the old index page up for the moment, but so far this program is the dog’s nuts.

Posted 17 January 2004 at 14:30

Posted by Mark

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Like just about every other blog there is one person who writes this blog – me. So why don’t theme creators have an option “If no-one else writes for this blog do you want “Posted by [your name]” on every single entry? I would bet that 99.99999999% of bloggers would say “No thanks” to that. And it saves us digging through numerous files trying to remove it from main view, single, cat, tag, page and whatever else. Please – make that conditional and let us decide. If not then at least tell us where to look so we can edit. Thanks.

TT goes away

1

Back in the mists of WordPress time – that’ll be 2005 – many people in the wordpress.org forums were mystified by trackbacks. (In 2004 it was ftp among others). So I created a blog in the /wordpress directory on my old domain and that served only for people to ping and trackback to. They got somewhere that was linked to a How To and that they could perfect their techniques on. Worked a treat. Had hundreds and hundreds of posts, many times that in the inevitable pings / trackbacks to those posts. Every so often I’d clear the db and reinstall WP, change the theme, check what was going on but otherwise I left it alone. Last few days though I’ve been getting a few ‘Please moderate this comment’ emails and today I went to look. Several spam posts but one in particular had 860 spam comments thrown at it. None got through of course but 860? So with that and the other spam I’ve killed the blog. It’s 4 years later and thanks to spammers everyone know what a trackback and a ping is anyway. The rest of that /wordpress directory will be nuked at some point. It mostly harks back to 2004/5 when WP help was embryonic. I can still remember writing 7 ftp guides in a day or so..

Developer Hut aka Jon Warass steals your blog content

15

This domain just stole my content.

Whois:
Domain Name:HOWSHITWORKS.ORG
Created On:23-Apr-2007 05:12:04 UTC
Last Updated On:18-Oct-2007 16:37:37 UTC
Expiration Date:23-Apr-2008 05:12:04 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:GoDaddy.com, Inc. (R91-LROR)
Status:CLIENT DELETE PROHIBITED
Status:CLIENT RENEW PROHIBITED
Status:CLIENT TRANSFER PROHIBITED
Status:CLIENT UPDATE PROHIBITED
Registrant ID:GODA-030591892
Registrant Name:Developer Hut Inc Developer Hut Inc
Registrant Organization:Developer Hut Inc
Registrant Street1:P.O Box 3743
Registrant Street2:
Registrant Street3:
Registrant City:Idaho Falls
Registrant State/Province:Idaho
Registrant Postal Code:83403-3743
Registrant Country:US
Registrant Phone:+1.2087579111

Hosted at http://hostingloser.com who have no sitemap, no contact, no aup / tos.
So the loser that steal anyone’s blog content hide away in the State of Idaho.
They have http://www.buyblogcomments.com, they sell ads and have ads on stolen blog content.

Google ‘developer hut inc’.

And the jerk behind this? The man who steals? The man who takes the work of others to make himself money? Jon Waraas. Behold – a thief.

http://www.jonwaraas.com/who-is-jon-waraas/

–

Update 12 Dec.
I find http://growablog.com/ as part of my work. Why do I find it? It’s spamming. Spamming trackbacks.
And guess who it is?

Registrant:
Developer Hut Inc
P.O Box 3743
Idaho Falls, Idaho 83403-3743
United States

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: GROWABLOG.COM
Created on: 02-Jun-07
Expires on: 02-Jun-08
Last Updated on: 18-Oct-07

Administrative Contact:
Developer Hut Inc, Developer Hut Inc developerhut@gmail.com
Developer Hut Inc
P.O Box 3743
Idaho Falls, Idaho 83403-3743
United States
2087579111 Fax –

It’s that thief Jon Warass again. He is stealing from every blog he can scrape.
Oh yes, and I did email him to ask him to stop stealing. His response was that I got 2 free links from him. Well hell yes, that’s just great eh? He’s still Jon Waraas – thief

Update again – Tuesday 24 March 2009

Developer Hut, Inc.
P.O Box 3743
Idaho Falls, Idaho 83403-3743
United States
1-208-608-5133

Dear Mark R,
It has come to our attention that your Dec. 11, 2007 blog posting on tamba2.org.uk, “Developer Hut aka Jon Warass steals your blog content,” is making false and deceptive claims that are or may be misleading customers about Developer Hut, Inc. We request that you immediately cease and desist from continuing to make any such claims. We further request that you immediately remove such claims from your website, including Web site pages.

Developer Hut, Inc. is Internet Marketing company based out of Idaho Falls, Idaho. Since 2006 we have been offering web based advertisement to company’s looking to increase there SEO ranking. Developer Hut, Inc. is widely recognized for our quality seo services and has a well-deserved reputation of providing our customers quality seo link building. This reputation has been harmed, and will continue to be harmed, by any and all false and deceptive claims that tamba2.org.uk has made.

In light of the foregoing, we request that you immediately cease and desist from continuing to make any false, deceptive or misleading claims, statements, assertions or representations — whether explicit or implicit — regarding Developer Hut, Inc. We further request that you immediately remove all such claims from all your website, whether in written, electronic, verbal, visual or audio form, including, but not limited to, advertisements, emails, Web site materials, press releases, announcements and correspondence.

If you fail to take this requested action within 2 business days, Developer Hut, Inc. will have no choice but to pursue all available legal remedies against you, Mark R.

You will also be receiving a certified cease and desist letter sent to your whois address. If you have any questions or would like to talk to our lawyer then please set up a time for a conference call. Your full cooperation in this matter is appreciated.

Sincerely,
Developer Hut, Inc.