I’ve been testing the new Wordpress interface for a while and just think it’s da bombiest! The user interface is clean, the new functions rock, and the .php seems pretty optimized (everything running faster, even on my slow server).
It’s amazing to think that I’m already done with the first three weeks of my final quarter at RIT. It’s been intense — and the reason that I’ve not been blogging. By the end of this coming week, I’ll be able to premier all the stuff that I’ve been working on.
My office mate just introduced me to the PicLens web browser plug-in. It’s pretty incredible. This cross platform plug in can grab a collection of photos, like those in my flickr account above, and converts them into an interactive (Apple aesthetic) gallery. The resulting user experience is elegant and totally engaging. Give it a try!
Word to the wise. 
This past week I nearly lost eight years of my life — my Wordpress mySQL database crashed and burned. Worse, I found out that my hosting company only keeps backups of the previous day’s data — so their backups of my stuff was corrupted as well.
Thankfully I had backed up my data in late August. That combined with the fact life has prevented me from posting much in the last few months, meant that I was able to reclaim any missing posts by looking at my previous .RSS feeds.
Moral of the story, install the Wordpress Backup Plug-In and have it send you e-mail backups of your data on a regular basis. Don’t make the same mistake I did.
There’s a major upgrade to wordpress out. I just got it installed and things seem to be running pretty quickly. On the downside, there are a couple bugs with the visual editor. What’s great is it has an autosave feature. Earlier today I lost a half an hours worth of writing.
Coming tomorrow, everything willing, I’m hoping to break down H. Clinton’s volley into web video and also touch on YouTube’s response to Fox New’s weekend report on Obama and the Midrassa.
For the first time in quite a while, I’m not being deluged with spam comments. Up until this point, on an average day, this blog received upwards of 20 cybersex/weight-loss/gambling/loan offers masquerading as user comments. Since the move yesterday to the new URL (http://www.waking-dream.com/blog”) nothing new has come through. I wonder how long it will take for spammers to update their databases.
It also just occurred to me that all of my RSS feeds are now broken. Though, actually, I’m not sure if they ever worked correctly. One of the great things about this reskinning project is that I’ve finally taken the time to really pull the Wordpress engine apart.hI have a much better understanding of how it works and how it can be tweaked. And that provides me with new insight into finally getting a number of Wordpress plugins to work.
In other news, its the first day back here at RIT after the mid-quarter, winter break. And sadly, I’m still grading.
In terms of the PhD hunt, I’ve received confirmation now from NYU that they have all of my components. Now the waiting officially begins.
Ok quick review on things:
Done Items:
Mostly Done Items
Still to do
Still, Aught-Seven is off to a good start.
As you can see there’s a bit of redesign going on. My goal is to get the site simpler and faster loading. I’m also going to be adding some additional content soon. So please, let me know what you think.
Ok, so I’ve been offline for a few days, suffering through a bit of a cold. Awaiting for me on my return to the internet were 63! spam comments, held in my WordPress moderation cue. While the spam situation has been bad, this is off the chart. A long while ago, Mike Zucca suggested a few steps to prevent them — I think its time to actually make them happen.
Oh well, happy Fourth of July all.
So I’m just getting this to the point that I like it and I’m considering totally switching templates. The choice is not so much because I don’t like the look of Connections (this theme). I like it a lot — btw, the new banner image is of the magenta inkwell on a sheet-fed litho press. Unfortunately, it’s doesn’t have some of the back-end interactivity of Kubric.
The other thing that currently is ticking me off about WordPress is that anchor tags1 seem to get edited out of my HTML (possible leading to the accusations of crufty URLs).
1 - Anchors are used to handle footnotes. If the browser jumped to this footnote, then it means the latest version of WordPress recognizes them.2
Since I had a moment to breath today, I figured it was time to tweak the blog a bit. In part that’s because I’ve been following The Elements of Typographic Style Applied to the Web. It’s a web guide based on Robert Bringhurst’s excellent work. Mainly, I’ve been really dissatisfied with a number of things about this design. And since I’m attempting to get a gig in a printing school, I should at least practice what I preach when it comes to type.
What you see below are character counts. I was attempting to restrict this text column to approximately 60 characters (the golden rule is between 45 and 77 characters).
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