Bent Corner

The people that make WordPress, the world’s most popular blogging platform, have released the newest version, WordPress 2.6.1.  I just performed the upgrade and everything went without a hitch.  Not that I know really what a hitch actually is.

Back when I had this blog hosted on GoDaddy, upgrading WordPress was always a nightmare.  Problems I attributed to WordPress were in all actuality problems with GoDaddy. I can’t stress enough to people that GoDaddy should be avoided like a three-day old hotdog at 7-11. Not only did hosting my blog there cause a whole host of difficulties (i.e. feeds not working), the interface at GoDaddy was a pain in the ass. It was as though they designed the interface to subject you to as much advertising as they could. I was constantly having to go from one window to another window to do the most basic things.

I would encourage anyone needing blog hosting service to look no further then AQHost. They are cheap, easy to use, and they are quick to reply to any question of concern.

If you have Sitemeter installed on your blog and you expect people using Internet Explorer 7 to be able to read your blog, you need to remove Sitemeter.  Accessing a blog running Sitemeter will cause Internet Explorer 7 to crash.

I use Firefox, but when I read about this problem over on Problogger, I started up Internet Explorer 7 and tried to view my blog.  Sure enough, it crashed.

My blog’s categories are completely fracked up. Far too long now I’ve simply categorized most posts as the all encompassing “General” category when assigning a category to the post. I was too lazy to think of a more suitable category to assign the post to. For some time now I’ve wanted to go back to older blog posts and at least try to assign an actual applicable category to each posts. That meant I would have to reopen each and every blog post in the editor and make the correction. Did I mention that was lazy?

I looked for a plugin that would enable me to edit individual posts without opening the post in the editor. I found exactly what I was looking for with a plugin called Admin Management Xtended.

What this plugin does is add icons to the Manage Posts/Pages screen that enable you to change things on individual posts or pages without actually opening the page or post in the Edit screen. 

I was having problems with my blog, Bent Corner. I originally blamed the problems on WordPress. I’ve since come to the conclusion that the problem(s) didn’t have anything to do with WordPress, but with my hosting site, GoDaddy.

Forget every bad thing I’ve ever said about WordPress.

My blog went down shortly before leaving for a week long vacation to the land of my people, California. To be honest, I took it as a sign. I made the conscious decision to not fool with it while back home. (more…)

Not that I really know how intense 1,000 suns are, but I can imagine. I’m just getting tired of dicking with WordPress.

Yesterday I had a problem that resulted with nothing but the header image loading. I ended up fixing it be reloading WordPress 2.5. So far, so good. I would like to upgrade to the latest build of WordPress, version 2.5.1, but when I do just that, the RSS feed to my blog dies. Why? Who knows. I’ve read on the WordPress forums about other people having the same problem, but I haven’t read anything that solves the problem. It’s just another one of those WordPress “mysteries”.

(more…)

I upgraded WordPress this past weekend to the latest and greatest version, WordPress 2.51. I thought everything went OK. I then noticed this morning that my RSS feed was broken. It wasn’t working. It was completely dead.

Why am I not surprised?

I tried to fix it. I combed the WordPress forums and read the posts written by other people with the same problem, along with the advice people were providing to fix the problem. Some of these people actually sounded as though they knew what they were talking about. Some of them.

I tried doing the things mentioned in the WordPress forums. Nothing worked.

1. I deactived all plugins.
2. I changed my theme to the default generic WordPress theme.
3. I looked for blank lines outside of the PHP enclosures in the various feed related files.

I finally downloaded WordPress 2.5 and installed it in place of WordPress 2.51. Once I reverted back to WordPress 2.5, my blog’s feed was magically repaired.

I started a blog not to dick around with PHP, but to blog about the dumb stuff I find interesting.  Sometimes it is hard to remember that.  Don’t ever upgrade WordPress. Once you have a working version, hang on to it for dear life.

The newest version of everyone’s favorite blogging platform is now available as a free download. I told myself I wasn’t going to upgrade anymore until I was certain it was bug free. For some reason this morning I felt like living life on the edge and decided to spice things up by doing the upgrade.

So far, so good.

They actually changed much of the interface. The look is totally different. The dashboard used to be a sloppy, confusing place. Now it is much more streamlined. Everything seems to be set up in a much more user-friendly manor. Of course you wont ever see this unless you are a WordPress user. The actual blog looks the same. The actual blog acts the same. At least from what I can tell so far.

It appears that the ability to embed YouTube videos is built right into the platform, making the use of third-party plugins unnecessary.  With prior WordPress versions, you would have to post in the non-visual editor mode to post a YouTube video.  Otherwise the WYSIWYG editor would botch the YouTube formating.  I wont know for certain until I try to embed a video, but it looks like I should be able to do it.

If you are a WordPress user and you are wondering about doing the 2.5 upgrade, by all means do it.

I didn’t realize that Feedburner offered the option of email subscription until I subscribed to someone’s Feedburner feed today and I had the option of subscribing by email. It was then that I put two and two together. I guess I should go over to Feedburner every once in a while and check out what they have to offer.

So if you would like to subscribe to my blog’s feed by email, you may now do so.

I have this blog registered with the Comic Book Weblog Update Page. It’s run by Chris Mosby. People that have comic book related blogs sign their blog’s RSS feed up with Chris and when they write a new post on their blog, it shows up on Chris’ site. The only problem is that I post about more then just comic books. People going to Chris’ Comic Book Weblog Update Page probably don’t want to read about my posts where I complain about my psoriasis. I wanted an RSS feed that would only syndicate posts that were posted to a specific category.

That specific category being ‘Comic Books‘.

I looked at the WordPress documentation and found a fairly easy way to do it. All I had to do was put the word “feed” and the end of the url for archive page containing all of my posts filed under ‘Comic Books’.

http://www.bentcorner.com/category/comic-books/feed
That’s it. That’s all I had to do. I’m posting this now for two reasons - so I remember how to do it and I figure if I wanted to know how to do it, somebody else might too.

If there is one thing I hope 2008 brings is an end to comment moderation. You read an interesting blog post and you decide to leave a comment. You put your thoughts down in the most coherent way that you can, making sure your grammar is correct and your spelling is right. You then type in the series of fuzzy letters and numbers appearing on the screen to prove that you are not a robot. Why is it that a robot can be programed to drive around on the surface of Mars and send back photos but it can’t be programed to type “er57z” when it appears on the screen?

You then press Enter and wait for your comment to appear. Instead of seeing the comment you just posted, you see a message that says something like this:

Your comment has been submitted and will be viewable once it is approved

Why must my comment be approved? I typed in the short string of fuzzy numbers and letters proving that I was not a robot. Why then do I have to have my comment approved?

I just don’t see the point. Why do some bloggers do this? What are they afraid people are going to say? Are they worried that they are going to be called a derogatory name or that a disparaging thing is going to be said about their blog? If so, it’s time to grow up. Stop being such a pussy. Either let people leave comments or don’t. Don’t insist on micromanaging each little thing someone has to say. It’s pathetic.

The thing I hate the most about bloggers that insist on approving comments is that they never inform you ahead of time that they will need to approve your comment. They could save everyone a whole bunch of time by letting that fact be known ahead of time. Not only do I not what to leave a comment if it must first be approved, I don’t want to read comments left by other readers. If the comment section doesn’t truly reflect what other readers are thinking, I don’t want to waste my time reading it.