Archive for the 'Blogging' Category

I just realized that this past Monday, Year of the Code Monkey turned 2 years old! Here’s a look back at my first post, The Bandwagon. Not surprisingly, it isn’t that interesting. Hopefully you’ll agree that things have gotten slightly better since then. At least the post from this time last year (Fun With Linux Development) is a little more enlightening.

On an entirely unrelated note, I made three small changes here at the site:

1. Each individual post page now has navigation links to the previous and next post, making it easier to move around.
2. The poorly named “Tips and Tricks” category has been renamed to “How To.” Stay tuned for new posts in this category.
3. I have removed a very small amount of padding around the post footer, something you probably won’t notice.

Let me know if I broke something.

I have updated the WordPress install that powers this website to version 2.2. A number of theme-related API calls were deprecated in 2.1, so I had to make some changes to my custom theme. If you spot any broken links or weird SQL errors, please let me know about it so I can correct the issue.

Version 2.2 of WordPress has been released. One of the changes in this release is the reinclusion of the Preview and Edit links on the Write Post page (although it sounds like the preview now appears in a pop-up window instead of an iframe). This fixes a bug I griped about when 2.1 was released.

I will probably update this blog to 2.2 at some point, though updating WordPress is always a colossal bother. Seeing as I skipped over 2.1, it’s probably time to move to the latest version.

I haven’t been posting much recently, due to a number of factors:

• I’ve been busy at work
• The Shivering Isles expansion for Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion (totally fun!)
• Puzzle Quest for my Nintendo DS Lite (also totally fun and highly addictive!)
• My sister is graduating from college (!!!)
• Insert most any other reason here

I hope to rectify this problem very soon. A number of topics have crossed my mind recently, and I hope to get to them over the next week or so.

I have upgraded this website to WordPress 2.0.10, so let me know if anything is broken.

I’m avoiding upgrading to WordPress 2.1, based on a single point raised by Matt Cutts in a recent blog post. The oh-so-handy “Preview” and “Edit” links on the write post page have been removed, which really stinks. There’s apparently a plugin to put back what the developers have taken away, but that seems like such a hack. I’ve heard of a few other problems with 2.1 as well, so I’m going to spend more time on the 2.0.x branch for a while. Maybe 2.2 will fix some of these issues; I guess we’ll see later this month.

I haven’t been posting here as often as I’d like recently, and hopefully I can remedy that in the near future. An update to CoLT is in the works, though I’m not sure when the final product will see the light of day. There’s a fair amount of work to be done on the new feature I’ve planned, but I think a lot of people will like the end product. One weird XUL bug is causing me some problems, and I may post some more on this issue sometime soon.

I am doing a little bit of spring cleaning around here at the site, even though it’s not quite spring yet. I have removed the nebulous “Technology” category from the site, and have recategorized all subsequent posts. Trackbacks have also been turned back on. If certain people continue to not play nice, I will turn trackbacks off once again. Consider yourself warned.

Take some time this weekend to go outside. That’s what I plan to do.

I have disabled trackbacks at this site, due to a spammer grabbing content from my RSS feed and inserting it in his splog. Thankfully, only a summary of each post appears in my site’s RSS feed, so all the content he grabs from me is just a short sentence or two. I’m also blocking his IP address, so maybe I can put a stop to this nonsense.

I have finally gotten around to deploying a random image rotator here at this website. The one I chose is surprisingly simple, and comes from an article over at A List Apart. No longer will the “Little Pinnacle Overlook Trail” be the only image to grace the header of each page.

The pool of images consists of choice selections from the photography section of this site. At the moment, the pool is pitifully small (only 4 images). Over time, I will introduce new photographs to the set, to help keep things fresh.

You may have also noticed that I have tweaked the site style sheet (again). RSS feed links have been demoted to the side bar, and the header area has been tightened up a bit.

I have tweaked the style sheet here at the website fairly considerably. Internet Explorer users will now see the site just as Firefox users have always seen it. The latest version of WordPress (2.0.6) is now also being used to drive the site. Let me know if anything is broken.