You are currently browsing the category archive for the 'Design Failures/Triumphs' category.
As a free user of WordPress.com, I am somewhat limited in the templates I can use for this blog. WordPress.com puts out a nice selection of themes and for a small fee, I can play around with the CSS. I haven’t been in a position to devote time to dinking around with code, so I’ve been picking and choosing from the templates available to figure out what works best. Read the rest of this entry »
I’m working on a new blog theme. I threw up this temporary header for fun and will definitely be making some changes! I can’t have graphics go all the way to the edge unless I want the choppy look (which I don’t). Brace yourselves. This will probably get ugly before it gets pretty.
Ambition took over today.
First, I wanted to Summer up the site and add a new header graphic I’ve been toying with for awhile. That led to…
Cleaning up my CSS and getting rid of nasty useless code. I also got rid of the image headers in the sidebar because I want to change the look without creating a million different images. I made a few other changes to make stylesheet changes go quickly. That led to…
Upgrading to the new beta version of Movable Type. This did not go smoothly. After much fumbling, I’m back online. Actually, the blog never went down, just the important stuff, like how to run the blog.
With the new version of MT I will get notifications again (I hope) of new comments.
Speaking of ambition: Godspeed to all of you taking the bar exam. Best of luck.
I’m working on graphics right now for a summer theme for the blog. I’ve already discarded one possible banner graphic for not being up to par. Hopefully, I won’t dink with this for an eternity as Summer passes me by.
I’d like to redo the layout, but I’m going to restrain myself. CSS and I still don’t get along well. Best to do baby steps (a trait that law students do not have).
Question of the Day: How the hell do two people generate so much laundry? I started yesterday and I’m still about three loads from the finish line.
Weeks ago Shelley kindly e-mailed me to let me know there was difficulty with my comments feature. I did a cursory check (too cursory in hindsight) and thought it was fine.
Oh no. It was far, far from fine!
First, I’ve ditched the plugin that was causing gobbeldy-gook to pop up when a commenter tried to post. It’s gone. Vanished. Commenting should work fine now.
However, my e-mail notification of new comments/trackbacks has failed. As a result, I had over 1,000 pending comments – all spam.
Over. 1,000. Spam. Comments.
The comment spam has been deleted (hours later) as well as the trackback spam.
Since I’m a compu-tard with no luck using plugins, I am taking the aggressive step of closing all comments and trackbacks after seven days. IP banning will be used with gusto.
I had to go through each and every entry to close out comments and trackback pings. It was tedious, but also fun to read my old posts. Thank God I was quiet between mid-terms and now.
Apologies to all who may have tried to comment. It should work alright now that I’ve ditched the plugin.
Now to activate the IPod and do some housecleaning before settling down with Property.
I got hit by the new trick — Trackback Spam. It’s loads of fun. A hideous little bot spams trackbacks leaving messages all over the archives. I woke up to over 20 e-mail notifications and casino ads all over my archives.
I downloaded this plugin this evening. Hopefully, that’ll do the trick. I’m losing patience with spammers.
My comment spam took a nosedive after I upgraded to version 3.14.
I advise anyone who runs a MT blog to go get the plugin linked above. It was very easy to install – just plop the file into your plugins and you are all set.
I just ran the upgrade to Version 3.14 and it went smoothly. I’m hoping to cut down on comment spam which is making me nuts. I delete on average 15 unapproved spam comments daily. I tried uploading MT Blacklist but I failed dismally. I’m a compu-tard. I may try it again later, but the frustration level this morning was unacceptable.
This blog is also screaming for a new look, but I think I shall concentrate on the whole law school thing for now.
I didn’t realize my comments were screwed up until Shelley over at The Menagerie kindly sent me a congrats on my Criminal Law grade and mentioned the inability to comment.
My server was horribly slow so I walked away from the machine for awhile while MT rebuilt. When I came back, I realized my comments were fixed because my e-mail was hit with spam comment approval requests. Geez, before I even knew my comments were working again, the robots knew.
I may have to break down and install MT-Blacklist. I’ve hesitated because it takes a certain amount of geekery and I lack geek-time at present.
Awhile back I installed the plug-in MTModerate. The plug-in gives the option to approve comments on older posts. Since most of my spam originates from my archived posts, I gave it a whirl. It’s working like a charm. I picked this particular plug-in because of the ease of installation.
Someday I may have to install more aggressive plug-ins. Until then, this one reigns supreme.
I discovered Flickr. It’s a cool little beta program for creating photo albums and showing a random photo in my sidebar.
