Six years ago today, I dove into the world of blogging. Way back then I was on LiveJournal. Surprisingly, it’s still around … not sure if that’s a good thing or not … LOL.
Then in 2002 … September 17th to be exact … I migrated to MoveableType. I don’t have any of my posts from then up until January 10, 2003 because of an issue I had with my web host at the time.
And in 2004 … June 22nd to be exact … I moved over to WordPress, and that’s where I’ve been ever since. And I’m very happy with WordPress and have no intentions of changing ever again.
In these past 6 years I’ve done a lot of bitching and moaning, but that’s not all I’ve done. I’ve learned alot as well. I’m a completely different person than the one who made that first post 6 years ago.
In these past 6 years, my blog has been at 4 different web addresses on 3 different domains … 2 of which are mine:
I probably shouldn’t link to those, but they are a part of my history … all the bitching and moaning as well as the positive stuff. I still can’t believe I’ve been doing this for 6 years. Boy does time sure fly.
I made a couple small tweaks around here tonite. I wanted to let those of you (all one or two of you 
) know so you don’t freak out. LOL At the beginning of the month, I installed Twitter Tools and had it add a daily digest post of my tweets. I like having an archive of my tweets on here. I just didn’t like them cluttering up the front page. So … I’m now filtering them now. But fear not faithful readers … you can still read the digests if you really want to. I’ve added a link up in the header to the tweet page. This will have all of the daily digest posts. That way, they’re still easy to find but don’t knock real posts off of the main page.
Now … back to the regularly scheduled programming … 
I’ve gotten back into development mode around here. For such a long time now, I just haven’t had the energy or ambition to work on my own websites after working on someone else’s website for 8 hours a day. I’ve had things that I’ve wanted to do, but in the evenings, I just haven’t felt like sitting in front of the computer.
But I’m starting to change that … starting right here. As you may have noticed, there is now a daily digest of my Twitter posts. I installed Twitter Tools after upgrading to version 2.5. So there will be daily posts here … even if they are just my Twitter posts for the day.
And then last nite, I decided to create a Flickr account. For a while now, I’ve wanted a way to be able to send pics from my cell phone to my blog. I looked around for a plugin briefly, but didn’t put too much effort into it. But I looked into Flickr last nite and realized I could do that really easily with it. I tested it out last nite and it worked like a charm. So be on the lookout for some pics from my cell phone. Well, that is if I get out of my apartment … LOL.
I’ve also added a couple sections in the sidebar. There is a Flickr section and a Where You Can Find Me section. The ‘Flickr’ section has a little widget that shows my Flickr pics. Unfortunately there are only 2 in there right now. But hopefully I’ll get some more in there soon. The ‘Where You Can Find Me’ has links to different places you can find me: Twitter, Flickr, MySpace, and Infield Parking (a site like MySpace but is for race fans).
I do have some other plans for my development, but for now, I’ll keep that to myself. But hopefully they will mean that I’ve got more techie stuff to post around here. After all, that was my intention when I registered this domain and set up this blog.
Well, I’m off to do more playing development (and finish my beer 
) and then watch GH. It should be a good one tonite … they’re trying to kill Sonny. As long as Johnny doesn’t get caught in the crossfire, I’ll be happy.
I’ve added a couple new features to my blog after upgrading to WP 2.5. Gravatars will now be displayed in the comments. Right now, they’re only on the individual post pages and not in the expandable comments. I need to play around with that tomorrow nite to see if I can get them in there. I also installed the Twitter Tools plugin. That will be adding a daily post with a summary of my “tweets” for the day. I also have it updating Twitter when I make a blog post, but I’m not entirely sure I’ll leave that feature turned on. I don’t post a lot (especially not lately), so it might not be too bad. I’ll just have to see how things go.
That’s enough playing for me tonite. It’s bedtime. Nite all …
I really love how easy it is to upgrade WordPress. I started upgrading this site less than half an hour ago. And now I’m all done. Everything went very smoothly. No issues at all. All of my plugins appear to still be working. And my theme is still okay. I do need to browse around to make sure, but it’s all good.
Then I need to play around with the new backend. What I’ve seen so far is definitely an improvement. The only thing I need to check on is if I can move stuff around on the post page. There are some things that I want closer to the top. But that’s just minor.
So … I’m off to play. If you happen to run across an issue anywhere on the site, please let me know. Just leave me a comment in this post. That way I can get it fixed and all happy-happy.
Later …
Since I now have my new desk, I no longer need my old one. So, I’m selling it. I put up a listing for it on Craig’s List. This is the first time I’ve done anything on Craig’s List. Hopefully someone will be interested. I’m also planning on putting up a flier down by the mailboxes in my apartment building. I’ve seen stuff up before, so I think it will be okay.
So, if there is anyone out there reading this in the Fargo/Moorhead area that is interested in the desk (or know someone who is), leave me a comment or reply to the posting on Craig’s List. I’m starting out at $60 for it, but I’m willing to negotiate.
For a while now, I’ve wanted to redesign the layout here. I was using a javascript script to make the 2 sidebars the same length as the main column so that I didn’t have to use tables (tables are EVIL for layout … fine for data). But it never seemed to work right. One column was always shorter or something … due to the outside javascript stuff in the sidebars. That, and I just got tired of it. So I started on a new design. I also decided it was time to upgrade. I was still using version 2.1 of Wordpress. I’ve now got version 2.3.2. I’m using some new plugins as well.
I love how easy it is to upgrade WordPress. Just upload the new files and run the upgrade script. Wham bam, thank you maam. LOL
I’m gonna zoom around to make sure everything is all happy. If you happen to run across an issue, please let me know so that I can fix it.
AND … I wanna know what you think of the new layout. Is it better than before? Or worse? Is it easy on the eyes? Are the sidebars too cluttered? I just wanna know your opinion. That doesn’t mean I’m gonna change anything though … LOL. I happen to like it. But I still wanna know what you think.
I just wanted to let you know that I added a link up top to my photo gallery. I migrated most of the albums from my other website. I wanted to have it here since I’ll be doing more with this domain and gradually phasing out the other one.
I also (finally) uploaded the pics I took of my new laptop when it arrived. If you’re interested, go check it out …
Click the image to go directly to the photos
I decided to sign up for Twitter tonite. Might as well jump off the cliff that everyone else has … LOL. I figure I can use that to rant or just small comments that don’t really warrant a full blog post. We’ll see how it goes. I know of 2 people who are on Twitter, and I’m already following them (Mace and Christine). Is there anyone else out there who’s reading this who is on Twitter and would like to be friends there … or follow each other or whatever it’s called? Check out the widget at the top of the sidebar on the right (look … over there –> ) to find me. They wouldn’t let me use my full ‘HighTechRedneckWoman’, so I’m just ‘HighTechRedneck’.
Now I’m off to find out what other cool things I can do with Twitter. It’s either that or fall asleep since there’s nothing on tv. :zzz:
I feel bad. I’ve been neglecting my websites for quite some time. I used to be able to unwind and spend hours working on my websites. Now, after working on someone else’s website all day at work, I just don’t feel like doing anything with my own when I get home.
But lately I’ve started getting the itch to work on things again. I haven’t updated my racing websites since April. But with Jr’s sponsor and number announcement, I’ve gotten the itch to work on my racing sites again (I even fiddled around with a header image last nite) … consolidate them into a single site for all my favorite drivers.
At work, we have php5. I’ve gotten so used to working with it, I thought I’d finally bite the bullet and switch to php5 for my own sites. I checked out the forums for my host, and it turns out that all I needed to do to switch over to php5 was put the following in my .htaccess file:
AddHandler application/x-httpd-php5 .php
Talk about easy. So I am now running my websites on php5. I looked things over, and everything looks like it’s working. This blog is working … my photo gallery is working … and even the crappy guestbook script I wrote several years ago still works. Woohoo! But if you happen to run across any issues while visiting, please let me know so I can fix things.
I have several things that I want to do:
- write a database connection class (I already wrote a basic one, but I want to expand on it)
- write a recordset class
- update and improve on my guestbook script (who knows … maybe I could even make some money on it)
- update and improve my weather script … expand it to get the forecast as well as the current conditions
When I do dive back into my sites, I’m going to have to transition working with MySQL again. At work, we use mySQL. I have gotten so used to it, it’s going to be interesting working my MySQL again.
Now that I’ve actually put my plans in writing, hopefully it’ll be motivation to stick with it. And I’ll hopefully have techie stuff to post about (since I am a High Tech Redneck Woman … LOL). So stay tuned …
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