High Tech Redneck Woman » Announcements

Fresh Look

Becky — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 22:29:54 +0000

If you’ve visited here before, you should notice that things look a little bit different now. I’ve been working on a new theme for the site, and I finally finished it up today. I do still have some tweaking and testing to do, so if you run across something that looks funky, please let me know so that I can fix it up.

I know I haven’t blogged all that much recently. I just haven’t been in the blogging mood. I’m going to try to change that trend. It looks like I might have some freelance work coming my way while I’m searching to find a permanent job. There might be an opportunity to blog about some things I end up doing, if they’re noteworthy … general concepts of course.

As I said, if you run across anything that looks like it is messed up or out of place, PLEASE let me know. I’m not going to be able to spend much time testing things out tonite since I’m going to a hockey game with a friend. But I don’t do all that crazy of stuff around here, so I think everything will be okay … for the most part. I should be able to do more testing over the weekend as well as adding the remaining pieces that I plan on adding.

I really wanted to get the new theme up because the old one was starting to get on my nerves. I hope you like the new look.

A new me. A new blog.

Becky — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 04:13:30 +0000

Last weekend, I spelled out what my goals are for 2009. I have taken a step towards one of them today. I created a brand new blog to keep track of my weight loss, A New Me. I’m hoping that having it will keep me on track … keep me from getting lazy again. I got the idea from Elaine (she’s @cybertoad on Twitter). I hope she doesn’t mind that I “borrowed” the idea from her.

I’m sure I’ll post about my progress here from time to time, but I’ll try to keep most of it over on the other site. I’m also hoping to post recipes and tips there as well. Maybe I can help someone else while I’m helping myself.

Now iPhone/iPod Touch friendly

Becky — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 20:15:22 +0000

This afternoon I installed the WPtouch plugin here on this blog. That means that if you’re viewing this site on your iPhone or iPod Touch, it will be optimized for your viewing pleasure.

The main reason I did this was because I bought myself an 8GB iPod Touch the day after Christmas (thanks in part to a gift card from work that covered a good chunk of the cost). I already had an mp3 player (a 2GB Creative Zen V Plus), but since I’m a techogeek, I wanted an iPod. That wifi capability was just too cool to ignore. I’ll get around to doing a review on that at some point (hopefully before the end of this week).

Anyways, I’ve been playing around with that thing since the moment I got it home. So, I thought I’d geek out this blog by adding the plugin that made it easier to view on the iPod Touch/iPhone. I don’t know if I have that many visitors that have either, but what the heck.

I’ll probably be tweaking things during the week as I check things out. It appears that the templates can be tweaked. I tried to view the documentation on the plugin site, but the links don’t take me anywhere. So, if you’re viewing on an iPhone or iPod Touch, be aware … things might look funky at times. But be assured that they will be straightened out as I finish up tweaking things.

New Addition – YouData

Becky — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 15:56:22 +0000

A while back, I found out about YouData on Kirtsy. The concept of YouData is just awesome. They display ads that are relevant to YOU. And you get paid to look at them. How awesome is that?

The ads aren’t determined by the content of my posts (that’s a good thing, isn’t it … LOL). They are determined by YOUR interests. All you have to do is create a MeFile, and the ads are based on that. And you only have to look at the ads that you want to.

Now, you’re not gonna make a fortune by viewing the ads. But in these times, every little bit helps. You do need to have a PayPal account in order to get your money, but those are free to set up. YouData transfers the money you’ve earned into your account every Friday.

I’ve added a widget to my blog over in the sidebar (over there –> ). You can either do your ad viewing there (once you have a MeFile) or you can do it directly on the YouData website. You can also download an ‘Ad Player’ to your desktop and view the ads that way.

I urge you to check out YouData. It really is a neat idea.

New look

Becky — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 16:34:02 +0000

If you’ve been here before, you’ll notice the place looks a little different. I decided to do a little redecorating. Nothing major. I just wanted to make it look a little cleaner and fix up some things that have been bugging me for a while now. And since I have some time on my hands, it was the perfect time to do so.

One addition that you may notice is the ‘Share This’ link at the bottom of each post. I decided to add that. Not that I right anything work sharing very often. But I have my moments.

So, take a look around. Let me know what you think. And if you notice anything that looks wonky, please let me know. Things look ok in both FireFox (my preferred browser … and it should be yours too) and IE. But you never know when a silly IE quirk will pop up that I didn’t expect.

I also have a plugin that I’ve been thinking of working up for quite a while now. I’m not going to give any hints. I need a little mystery.

Small tweak around here

Becky — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 00:55:31 +0000

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 …

Some additions to the site

Becky — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 01:45:26 +0000

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.

New Features

Becky — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 03:17:11 +0000

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 …

That was easy

Becky — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 01:02:28 +0000

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 …

Shiny and new

Becky — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 01:52:51 +0000

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.