Category Archives: Website Update

Website Changes for January 2014

Leave a reply

Main Website

Started getting my NASCAR page ready for the 2014 season. Added a link to an image of the 2014 Sprint Cup Schedule and took Mark Martin off since he’s retired from driving. 🙁 Thinking about getting rid of the NASCAR videos since I very rarely add any new ones it seems, or I could just start adding newer videos during the 2014 season. 🙂 My Firefox Configuration page is always getting updated with the latest changes I’ve made to it. Finally, had to change my menu on the left to reflect GetGlue’s change to TvTag.

Blog

Well, I’ve updated my blog to WordPress v3.8.1. As with my previous update to v3.8, clicking the update button in the admin section was failing. The browser would just spin its wheels. This time I was determined to find out why and eventually I did. To make a long story short for the sake of this post, it turned out to be a setting on the network card of my webhost’s server that was causing file transfers to the server to be slower than normal (even when FTPing to it). This was causing the blog to timeout during the transfer of the update from WordPress.org. After Surpass made the adjustment to the server, the update worked fine. For those that want a more detailed account of what I was going through, you can read this Update to 3.8.1 could not establish a secure connection to WordPress.org thread I made on the WordPress forum.

The one thing that thread doesn’t go into is that since WordPress 3.7, they added an automatic update process. Since it now actually works, I’ve disabled it. I do not like automatic updates of anything except for virus definitions on my PC (I have Windows automatic updates disabled for instance). Anyway, to disable automatic updates, add the following to your /wp-config.php file:

# DISABLE WORDPRESS UPDATES
define( 'AUTOMATIC_UPDATER_DISABLED', true );

Pelicar Forum

I’ve updated the Pelicar Forum to SMF v2.0.7. This update was much less eventful than my blog’s update. I just backed up the file structure and database like any other update and installed the update via the package manager. As always, I tested the update with the development/testing version that’s on my PC first.

Well, that’s all I can think of for now. If anything else comes to mind I’ll add to this or include it in a February 2014 list of changes. 🙂

Website Changes for December 2013

Leave a reply

Main Website

At the beginning of this month, GetGlue finally killed their old (and better IMO) website which also had the side-effect of killing off their widgets which ran from that site.  So, I had to remove their widgets from all the places where I used them. I guess they don’t want the free publicity anymore. This also means that you can no longer check-in to topics or music artists as the new site only does tv shows, movies, and sporting events. If that weren’t bad enough, they also cancelled the sending out of physical stickers. Not much reason to even use them anymore. I guess on the bright side, my sites load a little faster now LOL. Heh.. 😐

Blog

Update December 14, 2013: WordPress released version 3.8 and I’ve updated the blog to that version. This time wasn’t as smooth as my browser just sat there after clicking the Update button in the admin section. A PHP error was also generated about it having problems with wordpress.org. I suspect the server was timing out or there was too much packet-loss or other internet connectivity issues between my webhost server and wordpress.org. So, I had to do the old-fashioned manual upgrade, which I suppose in some respects is probably a safer way to do things. This also installed a new default theme called Twenty Fourteen. I’ll be playing around with it locally to see if I want to use it or not. If I make it act/look like what I have now, then there’s kinda no point in using it LOL.

In addition to the removal of the GetGlue widget, I changed the font my theme was using after I discovered how horrible it looked on my parent’s Windows XP system. The text was washed out and multicolored looking. To make a long story short, the Twenty Twelve theme loads an external custom “Open Sans” font from Google which looks like crap on Windows XP from the internet searches I did. After some digging around for a solution I was able to disable this custom font use by adding the following to my child theme’s functions.php file:

function mrh_dequeue_fonts() {
        wp_dequeue_style( 'twentytwelve-fonts' );
    }

add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', 'mrh_dequeue_fonts', 11 );

For the moment my theme now uses the following fonts (which were in the same font-family the theme was originally using minus the “Open Sans” reference):

body, body.custom-font-enabled {
    font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;
}

In my particular case, it uses Arial as I don’t have Helvetica installed on my system.

Well, that’s all that comes to mind for now. Will add to this as needed. 🙂

Website Changes for November 2013

Leave a reply

Main Website

Well, I guess the biggest change was adding a Contact Form to my website for sending me email. Before, I used a bit of JavaScript to construct my email link. In an effort to keep the search bots from seeing it, I’m not including a direct link to it here. In fact, if my site detects that a search bot of some kind is viewing it, it doesn’t display the link. I’ve also added my “I am a human” verification, like I’ve done with my guestbook, to it. In the process of creating and testing this form, I’ve improved some of the behind-the-scenes stuff, mostly to do with debugging. In a weird twist, I had to rewrite and debug some of my debugging aides.

Mysstie’s EverQuest Website

Well, even though it only affects me and what I can do, I’ll go ahead and talk about it. While doing the Nights of the Dead 2013 quests in EverQuest II, I was always wondering if I had already gotten a particular house item reward. You can’t search for the item in game if it’s been placed in a house somewhere or is sitting in some moving crate or is being stored in a salesman’s crate of some kind on the broker.

At the same time, I had purchased the Fright Manor and wanted to create some walls and ceilings for the basement. This got me to learning how to use the Layout Editor which uses the house layout files. I then had a “light-bulb” moment and realized I could write my own PHP scripts and MySQL database to upload and parse these files and add the items into my database which I could then load up Mysstie’s site and search using the game’s browser or my preferred browser while out of game.

After a fair amount of coding work and the transferring of hundreds of house items from broker and house vault storage to house moving crates, I’ve completed that task. Unless I missed something, I’ve got 3,282 house items spread across my toon’s 14 houses:

EQ2 House Database

In the tables that show the actual items, I include links to an item’s description and image at EQ2 Furniture so I know where it came from and what it looks like. I use their search feature and just substitute the item’s name in the URL. Since this stuff really only benefits me, I’m the only one that can see and use it. Anyway, I just think it’s all kinds of cool and rather handy to have now. 🙂

That’s all I can think of for now. 🙂 Hmm, two posts in one day.. that’s got to be a record LOL.

Website Changes for October 2013

Leave a reply

Main Website

The page that has seen the most changes on my main website is the Speed Test Results page. Cox upgraded the speed for the various internet plans and I performed a variety of speed tests to check it out. 🙂 Mine went from 25 to 50 Mbps download and 5 to 10 Mbps upload. My Firefox Configuration page is always being updated with the latest versions of the browser and the various add-ons and plugins.  I also updated my Programming page to indicate why I keep the thing around (mainly for nostalgic reasons).

Blog

Update 10/30/2013: Just updated to WordPress v3.7.1 which is a maintenance release to fix a few bugs.

Just finished upgrading my blog to WordPress v3.7 which includes a number of security updates and other improvements. A couple plugins and themes were also updated at the same time. I did populate the changes made to the Twenty Twelve theme into my own Twenty Twelve child theme which my blog is currently using.

As always, I backed-up the database and files before clicking the Update button. I then reapplied some of the custom code tweaks that I do (there’s only 3 modifications that involve the core files). This post is also a test of the update to make sure everything is working.

Pelicar Forum

Simple Machines released version 2.0.6 of their forum software which I have upgraded the Pelicar Forum to. It addressed some security related issues and bug fixes. No issues appeared with the update and everything seems to be working fine.

That’s all the changes that come to mind and the moment. If I think of anything else, I’ll add it. 🙂

Website Changes for August 2013

Leave a reply

Main Site Updates

Nothing that big since last time. I’ve updated the Winamp Info and Firefox Configuration pages to reflect the latest changes to those programs. I also tweaked the YouTube Playlist players a little to show a starting thumbnail image because for some reason they just went all black. Seems the embed code you get from YouTube is slightly different depending where you get it.

Blog Updates

WordPress Version 3.6 was released a couple days ago which I have since upgraded to and this post is a test of that as well. This update does include a new default theme called Twenty Thirteen. I’m still playing around with the theme locally on my PC to see if I really want to change to it. If I end up making it look like what I’m using now (colors and appearance) then there’s really no point in changing themes LOL. Haven’t looked at it close enough yet to determine if there’s some feature or ability that only the newer theme has.

The process was the same as always: backed-up the database and files and then clicked the Update button. I then reapplied some of the custom code tweaks that I do (there’s only 3 modifications that involve the core files).

Gallery Updates

Gallery released version 3.0.9 at the end of June which I have since upgraded my galleries to. It addressed a couple minor security vulnerabilities that were discovered. Due to the amount of code tweaks I have, several of which are in the core files, updating Gallery is a bit more involved. I do make back-ups of everything first as I invariably forget to re-modify something LOL. A lot of Windiff is involved to compare changes between versions. Anyway, I’m not going to go into the details as it’s specific to my case and needs.

That’s all the changes that come to mind at the moment. I’ll add to this during the month if need be. 🙂