Category Archives: WordPress

Blog Updated to WordPress 3.3 and Other Website Changes

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WordPress 3.3 was just released and I’ve completed upgrading my blog. Nothing to it really. Just clicked the update button and it did the rest. 🙂 Well, I did back-up the database and directory structure before starting the process.  I also had to do my usual code tweaks to vars.php and wp-login.php that I do with every upgrade.

They also updated the Twenty Eleven theme to version 1.3; however, since I am using a Child Theme, I lost none of my changes and after doing a file comparison it looks like nothing has changed within the files that my child theme is using, such as header.php.

I also added a GetGlue widget (to find these, go to the Widgets section of your account settings) to both my blog and main website, and updated the Twitter widgets on both as well. After adding the newer Twitter widgets I needed to adjust some of the CSS to allow for a wider side-bar and also widened the main content area of the blog’s main page while I was at it. There was more empty space between the two than there needed to be. I also adjusted the appearance of the H3 header tag when used in the context of a post. It looks cool as a widget title in the side-bar but was getting lost in posts as it’s smaller than the normal text. Anyway, it looks fine now:

H3 header tag In a post.

Here’s the changes I made in my theme’s style.css file to make these changes:

#content {
   /* margin: 0 34% 0 7.6%; */
   margin: 0 34% 0 3.8%;
   /* width: 58.4%; */
   width: 62.4%;
}

#primary {
   margin: 0 -29.4% 0 0;
}

#secondary {
   /* margin-right: 7.6%; */
   margin-right: 3.8%;
   /* width: 18.8%; */
   width: 25%;
}

.entry-content h3, .comment-content h3 {
   font-size: 100%;
   font-weight: bold;
}

Now I need to figure out how to get WordPress’s post editor to look the same. 🙂 But, I think I’m going to go play EverQuest II right now.

Blog Upgraded to WordPress v3.2 and Twenty Eleven Theme

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Since this was a fairly major upgrade and changing of the default theme, I thought I’d blog about it! The actual upgrade process was no different than any other recent upgrade I’ve made:

  • Backed up the existing file structure and database.
  • Ran the automatic upgrade which took around five seconds to complete.
  • Modified the /wp-includes/vars.php file to force $is_apache to true so I don’t have to rely on the software to detect something which I know is true:
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    /**
     * Whether the server software is Apache or something else
     * @global bool $is_apache
     */
    //$is_apache = (strpos($_SERVER['SERVER_SOFTWARE'], 'Apache') !== false || strpos($_SERVER['SERVER_SOFTWARE'], 'LiteSpeed') !== false);
    $is_apache = true;
  • Modified the /wp-login.php file to force the start of a PHP session so that the Register Plus plug-in would work properly in my situation; although, I’m debating the necessity of this plug-in since I have registration disabled right now anyway LOL.:
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    session_start();
    /**
     * WordPress User Page
     *

That’s really all there was to the upgrade from WordPress v3.1.4 to WordPress v3.2 for my blog. Everything else has been related to trying out the new default Twenty Eleven theme and slowly modifying and tweaking it. Like I did with the Twenty Ten theme, I made a Twenty Eleven child theme so that I did not have to modify the parent’s files and risk loosing any of my changes if the theme was updated in the future. In my child theme, I’m using my own style.css (you have to), header.php, footer.php, and single.php files.

I’ve got the main front-end page looking satisfactorily now with adjustments to font colors and sizes and the overall layout of the page (margins and widths of sections) and how PHP code blocks appear for the posts that have them. I’m not going to go into detail about it since these kind of things are all subjective.

The next thing I will tackle is the appearance or layout of the single post page. Right now there’s a lot of wasted or white space below the header image (some might argue that the header image itself is a waste of space). Some of the white space is related to the Twitter and Facebook buttons being there and I really do not like where they are in relation to each other. I’d prefer them to be next to each other. Part of this is related to the plug-ins I am using. I’ll get it how I want it eventually.

The main reason why I’m not just staying with the Twenty Ten theme is that I figure the most compatible theme with the new WordPress version is going to be the new default theme that ships with it; although, all indications are that the Twenty Ten theme works just fine. Even so, some change is good every now and then. I hope your upgrade has gone or will go as smoothly and uneventful as mine. 🙂

For more information about the changes as well as the new system requirements for this version (mainly the minimum PHP and MySQL versions supported), read the WordPress 3.2 Codex Page.

Test post for Wordbooker WordPress plug-in

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This is just a quick test post for Wordbooker WordPress plug-in. Hmm.. need a bunch of text. Here’s some I copied from my Home Theater page about my Denon AVR-3806:

August 24, 2006: Bought this to replace my Yamaha that died a few days earlier. Because I really like their DVD player I have, I decided to try their A/V Receivers. Since the crickets were chirping too loud outside and would have most likely thrown the Auto Config/EQ abilities false information about the room acoustics, I set things up manually such as my speaker configuration (5.1), distances to speakers, cross-over frequency to 90Hz for the sub, and speaker levels using the test tones. After playing a few movies such as Star Wars Phantom Menace, Air Force One, and Riverdance for some musical content, the sound from this blows away what I was getting from the Yamaha. The entire soundscape is richer and fuller. I heard sounds and details I had never heard before. The surround environment was much better. Makes me wonder what it would sound like if I went through the Auto Config process. So far, very pleased. 🙂

Switched Blog Back to Using Math Comment Spam Protection

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Since the latest version (3.0) of Math Comment Spam Protection is now compatible with WordPress 3.0.1 and the Twenty Ten theme, I have switched back to using it several days ago. As is the case with any of these math protection plug-ins, it will at best stop some of the automated spambots. It will not prevent someone from answering the math question to post spam. 🙂