WordPress Drama and Coding Frustrations

There is Capital-D Drama in the WordPress world. It would take too long to explain all the nuances. Basically, founder Matt Mullenweg is Big Mad that he tried to shake down a rival and failed, and his resulting temper tantrum is damaging the WordPress ecosystem to the point where the best thing might be forContinue reading “WordPress Drama and Coding Frustrations”

The Plan

This weekend I sat down and did something I never do — I wrote out New Year’s Resolutions. I’ve never been the resolution-y type. I’d occasionally make a list, and it would be a vague list — write more, exercise more. This time, I sat down and asked myself, “What am I trying to accomplish?Continue reading “The Plan”

Brainstorming Ideas for the Blog’s Design

I feel like redesigning my blog. This happens to me from time to time. Not as often now as it once did — I would change it up sometimes every weekend! — but I still feel the desire for a different look. The theme I’m using right now is Apostrophe, albeit with a child themeContinue reading “Brainstorming Ideas for the Blog’s Design”

Coding a New Blog Theme

In recent weeks I have been working on a WordPress theme. There’s nothing wrong with what I have. I like the Argo theme that NPR created. It does a lot of really nice things. I wanted a magazine-style front page, and I enjoyed putting that together. However, Argo isn’t not mobile-friendly. It wasn’t designed toContinue reading “Coding a New Blog Theme”

On Guest-Blogging About Tennyson

While blogging here has gone from a nearly-daily thing to a twice-a-week thing (if I’m lucky — life’s become an endless deadline), today saw the publication of a guest blog post I wrote for Stuart Ian Burns, a blogger in Liverpool. Stuart asked me to ponder the two most quoted lines of Alfred, Lord Tennyson’sContinue reading “On Guest-Blogging About Tennyson”

On Blog Redesign Ponderings

Over the past week and a half I’ve been working on coding a new WordPress theme. I mentioned, within the past month, that I’ve felt an “itch to code.” I last changed my blog’s theme the first week of August, 2010; I haven’t typically run with a consistent “look” for that length of time. That’sContinue reading “On Blog Redesign Ponderings”

On the State of Blogging

I’ve been thinking recently about blogging. Not my blogging, but blogging in general. I’ve noticed, from completely unscientific personal observations, that blogging is on the decline. Eight years ago, when I started up this website, it seemed like the rage. A journal… online! There was no reason I couldn’t have done that before; software (namelyContinue reading “On the State of Blogging”

On Dealing With Content Theft

In late October I discovered that someone was plagiarising my blog posts on a website, reason unknown. The website looked to have dozens of others’ contents, presumably to game Google’s page-ranks or somesuch. I could have shrugged. Seriously, how do you fight that shit? I sent him an invoice. I’m handy with a computer. IContinue reading “On Dealing With Content Theft”