WordPress.com Problems

This new version of WordPress on WordPress.com has introduced some problems:

• After I had posted, over a day or so, it added “ggRIAA” to “RIAA” in my post title for RIAA Lets Its Lap Dog MediaSentry Break the Law. You can see from its URL that the original post did not have ggRIAA, neither did my backup of that post. PS: I’ve since fixed the title that WordPress mangled.
• While posting, I tried to use the word “differentiate” but the software just refused to let me use it, deleting it at every turn. In the end, I had to substitute “different”. Stupid software. Funny, the word “differentiate” works now.
• Hiding the categories section below the post box instead of at the right side is really not a good idea. I have already accidentally posted a number of posts into the “Uncategorized” category by mistake. Categories and tags are something that I regularly use to organize my posts. Putting the “Save” and “Publish” buttons beside my post makes me hit it earlier than I should.

Why do software go downhill over a period of time? Maybe it’s because the developers find that they have added all the useful features they can think of, and then they start reorganizing things because they can’t think of anything else.

Anyway, YUCKS to the new version of WordPress.com.

Filed in Opinion, WordPress.

No Way to Remove Drafts in WordPress.com

One irritating thing about WordPress.com is that there doesn’t seem to be a way for me to remove drafts to my posts that I no longer want. I mean, it automatically saves a draft, and if I abandon it, it keeps it around and pesters me with it every time I want to write a new post.

The only workaround is to load that draft and proceed to change everything in it. Otherwise the pesky thing stays forever.

Filed in WordPress.

Simplest Way to Upgrade WordPress

I’ve long known of this method of upgrading WordPress, but thought I’d publicize it for those who don’t, especially in the light of the recent release of a new version. The easiest and fastest way to upgrade WordPress is to upload only the files that have changed since the previous version. It really makes things so much easier. The difference between versions is only a few files, so just uploading those alone is preferable to uploading the whole kit and kaboodle. For me, the trick has always been to find the list of changed files, which has not been easy, but it seems that the list is placed in a consistent place that is easy to locate.

Of course, since this blog is hosted on WordPress.com, I don’t have to upgrade the blog software at all.

Filed in WordPress.

The Glorious Contempt WordPress Theme

Well, after living for nearly 2 months with the default WordPress theme, which I complained about in the past, I’ve finally bitten the bullet and changed the theme to one called “Contempt”. This theme has the advantage of having two columns even on the post pages, so that they will also contain the Recent Posts list and so on. The default theme does not. With this theme, I think my blog finally meets all the criteria on the blog theme design checklist.

As you can see it looks more or less like the default Kubrick theme, which suits me fine.

How to Get the Contempt Theme with Widget Support

The Contempt theme as implemented in the hosted WordPress.com allows you to add widgets to the side panel. Try as you might, you will not be able to find the contempt theme in the usual WordPress theme repository - or at least I couldn’t find it. If you look for the Contempt theme in Google, you will be directed to the author’s site that allows you to download the theme files - but that set does not allow you to add widgets from the WordPress interface.

To get the version that gives you the widget support, go to the WordPress SVN for the Contempt theme and download every single file and directory. Keep the directory structure when you place install the theme into your blog.

Filed in WordPress, Web Design.

The Incessantly Updating Software: Another Day, Another Version - QuickTime and WordPress

I hate being plagued by software that continually has to be updated with security fixes. I mean, normal upgrades to add features or fix ordinary, non-security bugs are fine - they don’t force you to upgrade all your affected machines at all odd hours of the day or week. Ordinary new versions are like upgrade-if-you-wish sort of things. Security fixes are like upgrade-or-you-die. (Exaggeration, of course.)

Take the case of QuickTime. They just came up with another update. Version 7.4.1. I’m still reeling from their last update, with its refusal to accept my File and MIME settings and its stupid upgrader that resets everything. Honestly, I have better things to do than to keep updating QuickTime and fixing all the stupid problems a new install creates. But it has to be done because they are security fixes. Of course I don’t really know whether the latest update includes a security fix - the Apple site doesn’t say. Or if it does, they’ve hidden the list of fixes in a non-obvious location. How does a company that is famous for its user-friendly Mac create such a user-unfriendly software with a user-unfriendly website?

And then there is WordPress, with its newest version 2.3.3, just released. This blog is hosted on WordPress.com, so updates are automatically taken care of by the web host. But I have another blog running the WordPress software, on a host that goes down repeatedly. With that blog, no month feels complete without a new WordPress update. It happens so frequently that I can virtually upgrade it in my sleep. If not for the rave reviews of WordPress in blog software shootouts, I’ll probably just try another software.

Filed in News, Software, WordPress.

Second Thoughts on WordPress’ Default Theme

I mentioned a while back how I thought WordPress’ default theme fared pretty well against the checklist for blog theme design. I have now changed my mind. After running this blog for nearly two months now, I’ve belatedly realized that there’s a big deficiency in the default theme: the permalink post pages don’t have a side column where the tag cloud, archive links and recent posts are listed. As a result, people who go directly to a permalink page from the search engine won’t go much further than that page.

I wonder whether the other supplied themes fix this problem.

Filed in Web Design, WordPress.

Spam Blogs

If you’re reading this entry on a blog that is not florafaunarocks.wordpress.com (that is, florafaunarocks dot WordPress Dot com), then chances are that the blog you’re reading is one of those spam blogs. The despicable owners of such blogs use programs that grab new posts, then reposts them with some modifications on their own blog. There are an incredible number of them “surfing” around WordPress.com, with the result that any post I make automatically gets reposted somewhere else. It’s very irritating, not to mention a copyright infringement.

It’s easy to spot such blogs. The idiots send pingbacks to your blog, which the Akismet filter automatically catches. Just check your spam comments and you’ll see them. Perhaps WordPress.com should try to collect the IP addresses of all these bots and block them. That’ll clean up things a lot. Maybe we should all report these blogs to Google to get them blocked from the search engine, and kicked out of AdSense.

Filed in: Outraged, WordPress.

The Awfully Limited Stats of WordPress.com

The WordPress.com stats are awful. Sure, it gives you which pages have been viewed. Yeah, that and the phrases that led people to your site. But there’s really a dearth of information. For example, which search engines were used for those phrases? Where is the visitor path report? Browsers? Operating system? And so on.

It’s not just the poor stats. It’s that they prevent you from even effectively using third party web statistics by their removal of all JavaScript code whenever you post. So all you can do is use the stats’ basic image option, which can’t really provide sufficient information.

I want better stats. And I want JavaScript support for my blog entries.

Filed in: Web Design, Web Hosting, WordPress

WordPress.com Limitations

I seem to be making a lot of posts about my current blog host. The trouble is that I sort of discover these things as I use the platform. There was no list of things that are different between a normal WordPress installation and the one provided by WordPress.com. The latest thing I found was that the main page’s “Posted in: (category name)” link does not lead to my list of categories on my own site. Instead, it despicably leads to wordpress.com’s own category list. Horrible.

I thought I already dealt with this when I stopped using “tags” and started using “categories”, but it looks like WordPress.com is determined to make all our WordPress.com blogs link to them. I may have to move my blog back to a normal web host. My old web host, which I mentioned in my first post, is trying to fix the problems in its server, and by some reports, the server is apparently up again. I mean, at least on my own account, I can configure the template properly and not have all these sneaky links on my site linking to other sites out of the blue.

Update: I’ve decided to add my own “Filed under” links under my posts. It’s a bit tedious to have to do things that the downloadable WordPress software does automatically, but at least it’s better than nothing. A good side effect of this is that at least the categories show up in my permalink pages.

Filed under: Outraged, WordPress, Web Hosting.

Checklist for Blog Theme Designing

I was going through a checklist for designing a blog theme to see if the current Flora and Fauna Rocks theme meets the requirements. Interestingly my blog theme didn’t score too badly, even though it’s just the WordPress default. The only things I don’t have in this theme is the meta description. I have no idea how to add this here, since I don’t see a way for me to install any plugins. But it’s supposed to be not so important, so I’m just going to leave it for now.

Although I wasn’t very sure at first, I’m now more convinced than ever that choosing to use WordPress was a good decision. I initially wondered whether I should have gone with Drupal, but it looks harder to use than WordPress.

Filed under: Web Design, WordPress.

Logo Making for the Graphically Challenged

This hilarious article on logo making actually has good practical tips on how to create a professional-looking logo for your blog the quick and dirty way. I like the way it breaks down the process into manageable bits that make the whole thing easy to do.

I already made a logo for this blog, but haven’t quite figured how to put it in the header. As a matter of fact, I haven’t had much success selecting a different theme either. I must be an idiot, but I can’t seem to find a way to set the theme after selecting it for preview.

Anyway, what I said earlier about there being more features here than the typical wordpress install isn’t quite true. I realized that some features I used to have in my install aren’t present here. For example, I can’t change my permalinks.

Filed under Web Design, WordPress.

Whoa, Tag Cloud in WordPress.com

I just realized that the tag cloud feature in WordPress.com performs differently from the tag cloud in my old install. Here, clicking on a tag or tag cloud leads to others’ blogs. To get the tag cloud of your own install, you need to create categories and place a category cloud in the side panel instead of tag cloud. No biggie. Just a lesson learned.

Update: it’s worse than that. See my later post.

Filed under: WordPress.

More features in WordPress.com?

It’s been a month since I managed to access my old blog, for reasons I mentioned earlier, but the WordPress.com installation of WordPress appears to have more features than the one I installed manually.

For example, there’re things like the stats tool and more themes (which for the life of me, I can’t seem to get working). They probably added things that could be downloaded separately (which I obviously didn’t).

See my other posts on WordPress.