Status: Installed

WP Admin Bar 2 makes it easy to do admin work without having to first jump over to the admin page. It adds a bar at the top of the template file with links to the main admin sections of WordPress for users that are logged in. I have added a link in the code to StatTraq so I can access it easily from any page.

Plugins Installed

Notes:

• Fuzzy recent posts

  Its fuzzy notion of “recent posts” will automatically adjust the number of posts based on how frequently you update your blog I removed the section that displays archive & RSS. The section can be found between the two lines:

  $output .= “\n”;
  echo $output;

• PHP Exec

  This plugin lets you execute dynamic PHP code in posts. It masks PHP code before balanceTags, and unmask them afterwards, so it should be safe to use PHP code that has literal HTML tags in it, for example: code which print out HTML

  <phpcode> <?php echo “Current date and time: “; echo date(”l dS of F Y h:i:s A”); ?> </phpcode>

Pluggins Installed but Removed

• Time of Day Again, don’t really need time showing up on posts. Also since uses the_time() it was also causing a problem with other places that dispayed the time - like my categories page. Looks like there is another time routine that could be called if I really wanted to use this.

• Splee’s Fuzzy DateTime plugin Don’t really need the time showing up on my posts.

  This plugin takes the time and date of a post and makes it ‘fuzzy’, i.e. more human.
  For example, if a post was made three days ago, instead of simply displaying the date the plugin can output ‘3 days ago’.

• Customizable Comment Listings - Replaced by Semilogic’s routines

• Customizable Post Listings - Replaced by Semilogic’s routines
• Theme Switcher - not needed at this point - 1 theme is enough
• Easy Post-to-Post Links - not useful for me > Easily reference another post in your blog using a shortcut, either by id or post slug. The shortcut is replaced with the hyperlinked title of the referenced post.

This was just too funny (because it is too true?) The guys over at Manila Drive have outdone themselves..

1. Q: What is the chief end of each individual Christian?
A: Each individual Christian’s chief end is to get saved. This is the first and great commandment.

2. Q: And what is the second great commandment?
A: The second, which is like unto it, is to get as many others saved as he can.
…
27. Q: Which are among the first books which a Christian should read to his soul’s health?
A: Among the first books which a Christian should read are the books of Daniel and Revelation, and The Late Great Planet Earth.
…
29. Q: What are the seven deadly sins?
A: The seven deadly sins are smoking, drinking, dancing, card-playing, movie-going, baptizing babies, and having any creed but Christ.
…
32. Q: What is baptism?
A: Baptism is the act whereby, by the performance of something that seems quite silly in front of everyone, I prove that I really, really mean it.

33. Q: What is the Church?
A: The Church is the tiny minority of individuals living at this time who have Jesus in their hearts, and who come together once a week for a sermon, fellowship and donuts.
…
44. Q: Where will we meet again?
A: Here, there, or in the air.

45. Q: Can I hear an Ay-men?
A: Ay-men.

Originally spotted at 40 Bicycles

Well, I was telling Matt that I was very tempted to pledge to NPR this week. I knew this would elicit a response from him, and it did. A big WHY??

I explained that Von & I were flipping through the channels and came across the TBN Praise-a-Thon. There was the group of 20 or so young people clad in black and dancing away to some very ‘interesting’ choreography.

If that was not enough, it was followed up by “women’s nite” with Jan Crouch all decked out in her layers of make-up and jewelry and about 8 other gals all swaying and amen-ing while a bleach-blonde lady preacher was preaching in a rap style that almost sounded like she was trying to ‘channel’ someone from the hood.

It was about all I could take flipping back to TBN at commercial breaks - but it did bring some levity to the household.

Well, Geoff has been playing MMORPGs from since the days of BBSs and my young boys started with NeoPet and have graduated to Runescape where they are able to meet up with their cousins 300 miles away in Boise and play ‘together’.

After listening to this presentation over at ITConversation maybe I need to see if maybe my kids can make some money in this second life…

Bill Gurley, General Partner, Benchmark Capital, says that massively multi-player online roleplaying games (MMORPGs) are an “insanely profitable business.” Hear about a game in China that has 9 million active users, and how players are so fanatical in Korea, that the police have had to investigate the theft of in-world characters. Bill says MMORPGs are a business opportunity far beyond EverQuest.

Here is the MP3 of the presentation

Well, this begins my move over from Blogger. Many thanks to Matt in helping me and hosting this….

Now to see about moving all the posts and comments over.

In a response that he was not as ‘Reformed’ as he used to be, Tim Gallant makes a great statement as to why he does not blindly hold to the teachings of men - even if they were from the 1600s and especially when it is just 20th century men’s interpretations of said teachings:

In the end, however, there is nothing magical about the word “Reformed.” We all owe God alone the loyalty that many people seem willing to give their traditions. I find it highly ironic that the same people who castigate Rome for being irreformable have de facto made their own tradition far more irreformable than Rome ever has been. There is a biblical word for this: hypocrisy. An irreformable Reformed faith is an oxymoron, because irreformability is a betrayal of sola Scriptura.

Installation
April 7th 2005 - This was the easy part - Matt, my son in law, set me up with space on his server. (I don’t think he is worried about my blog sucking too much band width)

Blogger Migration
April 7th 2005 - The Blogger2Wordpress script worked pretty well. I just followed the pictures and only got confused on one directory setup - otherwise it was a snap

• Need to add categories now to all the blogs
• Need to fix quite a few links - Blogger allows the title to point to the ’source’ article. The conversion lost all these since WordPress uses the title to the permalink.
• Need to come up with a site design that is ‘me’

Next To-Dos

• Fix Headings in Posts and in Comments: > # H1 Title
  > ## H2 Title
  > ### H3 Title
  > #### H4 Title

<

p> Sub Pages:

• Plugins - Coded Routines that are just dropped into the plugins directory.
• Hacks - Code snippets that must be integrated into the existing PHP code and then debugged.
• Templates - Design & Layout that can just be dropped into WordPress.

Hacks to Check-Out

Wordpress 1.5 comments RSS url Hack

The RSS link to the comment will now go directly to the comment and not the post. The hack involves adding a new function in wp-includes/comment-functions.php to return the URL of a specific comment.

• http://www.lesterchan.net/blogs/archives/2005/04/04/updated-my-wordpress-plugins/

WordPress 1.5 Stats – download – demo

Display your WordPress statistics.

WordPress 1.5 Poll – download – demo

Adds an integrated poll system to your WordPress.

WordPress 1.5 Page Navigation – download – demo

Adds a page navigation with paging elements to your WordPress.

WordPress 1.5 Print – download – demo

Displays a printable version of your WordPress weblog post.

WordPress 1.5 E-Mail – download – demo

Enable you to send your webblog entry to a friend.

WordPress 1.5 User Online – download – demo

Enable you to display how many users are online on your Wordpress with detailed statistics of where they are and who there are(Members/Guests/Search Bots).

Weblog Tools Collection

have some more hacks I need to look in to.

wp hacks

have some more hacks I need to look in to.

SensoryOutput

I feel that this blog has been sick for some time what with the deluge of comment and referrer spam. In addition, there have some sticky details that have been causing that itch in the back of my throat for some time. With a few minutes to spare, I healed my blog’s wound quite nicely. Here is a short list of the things I fixed this morning:

Hacks Installed and Removed

Hacks Installed

• Sortable Nicer Archives
  > The archives list can be sorted by date and category and filtered by author and year. All of the functions, as far as I tested, are working.

Required Mods

• Tagboard - put this line where you want the tagboard to display (usually in Sidebar.php)
  < ? include("tagboard/include.php"); ?>
• Admin Bar- put this line where right after the ‘‘ tag in Header.php
  < ?php wp_admin_bar(); ?>
• Theme Switcher- format and place this line where you want the theme switcher to display (usually in Sidebar.php)
  <li>Themes: < ?php wp_theme_switcher(); ?> </li>

Template Ideas

• MCI SnipSnap StyleSheet
  • Title bar across whole top
• Left & Right Sidebars

Template Sites

• Francey’s Online Playground

Templates to Check-Out

Templates Installed but Removed

Templates Installed

GOP Theme

• Need to Fix
  1. Page Listing when on a StaticPage
• Positive
  • Colors
• Negative
  • -

Scattered

• Positive
  • Chat Box
  • Warm Colors
  • Incoming Links
• Negative
  • Narrow
  • H1 Headings do not show
  • Fixed placement of buttons (not css)

To Do

• Newsgator Java added
• Use Dynamic Text Replace to create Club Photo linker with thumbnail to full size
• MarkDown Help added to Comment area
• Hack to open links in another browser window
• Fix bottom bar when have short content page
• Jeff Bar’s Comment Verification text box
• Put Category Posts below each ‘Category’ Page

To Look Into

• Smarter 404 Errors (or at least getting it to work)
  • Beautification Revisited
• How to make WordPress run php code on any page?
  • Create your page without any content. Then set up a template specifically for that page using the plugin’s functionality where you want the rss feeds to display, and assign it to the Page.
  • WPCodex - Pages can use Different Templates

Done

• Hack TagBoard to reside in a directory off root - and share database
  • Removed Tagboard because seemed to be pushing pages too frequently (usage) and not sure needed.
• Recent Comments function to a page / sidebar
• Recent Pages function to a page / sidebar
• Make sidebar look like WP Classic Template except headings darker
• CSS Class for ‘blog photos’ with padding

Status: Installed

Markdown and Markdown PHP is intended for one purpose: to be used as a format for writing for the web.

To this end, Markdown�s syntax is comprised entirely of punctuation characters, which punctuation characters have been carefully chosen so as to look like what they mean. E.g., asterisks around a word actually look like emphasis. Markdown lists look like, well, lists. Even blockquotes look like quoted passages of text, assuming you�ve ever used email.

Markdown fix patches a variety of issues in the default version of the Markdown plugin

• Markdown Syntax (offsite)
• Markdown Syntax Cheat Sheet
• Markdown Syntax Cheat Sheet - Rendered
• Markdown Discussion Archives (offsite)

byFaith (the web magazine of the Presbyterian Church in America) has a short little article on the ‘controversy’. The statement I wonder about is in the paragraph I bolded below stating that

To critics, the theological systems redefine the classic Reformation doctrine of Justification by Faith Alone, which proponents of the New Perspective dismiss as, among other things, a Lutheran misunderstanding of the teaching of Paul. Federal Vision proponents place a strong emphasis on the efficacy of the Sacraments, some embracing giving the Lord’s Supper to baptized children and a view of baptism that, critics believe, makes it a “regenerating” ordinance. Additionally, these systems emphasize that final salvation has more to do with continuing membership in the covenant community than with a personal salvation experience. Critics believe the emphasis in all of these new paradigms has shifted from the classic evangelical question “Are you saved?” to “Are you in the Covenant?”. Proponents of the Federal Vision assert that they are simply reaffirming a higher view of the sacraments as advocated by Calvin before the church was later influenced by American revivalism.

Is that a better question? So is it a criticism? Moving away from the ‘personal relation with Jesus down deep in my heart’ to a question of ‘Do you belong to God’s people?’ does not sound like a bad thing.

Andy @ Manila Drive has a picture of two Calvinus Bieres from Geneva Switzerland, from a pub across the street from the church Calvin once pastored.

He also has a link to a site with a ‘cool’ name: “Purpose-Driven Drinking Blog.”

I am messing with the layout as is probably noticeable. I am trying to use CSS to do the layout - but sometimes it is like trying to herd marbles with a straw. I did put a ‘theme-switcher’ link at the bottom so if I break something or you just don’t like my newest stab at this you can pull up something more ‘professional’ .

I have started a page for my notes and progress. I have added some other plugins and hacks which are documented on the Plugins page and Hacks page. My Ideas page list some of the things I want to look into, including:

• Recent Comments Listing
• Pages (Static) with Recent Changes

I will slowly get the categories finished for the older posts.