After much consideration I have decided to remove the graphic buttons from the navigation section off to the right. They may come back at a later date, but for right now they are gone. I decided to remove them (even though I did like them) because I didn’t have a button for all the links. I think that having just a few made the site look unfinished. I know I could have made buttons for the rest of them, but that takes time that, at the moment, I am just not willing to invest. In addition to that I realize that not all browsers will handle a missing button image as nicely as Fire Fox does, and the result makes the site look very unfiinshed should a button image get moved or something. In any case, they are gone for now and may or may not return at a later date.

I have been running a nice little plugin called Spam Karma to control spam comment postings, and I must say that I am VERY pleased with its performance.

After the upgrade to WordPress 1.5 and upgrading to Spam Karma 2, I was having a few issues with it, however, I contacted Spam Karma’s creator/maintainer Dr Dave, and he gave me some very appreciated help and got the plugin working properly again.

Not only has this plugin done exactly what it is supposed to do, it has done it flawlesly. It is also nice to know that should something go wrong with plugin, its creator/maintainer Dr Dave is not only willing to help, but does so in a rather quick time frame.

I highly recommend this plugin for all WordPress users!

Well, I just accidentally deleted a post, and it appears as though it is gone forever. It was about how I had upgraded to the new WordPress 1.5 and how it went well. I beleave I had stated that I was having one minor issue with one of the plugins. That issue has since been resolved and I am, in fact, going to write a post about that as soon as I am done with this one.

So I guess I just learned a valule lesson, so to speak, about being careful. I ment to delete a test comment that I had posted during the process of fixing the plugin in error and instead I mistakenly deleted the entire post. Had I had a back up of the database I could have restored it, but the backup I have is prior the lost post. So this has caused me to re-think how often I am backing-up the database. Perhaps I will have to modify a few backup tasks. I am just thank ful that it was only one post I lost and not, say, an entire month. Oh well, live and learn I guess.

Considering it has been a while since I have written an update, and the site went down for a couple of days, I think one is due. I owe it to my reader (yes that is singular).

I had a few issues with database connectivity and processes not running, but I finally got that worked out. I also made a backup of the database for safety reasons, considering I didn’t have one to begin with. I realized that when the database “vanished” for no apparent reason, but it magically reappeared as well. All in all things were odd with the site but all appear to back to normal.

During all this I have also been attempting to recompile and upgrade the kernel to 2.6, but that has been slow going. Not surprising considering this is my first attempt at doing this. I think I may have to go back to the begining and go back through all the steps. Not to worried about it, just something I am trying to do, a learning process mainly. If I ever get the new kernel working I will wirte a little announcement.

A while back I also threw some buttons over in the navigation pane. I think I like them, and in the end if I do I will most likely attempt to get the rest of them set to buttons as well. This will be something that will happen slowly if it does happen though, as it is not anything dire.

For the longest time the favicon (the little icon in the address bar) was not working for some reason. Well the other day I was messing around with some stuff in the back end and it suddenly started working. Not exactly sure what caused it to suddenly work, but there it is. In any event I am happy if finally decided to show up.

Threw in a few more back end scripts to help keep the place running smooth. Upgraded part of the main system and one of my back end plugins. The biggest notice on the frontend here will be the addition of two lines down at the very bottom of the screen. This is the result of my backend scripts to help eliminate comment spam and such. Not sure if the numbers will be accurate but I guess I will find out as time goes on. Also did some house keeping in the back end and removed some unused unneeded files.

I tweak a few things in the way the system operates. I also added a few scripts to help the functioning of the site. Nothing anyone will probably notice, its all mainly stuff in the back end. I did add a category for all those bizzar little quizes and such. I am hoping to add a few more scripts for the back end as well. All in all I am pretty happy with the way the site is functioning so there prolly wont be to many more things going on with it. So…umm…yeah.

Performed a software upgrade today on the site. The only real noticeable difference is that the links on the side are now broken out by category. So links to friends’ sites actually appear under a “Friends” heading and other links appear under other headings as well. In additiotn to this I have decided to remove some of the other themes that I wasn’t as found of. I would like to thank Steve for the help he supplied in this upgrade. As usuall he was able to help me figure out where my error was when issues surfaced. There are some other things that I would like to modify and tamper with, if I ever do I will make note of the changes.

I implemented a theme switcher which will allow the reader to choose which theme they would like to view the site as. This option can be found with the rest of the page navigation options off to either side. It is important to note that not all themes have the same options, as such some themes may have things that others do not, such as the calendar. In any event should I create or get new themes they will automatically appear in the list and you will be able to pick them. As of right now most of the themes have the selection as a list, with the exception of I think one which uses a dropdown selection box. Should I acquire a numerous amount of themes, which is possible, I may opt to go back and make them all dropdown selection boxes to conserve space. Only time will tell. In any case I hope this feature is enjoyed by all, as I enjoyed putting it in.