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"When a thing ceases to be a subject of controversy, it ceases to be a subject of interest."
William Hazlitt

Sam Devol

Running with Scissors

Archives

Cleaning up WordPress database after UTW

Posted in October 3rd, 2007
Published in Computers, Things, WordPress
Tagged with:

After upgrading to WordPress 2.3 and trying to re-evaluate tag usage, I decided to re-visit an old pet-peeve of mine: The relatively massive (read: gi-normous) size of my wp_postmeta table. It was always the biggest table in my database (thanks to UTW), so whenever I was poking around in the database it caught my eye [...]

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Recent changes here at samdevol.com

Posted in September 22nd, 2007
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I have been meaning to post a note about some of the recent changes here, but have been busier then a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs (been dying to use that phrase for some time ;’)…
I’ve adopted a new theme called nobus, designed by Dezzain Studio. The UI is not [...]

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6 simple steps to hardening WordPress

Posted in September 16th, 2007
Published in Computers, Things, WordPress
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There are some basic steps you can take to help limit your exposure to malicious behavior directed at your WordPress blog. My intention with this article is not to make your website bullet-proof (if such a thing exists) but to cover the most common exploits/weaknesses. File and directory permissions have been discussed elsewhere but I’ll [...]

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Text-Link-Ads tech support lacks interest in WordPress

Posted in September 13th, 2007
Published in People
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This began as a casual note, a reminder, if you will, to techsupport (at) text-link-ads.com. It escalated to where I wondered just how Text-Link-Ads (a MediaWhiz Holdings, Inc. Company) developed it’s hiring practices…
Having signed up I was directed to download a plugin for WordPress. I noticed it was a raw PHP file (rarely done because [...]

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Display posts ticker-style in WordPress with Zazz

Posted in September 12th, 2007
Published in Computers, Things, WordPress
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I was thinking about a way to showcase older posts and happened across the Zazz Post Tickerplugin by Stew Houston.
I thought “Here we go, another chance for me to totally bork my blog with some unknown piece of code…” So I picked up the scissors and blah-blah-blah (you get the idea).
I took a quick look [...]

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missunderstood theme — Big update

Posted in September 1st, 2007
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Just released the new version (0.94) of the missunderstood theme. Some major changes, lots of clean-up, added functionality:

Built-in Optimal Title (for SEO)
Built-in slimbox (faster, lighter Lightbox effect)
Separate lists for comments and trackbacks
Fancier blockquotes
Built-in pullquotes
Prettier search box
Code-block style with numbers and zebra striping

A lot of generous people have brought my attention to problems with the earlier [...]

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Integrate PunBB into your WordPress site

Posted in August 28th, 2007
Published in Computers, Things, WordPress
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I wanted to add a forum to my WordPress blog but everything I came across did not integrate well (design/page continuity, etc.) or was too simple for my tastes… Then I came across a tutorial here (there are a few around, that’s just the one I tripped across). Following the tutorial I had a somewhat [...]

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Corporate Slave theme — Big update

Posted in August 20th, 2007
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Version .95 is out now, with a lot of tweaks done over several months…
Incorporated some plugins into functions.php for convenience:

Optimal Title
Hot Dates
removed ’sociable’
Slimbox

Added the Top Post functionality (for a full-width ‘featured’ post). Top Post takes the latest post in a category (category set in the themes options under Presentation), displays it at the top [...]

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www. Preference and samdevol.com

Posted in August 20th, 2007
Published in Computers, Things, WordPress
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Since domains are often indexed differently (with and without the www prefix), I’m jumping on the no-www bandwagon. For more info visit
Ease of use with WordPress influenced me to use Mark Jaquith’s Enforce www. Preference plugin (which works for ‘enforcing’ either a www or no-www preference).

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About Me widget for WordPress - v1.0 (TinyMCE)

Posted in August 14th, 2007
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When I first started a WordPress blog I wanted to add some personal identification to the front page in an effort to promote validity/identity/what-evah. ‘Widgets’ were somewhat new to WP so I thought this was the approach for me. I ended up with a minor struggle using a text widget and got what I wanted.
…my [...]

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About The Site

myimg

Observations of a Troubleshooting Monkey and

ex IT Director

ex Digital Video Director

ex Missile Mechanic

ex Motorcycle Mechanic

Work Background Contact me