Blog Upgrades

Work was busy last week, and there wasn’t anything exciting going on this weekend. That’s why I haven’t posted much lately.

Another thing I’ve been doing is testing out a new version of the blog software. It is open source software called WordPress, and it is really pretty cool. You wouldn’t believe all the plugins people have written to extend the capabilities of the software. I use quiet a few here on Deep Sand. There is the random quote plugin that generates the quotes at the top of the sidebar. The weather report near the bottom of the sidebar is the result of a plugin. Many of the ones I run you don’t see. One of my plans is to create a page that elaborates on the program that drives this blog.

A recently released version was a pretty major re-write. I built a new blog for a friend as a way to test the software and the plugins. Much of the re-write is “under the hood.” As a result a few of the plugins had to be updated as well. I worked through those, and really liked the results. So, I ran through the upgrade process on my Mother’s blog. That went very well, but I was holding my breath as I upgraded the Deep Sand blog. It is a significantly more complex site. However, the upgrade went very smoothly. There are one or two minor problems that will have to be corrected. I think I know how to resolve these fairly quickly tomorrow. There is?a file up-loader that I use for the photo gallery that isn’t working, so I’ll have to do some research on that. There is an option to it using the Flickr photo system, and there are plugins for that too.

The main differences in this version are the tighter integration of some anti-spam tools for comments. Those are implemented on this site, and already capturing a ton of track-back spam. The other main difference is in the flexibility of the interface, and there is a built in WYSIWYG editor that includes access to a spell checker system and direct access to a plugin I use for collecting the information I use in the movie reviews.

So, that has been my evening tonight, upgrading this blog.