The Miesem Family Website
Okay, so I didn’t want to say anything, because I didn’t want anyone to know, but I broke the photo gallery on the site. Apparently, when you upgrade the plugin, you also deactivate the plugin. Go figure. Anyways, the photo gallery is back up and working.
Don’t tell anyone it broke.
I’ve been wanting to change the look of this site for a while, so rather than get off my butt and code a theme from scratch, I installed and configured Release Candidate 2 of K2, a new theme for WordPress. It’s a very versatile theme, and let me do a lot of customization (adding the picture I took when Daniele went on our first photo safari through Los Alamos and the Jemez as a header, for instance). I’m likin’ the way it came out.
There may be some links that don’t work like they used to, so if you find one, let me know.
I’m testing out a keen new feature of 30 Boxes, called Buddy Cards. The basic idea is that, for those individuals who have an account at 30Boxes, whenever they leave a comment, it will detect that their email address matches the address of their 30Boxes account, and VIOLA, a buddy card is displayed.
If you have a 30Boxes account, and leave a comment at this posting, you can test it out. I’ll leave one as a sample. Once you have posted (and verified) your comment, you’ll show up here. Neat, eh?
Although I have a kick-butt photo gallery installed, I decided to add some content from my Flickr account for a little variety. Once I redesign the theme for this site and get the Gallery integration working, I may do away with it. For now, however, it looks pretty keen.
I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and I finally gave in. At the bottom of the page, I’ve added Google AdSense code. There’s a pretty good chance that it’ll generate all of ten cents annually for me, but I’m curious to see just how it works.
Should I decide that AdSense isn’t for me, I’ll close my account and remove the offending code. In the meantime, however, feel free to click on any of the tantalizing ads at the bottom of the page. Right now, they’re all about web design, but I’m sure if I start writing about porn, I’ll get more saucy ads.
I want to integrate lots of stuff into this site, but some of it may take time. On the list (in my head) are:
I’m sure I’ll find more stuff as I go along, but this is the short list. I’m still on the fence as to weather to add a forum, as there wasn’t much discussion that wasn’t related to articles posted on the old site.
I’m also working on understanding how WordPress themes work, using the excellent documentation available on the WordPress codex. I should have a handle on it in a few years.
Okay, I’ve got the site management software running, and a copy of Gallery has been put in place. Now I just need to (over time) make small modifications to the site over time. With WordPress, I’ll be able to integrate my 43 Things blog as well as a few other pieces of syndicated content.
Huzzah!
