The code behind the site has been updated. If you notice anything looking out of whack let me know. The update involved mostly scripting updates and a change to the database schema, but there were also some tweaks to layouts and entries. Just send a comment to any message to let me know if something is wrong. All comments are reviewed before posting (because I don’t get that many posters… and I will never let the poker spam get posted) so don’t worry about it being seen by the world. You can click on the “more” link to get some of the boring details… otherwise, thanks for visiting.

~jim

Well, I finally made the upgrade from WP 1.2 to 1.5. It was actually rather involved because I had customized it just a touch. The biggest problem was incorporating my themes in the new system. The WP folks saw fit to completely redo the templating. The old version you only had to edit the CSS to get a different theme. In the new version they have separate file systems for the basic parts of the theme. I think it is a step backwards as now when you make a change to the global design you have to change it in multiple places. The WP folks felt it was an improvement as it allows you to make customized templates. Which perhaps some people needed, but then they could just customize their basic setup (which they have to do with the new version as well). I really don’t see the reason, as it mucks up the maintenance for those of us who have multiple themes and allow users to switch. Which is less than 1% of all users, so I guess their way is better for modularizing the theme implementation.

This process involved my having to rework several designs and also some of the source files as the default template is now based off the Kubrik theme (which the WP folks seem to love). I wanted to have my old install and DB schema on hand so that I could quickly roll back, in case there were version issues related to the app server and db. My development system has more recent versions than my hosting provider has installed. And so I was concerned that some parts may not be functional due to deprecated features. While they did provide some instructions to do just what I needed, they actually didn’t cover everything, as particularly, the comments page and search results pages were horked until I could revise those pages. Finally, I think most everything is working/displaying correctly. Well, I noticed a few problems still, but they are fairly minor and I can work on them as I have more time later on this week.

I also didn’t like the fact that they store the admin dashboard entries in my db now (Why??!!?). I will look into disabling the dashboard, as I don’t see it as being useful at all. It sucks in the most recent posts from the dev blog on the WP site. If I need help from the dev blog I can go read itmyself thank you. All this negative stuff may make you wonder why I did the upgrade, well that is best answered with the recent stories about security issues with the older version. Basically, I had “patched” my version, but that was by disabling some features. So it was time I upgraded. And it is still free (other than my time) so it made sense… plus there are some new features I plan to use, like the new pages feature. Now WP is more of a content manager than just a blog app.