Enemy of Entropy

There are times when being graphic-impaired really does annoy me.

I’m finally moving forward with porting the Heartsong Handicrafts site to WordPress. It shouldn’t be a big deal. I’ve done the same many times before with other sites.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a logo. I mean, I have a simple logo, but it isn’t very good. It doesn’t sing, that’s for sure. I just want a nice, simple logo that isn’t terribly busy, but that doesn’t look (like the first attempt) as if I made it from clip-art and standard fonts. My utter and complete lack of drawing ability is a serious handicap in this endeavor.

I did sorta customize a WP theme to match the crappy logo, but that part is easy. The harder part is having something to give the site visual interest, and that doesn’t exist right now.

On the other hand, the cross-stitch patterns themselves involve graphics, so I don’t want things to get too busy. It’s a balancing act.

I may have to throw myself on Katie’s mercy, or something. She’s pretty busy, though, and prefers to draw whatever she feels like drawing rather than creating something to suit a particular theme.

I obediently updated to WordPress 2.5.1, and lost my Gravatars. I’ve checked the settings, and they’re still enabled. They’re definitely still in my templates, but nobody gets anything but the default “no gravatar” picture. Buh?

One of the neat things about WordPress 2.5 is that when a plugin that’s in the WordPress Plugin Directory is updated, you get a message asking if you want to download the new version or upgrade automatically. If you use the automatic option, WordPress downloads the new version, deletes the old one, unzips the downloaded file, and reactivates the plugin. It’s marvelously simple, compared to downloading, unzipping, deleting, uploading, and reactivating things manually. Until last night, it worked beautifully.

(Continue Reading …)

Since WordPress 2.5 has Gravatar support, I’m attempting to add Gravatars to my blog template. Unfortunately, I just keep getting errors, or a the default “no Gravatars” image (even for comment authors who I know have Gravatars, like me). I’m certain that the author of this template isn’t going to update it to include support, because her web site and business are up for sale. She hasn’t ever responded to questions in the past, either, so I figure it’s silly to look for help there.

I tried on another template, with the same errors. I really don’t want to switch themes again, because I couldn’t even start to remember everything I’ve customized in this one, and I’d rather not do it all over again. I’m annoyed, though. If anyone can help me, I’d appreciate it!

Update: Squee! They’re working now! The clue I needed was in a post at Weblog Tools Collection. Now I can try updating the other blogs!

Otherwise, Now Reading is working now, thanks to help from the author. I’m thrilled, as it’s one of my favorite plug-ins. When I get ReaderWare set up for us again, I’ll try to figure out a way to export data from it to NR.

Cystats is not working, though. I didn’t even realize that it was broken at first, because the error only shows up for users who aren’t logged in. Oddly enough, it works on some blogs that are running 2.5, but not this one. The author of that plug-in hasn’t responded to my questions, though. It might be due to a language barrier, as his blog is written in German. Now it’s working again, as randomly as it quit working. Why? Who knows? If you see an error on the site at any time, please comment and let me know!

I just realized that Livejournal Crosspost also died in the upgrade. Fortunately, there’s a fix described in the issues board at the development site that should make it work again.

Now I get to go back and see how many posts didn’t go to LJ, and try to fix that little omission.

Ack! I upgraded to the latest version of WordPress (2.5) yesterday, and now one of my favorite plug-ins (Now Reading) isn’t working! You can see the books I’m reading at the moment over there in the sidebar, and I can get into the administrative interface, but the library display doesn’t work. Any of the actual book or author pages come up 404. Meep!

It isn’t just on this blog, either—Fibrant Living has the same problem.

The WP administrative interface has been completely redesigned. I’m not sure what might have been changed behind the scenes, so I’m a little worried about trying to go back to the previous version.

I’ve posted messages in the plug-in author’s forum and bug tracker. I’m hoping to hear from him soon! Rob actually responded in the comments, and the new version resolved the problem. Yay!