BLOGGING: Update on the move

Posted on February 8, 2009 by susan

Was easily able to fix the missing logo (not visible in Windows) by sending the image to a PC and then uploading it into the header from there. Of course I rushed back to the Mac half-expecting to see it disappear but it was intact. Don’t know why it didn’t originally show up on a pc or more likely the case, in an IE browser, but the problem is solved regardless.

While I was in there I also changed the font size in the body, enlarging it from 62.5% to 75% 70% to make it more readable. I suppose I shouldn’t mess directly on the CSS of the theme but there’s likely an original in the K2 folder on the hard drive if I go too far wrong. Besides, it’s too late by this time to either make a duplicate file or even a copy.

Still working on the problem of redirecting external links and searches directly from Typepad to WordPress blogs so that I can pull the plug on the old Spinning and Hypercompendia versions. Not really worried about Google, et al, but I’d like to graciously make it easy for those who so kindly linked to the weblogs or particular entries or categories so their links don’t end up at 401 pages.

Working on a logo for Hypercompendia. Also want to get those little ‘blog’ ‘about’ and ‘books’ links out of the logos here and there since they show up in the sidebar anyway–they’re really just another link to any pages created.

There are a few more things to upload here but I need to find the best way to enter them and where they should live.

Not totally happy with the typeface; still like Georgia and will likely fiddle with that at some point soon.

This has been a two-week effort and learning experience and I’m determined to be more creative and active with the inner workings of the sites so that I don’t so easily forget all the intricacies of stylesheets and codes. There’s so much I don’t know still but just feeling a bit more comfortable about playing with it is key to learning more.

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BLOGGING: Antisocial Networking

Posted on February 8, 2009 by susan

While it seems a conflicting term, it is the result of technology banging heads with individual need; perhaps the fact that while innovation may serve the whole in purpose, it does not necessarily need to be limited to that purpose. For example, to use a social networking service as a place for notes, reminders, schemes.

In other words, I was able to set up a twitter account where no one will find me.

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LITERATURE: Book Hunter – Organizer Application

Posted on February 7, 2009 by susan

Found this somewhere on the web this morning on the newsfeed (likely from MacUpdates) and ended up downloading it myself to perhaps try it out and see if it’s a decent organizer of my reading. It’s called Book Hunter, downloaded here, and they seem to have software available for DVDs and games as well. So far, it seems kinda neat, and quite sophisticated for a freebie. Here’s a shot of the main page where the total inventory can be cataloged and sorted:

0200709l

While I’ve just started playing with it a couple of minutes ago, it appears that there’s quite a bit of information that can be kept in this application. Besides the publication data and an image of the book, there is a place to put in links and I’m sure that I can link to Amazon, or even my own reviews of the book on Spinning. Here’s another screenshot of just one of four menus to fill out on each book:

020709l2This may keep me busy for a while.

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BLOGGING: As a journal of technical technique

Posted on February 7, 2009 by susan

I’ve pretty much been told to twut-up on twitter as I was loading someone’s twit-roll with my constant tweets.  I completely understand; the more folks you’re following the more likely it is that you won’t see all the latest from everyone without going back a-ways or you’re just ignoring them anyway. As must be the case with those who are listing hundreds or thousands of little friends and are interested in numbers–not people.

On the other hand, it was a method I used to keep track of the moves from Typepad to WordPress, and those extras on top of my rants, one-liner poetry, and other just-gotta-tell-ya’s, I suppose I was cluttering up some folks’ pages. So it’s either back to the copybook method of noting changes–I have the first notes from ’97 when I built a computer–or making note of some of the things done here at my own site where I am free to unravel. Meanwhile, my literature comrades are waiting for me to get over this and get back to lit postings.

What I might do, since twitter did serve me well in this function, is open another twitter account under an alias that no one else knows about. It might not be possible without making up another email address; I believe I ran into that problem before.

While pointing out my twitter-hogging has been a legitimate complaint in the pros and cons of social networking, it just seems that having to go back to the old ways is such a copout when so much internet communication is available and growing. The other possibility is to risk losing readers and that’s an option that’s out of my hands.

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BLOGGING: Oopsie!

Posted on February 7, 2009 by susan

It appears that my nifty new logo disappears on the site if using IE as a browser. I wouldn’t have known except that I luckily have other pcs in the house and was using one of them.

I’ll try to fix this, but in the meantime, use your imagination.

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BLOGGING: Some Notes

Posted on February 6, 2009 by susan

While I like WordPress, it seems a whole lot slower than Typepad to get to the posting page and even to load the sites. Maybe it’s just a temporary quirk.

One thing from the move that’s helped already is the downloading all the images from the old sites onto files in my hard drive, and the way I have the photos set up: filed my year folders in my “Spinning” file, then each image was renamed by date and category of the post in which it appeared. While some image names were much more valuable identifiers, many of them were screenshots and named that way. They show up now as images with the date below so a quick scan of the file can usually help in spotting the image I’m looking for, and the image name tells me where it is on the site. From there it’s easy to go to the archives and as I’ve done in the post this morning at Hypercompedia, find the permalink to add. Very often it’s the image that comes to mind rather than a time period or a title.

Or maybe I’m just reaching to make myself feel better about three or four days’ work in manually moving those images!

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BLOGGING: A Neat WordPress Thing

Posted on February 6, 2009 by susan

Typepad recently upgraded and changed their post entry form and between that, merging a writing class weblog into Spinning, and my own dopeyness, a few of the posts here are listed as uncategorized. Real easy to make the change with WordPress. While in the Dashboard, pulling up the category file of “uncategorized” brings us to a listing on the actual site and it is relatively easy to make a change and repost. Though TP had features to do this, it seemed a bit more complicated and so I left things as they were.

Getting used to WP and basically I’m happy with the switch though there are still loads of tweaks and maneuverings to handle. It’s only been about ten days of intensive, dedicated involvement in the changeover but that was mainly because I had to figure out a lot of this stuff by myself or spend hours and days seeking answers. If you haven’t worked on the “inside” of a site for a while, and you don’t know more than what you’ve ever done, it all takes time. Hopefully I’ve learned a lot of new things along with relearning the old and will keep up the knowledge as I move along.

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WRITING: New Directions

Posted on February 6, 2009 by susan

Finally forced a friend to read one of my latest stories and judging by the response, I think it can just go in the file.

Been scan-reading some of the 5000-plus posts as I’ve been putting in the images and making all the necessary tweaks required by the move from Typepad to WordPress and it seems that in some ways I’ve lost a part of me in the voice. There is a freshness to the old posts, an honesty. Even as there is an improvement in the overall style and language, something is missing from my writing now.

What I’ve noticed is a lot of poetry–a lot of poetry–in the early postings. While I haven’t gotten a great response to my poems, though I’ve a couple published, I’m also taking into consideration that I don’t get a lot of response or encouragement to my writing from those who know me and have come to depend more upon new readers for a reaction. There is a distancing in online writing–weblogs, social services such as Twitter, MySpace, Facebook–that build that fourth wall of artistic separation, turning readers into an audience. And when you’re sitting in a crowd, the actor doesn’t know you’re there and not applauding.

So on to reading literature that spurs my instincts rather than just reading for the sake of it. That, and drawing in the circle a bit tighter.

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BLOGGING & TECHNOLOGY: Large File Uploads

Posted on February 5, 2009 by susan

Just a note because I’m sure I’ll need this information long after I’ve forgotten how to do it.

When uploading a large file, i.e., media, and WordPress uploads gives a 2M limit, upload directly via Lunar’s cPanel into wp-content/uploads/2009/12 (or whatever year and month)

To upload it into a post, upload via the URL with the https://www.susangibb.net/(etc.)

I’m duplicating this post in Hypercompendia because I’ll likely need it there more often than here with audio, video, flash, etc. files.

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BLOGGING: Technorati

Posted on February 3, 2009 by susan

There really should be an easy way for a weblog or any site to get into Technorati or Google or Yahoo or whoever and be able to make the redirect of a moved site right there. Anyway, I have to enter this for Technorati:

Technorati Profile

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BLOGGING: Software for downloading Images

Posted on February 3, 2009 by susan

Wow, this program, Hyperimage, might do it in one fell swoop; grab all the images from a website and download them onto your hard drive. However, the one bad thing is that it still would not be easy to pick and choose them to reinsert them into the proper posts here at WordPress. While it saves time on the one end, on the other, as I pull them off individually I rename them to the post date and category so I’m sure they’re going into the right spots, and they’re filed in a year/month (if necessary) manner. However, if it retained Typepad’s file path structure intact, it might be a case of just taking off the .html and uploading them to WP.

Might be worth a try on the demo.

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BLOGGING: Redirect

Posted on February 3, 2009 by susan

I think I have the redirect thing figured out, though I’m not going to touch it again until I have all the image files and their new permalinks moved here which should take another day or two. Remember, there are over 5000 entries on Spinning since October of 2003, and now that I’m going through them quickly, I’m glad I saved them and didn’t start a new identity. I wrote so much more honestly then.

On the permalink issue, WordPress configuration made the switch on the post permalinks but not the images or the external links. So the images I’m taking care of manually. The redirect from Typepad to WordPress, however, needs to be done on the Typepad site so that once it’s gone, the links will come out as a 301 redirect rather than a blank page. I have some code and a Movable Type template made up already for the redirect but just have to figure out where to stick it and I don’t want to mess with anything until I’ve gotten all the images and links transferred over completely.

Also learned something else here; while I do want to eventually move the published by, etc /comments/ line from under the post title to below the post, I really need to put in an extra blank line at the end of each post here to separate them out more clearly. Like this: (which didn’t work so maybe I’ll add a <br> in the html version)

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BLOGGING: “Still is still movin’ to me…”

Posted on February 3, 2009 by susan

I believe that’s on Willie’s Teatro cd, and I’m feelin’ it today as I scan the posts on the Typepad Spinning weblog looking for images. I’m still back in 2004–not a good year–and it’s a hurricane of emotions that I don’t even recognize always as me.

The writing is better than I write now; at least in the entries on reality. Yet I think my fiction has improved over the past five years. It’s hard to discern the difference in the person and yet as I see this author slowly open up, it seems that as one reaches for the pearl, the oyster now clamps shut.

Have I said all I wanted to say, then? Should I have ended it there?

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REALITY: The Past via a Weblog

Posted on February 3, 2009 by susan

cowboysIn going through the old Spinning posts to collect images, I find a different, a happier me that started writing daily in 2003. There are good memories and bad. I’m not sure how to take this trip.

But I found this, an image of my older sister and myself in a trouble-free time when kids get over hurts and heal more quickly.

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BLOGGING: Transferring Images

Posted on February 2, 2009 by susan

Well, there were quite a few ways to solve problem #2, that of moving the images from the Typepad blogs over to the WordPress sites, none of which were easy.

Since Typepad makes it impossible to export just the image files, which I could then save, and import into similarly named files, I really have to pull them out one by one. The problem with my images were also that so many of them are named “screen-capture.jpg” that I don’t know what would end up where, even if I did manage to organize the file structure the same and then change the permalinks to them.

What I’ve found to be the easiest then is to go through the weblog online (not through the post list since that reverts back to the first page) or I could do it through the export.txt file created during the export. Then I click the image and save the image as a jpg on my hard drive in a folder by year under the appropriate weblog. I’ve also come up with a system of making sure they’re going into the right post by renaming the images with the date and category: 020208nm.jpg would be February 2, 2008, New Media.

It’s going to take quite a while, but I already have January 2009 files done for both, and 2008 for Hypercompendia which has more images than Spinning on an annual basis, though Spinning’s been alive three or four years longer.

Still, I won’t be blogging at the Typepad sites anymore, continuing on here and hoping that everyone is willing to change any links they have to my old sites and in particular, links to particular entries.

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