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Five Years Later

March 15, 2011 By

Yesterday was my blog’s 5th blogiversary. Can you believe I’ve been blogging for five whole years? Me neither. Here’s how far I’ve come since then.

Then: Single and alone
Now: Married with a Mister and a dog

Then: Working as an administrative assistant for Mad Scientist
Now: Working as a number cruncher for Big Company

Then: Trying to figure out what my next move in life should be
Now: Mister and I are trying to figure out what our next move in life should be

Then: Was a bit lonely as I had few real friends in this town
Now: Have a Mister and real life friends in Vegas and tons of online friends

Then: Didn’t know html from my elbow
Now: Can figure out html, css, and have even touched (just barely) php

Then: Ate mostly pasta
Now: Still a picky eater but have expanded my palate – though it still doesn’t include sushi

Then: Had a free blog on Blogger
Now: Self-hosted on WordPress

Then: 29 years old
Now: 29 years old (some things never change!)

Filed Under: Blogaholic, My Blog

Technical Foul

March 1, 2011 By

Ever since I upgraded my blog, I’ve been having a little issue with posting. It goes a little something like this:

Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /home/kirstenl/public_html/wp-includes/post-template.php:54) in /home/kirstenl/public_html/wp-includes/pluggable.php on line 890

My post still gets published, but I get this error message and have to back out of it then look at my front page to be sure it went. This also happens if I edit a post. To avoid it, I schedule posts in advance (even if just a few hours) because I don’t like seeing it.

I Googled the error to see if I could find a fix, and found a bit of conflicting information. But I tried all the ones that made sense to me. The only one I’m having trouble with is editing the file. I use Notepad, and I adjusted the settings on there to get my line numbers, but I still can’t find the proper line to edit – probably because I don’t have proper programming geek software. I’ve been lazy about reaching out to see if someone else can help me, so this is where I do that (Jordon? Ben? Anyone?) Help would be very much appreciated!

In other news, there’s my phone. Before our vacation last year, Mister and I went to the cell phone store to upgrade mine. I was dying to get a smartphone, and had my eyes on a particular Android model, which is what I ended up with.

This particular mode, I found out later, has SD card issues. Trying to use the camera has been frustrating, because I’d get a message telling me to insert the SD card. I’d end up having to shut the phone down and restart it, which doesn’t bode well for impromptu pictures, and we all know that’s what having a camera phone is all about.

A few weeks ago, I was keeping updated on Twitter when the app crashed and froze up my phone. I couldn’t do anything with it (and yes, I tried for about half an hour do do something). I couldn’t even power the phone down. So I did the only other thing I could think of – I pulled the battery. I reinserted, started the phone, and all was fine. Almost.

My SD card won’t format now. I get a message that says, “SD card blank or has unsupported file system.” Again, I Googled the message and found a few forums with suggestions. None seem to work. I even did a factory reset, but that didn’t work either and I figure that if that didn’t do it, then the file that accepts the SD card is permanently hosed. So, no camera phone for me. It’s like living in the olden days. Not only can I not take pictures, now I can’t even view them if someone sends me one. I have to email it to myself, which is the only thing that works, to see it bigger than the 1-inch preview. I’m eligible for an upgrade in April 2012, so unless a bundle of cash comes my way, I have to wait until then for my phone to be fully operational.

I don’t usually have such major technical issues, and when I do, Googling the error message usually helps me solve the problem. But these two have me perplexed and frustrated. Any ideas?

Filed Under: I Like Things, My Blog

New Look!

December 22, 2010 By

I spent some time on this the other night, and I have my new theme active! For those using a feed reader, click through to see.

It still has some work to do, some fine-tuning to get it exactly the way I like, but overall I like it. It’s the StudioPress Pixel Happy theme. It was the closest thing I could find to what I wanted, and was close to perfect right out of the box. As I said, it still needs some minor tweaks, but we’ll get there. Though the basics of CSS and HTML don’t change, every theme is different when it comes to how it’s written. I got very comfortable with my old theme, and now I have to learn this stuff all over again – or so it seems. It will get done as time and motivation allow.

I’d really like a new header image, perhaps something with a proper logo, but the old one is as good as it gets for now. It helps give the blog some continuity through all the changes. I do really like the default turquoise color, and while I didn’t like them when I first started seeing them, I really like that I have a bottom bar. This will allow me to keep my sidebars a bit cleaner. I even have social media icons, because, like, everyone has them, and threaded comments.

There’s also the work I mentioned earlier when I first talked about freshening up around here. My blogroll and categories are tops on my list of things that need a major overhaul. Those are both the kind of time consuming tasks that I need to start at 8am and work until midnight, otherwise I lose momentum and it’s not the kind of job you want to leave half-finished.

Anyway, I hope you like the new theme. If you notice anything weird with it, please let me know and I’ll try to figure it out.

Filed Under: My Blog

Improvements

December 12, 2010 By

Ok, so you don’t notice anything on your end, but I swear, there have been major changes here at the old blog.

For starters, I now have a new blog host. I decided to switch to GreenGeeks for a number of reasons. One, their prices rock. They guarantee 99.9% uptime and they are based in North America. Also? They transferred all my files, so I didn’t have to do the hard part. All I had to do, once they were done, was swap the DNS servers on my domain.

Also, since I am now at a new host, I upgraded to the latest version of WordPress. This means that I was also able to update all my plugins. My previous host (a private host) insisted on doing all upgrades themselves, and as a result, didn’t. Now I can do all that myself. I can also install the plugins I want (another thing discouraged by my previous host) and get rid of the ones I don’t. And the biggest thing, since I am now in total control, I can get a new theme! You don’t see it yet, I still have a lot of work to do on it, but it’s installed. The one I wanted required a later version of WordPress than I had, so all I could do in the past was visit the demo and stare lovingly at it. I’m not going to tell you what it is just yet, because I want you to be surprised. I may have to put my blog in maintenance mode while I get it all figured out, so I’ll try to work on that when I have more time, most likely over the New Year’s holiday.

So with all the back-end changes going on, I also plan on making a few other changes to my blog. I’ve already started a bit, but I have way more work to do on it. I am in the process of refining and consolidating my categories, to make them fit the theme of ME a bit more. I also have a few more tweaks to make, and they will get done as I have time to do them.

Please bear with me as I work through all this. My new theme is set up way different from the old one, and I need to read the forums and figure out how to make it do what I want, so it’s going to take me awhile. Posting will be slim here (the holidays don’t help much with that, either) but I promise, it will all be worth it in the end.

Filed Under: My Blog

Freshen Up

December 8, 2010 By

You’ve probably noticed that I haven’t posted much lately.

Don’t you hate it when people start posts like that? So do I. But there’s a good reason for it.

I’m going to do a bit of freshening up around here at the old blog. Most of it is behind the scenes, but when all is said and done, you will see a nice, shiney new theme. I’ve had the current one for almost 3 years, and it’s high time I got something newer and fresher. Also on my list (it’s been on my list for awhile) is to consolidate and simplify my categories, which I’ve already started, but with nearly 700 posts, it’s a daunting task. Oh, and I’d like to revamp my blogroll. I haven’t done that in a few years either.

That’s basically it. Anyone who’s ever done back end stuff on their blog knows how time consuming it can be. I don’t have a projected completion date for all this, and I will try to post periodically throughout, but I would like to be done all this for the new year.

So please bear with me as I work through this stuff. I’m hoping there won’t be any downtime on the blog, but if there is I hope it’s quick. Also, I’ll be taking breaks to celebrate the holly-daze by watching holiday movies, wrap and ship presents (shopping is done, hooray!) and other stuff that gets done at this time of year.

Oh, and I’m still trying to properly potty train my dog. Anyone who’s ever done that knows that you need to keep one eye on the dog at all times to prevent unwanted elimination, and it’s been hard to concentrate on all the not blogging I’ve been doing.

Yeah.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Filed Under: My Blog