This Blog is Back: Trimmed the Fat and Switched to a New Dress
Some of you may have passed by and noticed the huge “Under Maintenance” sign that I had put up on this blog yesterday. I decided to ditch the old template and use the new release that Flexibility Themes had made for WordPress 2.7!
blog's upgraded look
My primary goal for putting down the blog was to troubleshoot the cause of this blog’s slowdown even if I have those WP Super Cache and WP Widget Cache installed. It turned out that the problem was on one or more of those activated plugins. I was not able to pinpoint which plugins caused the slowdown: what I did was to deactivate those unused ones.
Along with that downtime, I decided to switch the template to the new newest release from its developer. The recent release is now made for WordPress 2.7, and what’s cool about it is that threaded comments is supported. I’ve been using WordPress thread comments plugin to “force” the previous layout to support threaded comments. This time I enabled the built-in option of using threaded comments and I was pleased that the previous threaded conversations still work. That’s one less plugin that might have caused the slowdown of this blog!
One small problem on this theme is that the image captions on the grey background that envelopes the whole image does not work. That’s also the case in the older version. I was hoping this issue was resolved in the new version, but it was not.
images should have looked like this
I would like to solve this issue, but I don’t know where to look on this part of the template yet. So far, I’ve isolated this already as a template problem.
Anyway, I see this as a minor issue and I’m using this template for free! If you have any idea on how to proceed on this (I know CSS and HTML and I can trace PHP code), please let me know.
The template change might not be too obvious but it was quite a lot of work for me. The navigation bar is now at the top of the site and I’ve used a darker blue color for the header. I’ve also used a combination of different colors that don’t clash – I was able to make those blue, red and yellow colors work together. My own comments are now highlighted with a light yellow color. Those additional colors puts some more spice away from the conventional blue color of most technology sites.
At the backend of this site, I’ve deactivated “heavy” plugins in favor of those that are compatible with the current version of WordPress. I have also decided to use a different set of anti-spam plugins: WP Spamfree and Bad Behavior to replace the three plugins that I’ve previously used together – Akismet, Simple Trackback Validation and Cookies for Comments. So far, it looked like the usual spam comments and the ones that put links on their blogs don’t go to the spam queue anymore: these are automatically deleted.
I am done putting up the most essential parts of this template and over a few days, I’ll be fixing all the minor changes that I still need to do.
Jaypee
February 5th, 2009 at 8:57 am #
Nice new theme! Looks great! Definitely much better than the previous one. Good job with the customization.
Btw, I never had any problems with the combination of Akismet, Simple Trackback Validation and Cookies for Comments. I’ve been using them for a long time now and it was after using these combo that my spam problem became non-existent.
Anyways, whatever works for you is best. Right?
Jaypee´s last blog post..Free Antivirus Software
Gennaro
February 5th, 2009 at 12:00 pm #
I like the new look. Clean and crisp.
Gennaro´s last blog post..Venice Carnival: Masks And Malvasia
Snow
February 5th, 2009 at 12:33 pm #
same here genaro. the looks is very classy. i wish mine is like that
Snow´s last blog post..The Curious Case of Mang Meliton Zamora
Gem
February 5th, 2009 at 1:08 pm #
I had some minor problems with that STBV and CFC. My own comments end up as spam by CFC. Also, some valid trackbacks end up as spam too by STBV. I find it quite funny to be manually approving my own comments.
I like trying new things. I hope this combination is a better one.
Calvin
February 5th, 2009 at 1:26 pm #
yung sa image problem try looking for .wp-caption sa style.css mo.
Calvin´s last blog post..Jenisis Samoranos made it through Round 1 of Hollywood Week
Michael Aulia
February 5th, 2009 at 9:02 pm #
Nice look and feel
By the way, you might want to try AntiSpam Bee plug-in. I have a review about it here and currently using it. It’s very lightweight and I have zero spam now (I don’t even need to use Akismet at all). Highly recommended
Michael Aulia´s last blog post..Mozilla Firefox 3.0.6 update
MArites
February 5th, 2009 at 10:01 pm #
nice new look you got here, Gem:)
misty
February 5th, 2009 at 11:44 pm #
I can’t relate Gem, Im so dumb at these stuff hehehe..
misty´s last blog post..Pasta with Turkey meat Ball
|1f34|-|1r3
February 6th, 2009 at 4:29 am #
love this blog theme…great work..i’ll try to look into the codes for your problem…you might want to check Calvin’s comment…usually the problem was there…
|1f34|-|1r3´s last blog post..How to send a fake email to your friends
Gem
February 6th, 2009 at 6:24 am #
In reality, there are a lot of self-hosted WordPress users who aren’t really into the technical details of WordPress. They usually hire someone to setup the more intricate parts of the blog. My guess is, more than half of this blog’s regular visitors are not really well versed in WordPress.
betchai
February 6th, 2009 at 7:45 am #
wow, love your new blog’s theme Gem, actually, I went to your site this morning and it did not load at all, but this afternoon, it load okay. hope all your transition and cleaning up will go well.
betchai´s last blog post..San Diego Zoo ( part 2)
Gem
February 6th, 2009 at 7:59 am #
It didn’t load? Maybe it was a temporary downtime, I have this blog online more than a day ago. Thanks for liking this theme.
BioTecK
February 6th, 2009 at 2:44 pm #
A very nice theme!
I really which I had some time to switch/modify a new theme!
bloggista
February 6th, 2009 at 7:13 pm #
ma try nga ang threaded comment. Hope this works! Hehehe.
I really like the Flexibility themes. Aside from being premium quality, the links, or should I see, footer links points only to one site.
Have you tried making the images aligning to the left automatically and the texts just flow around the image even without putting that align=left tag? Admittedly until now its my problem. I can’t make images float to the left of the text without putting the align=left tag, even if I check the radio button during upload to have it left justified.
Worse, even if I put the align-left tag, if the image has a caption, it wont still float to the left. Any idea?
bloggista´s last blog post..$48-M mosque donated by Brunei ruler rises in Mindanao [del.icio.us]
Bryan Karl
February 7th, 2009 at 8:54 am #
I love the way how your blog looks — this one and the previous template. Very classy…
Frenchy
February 7th, 2009 at 10:46 am #
This one looks a ways better than before. Nice idea of putting the nav menu on top and adding little colors on the theme. That footer widgets look cool as well.
Cheers!
Gem
February 7th, 2009 at 3:27 pm #
Many people always tell me that I am fond of classy templates. Now I’m thinking of diversifying my interests.
berryblitz
February 7th, 2009 at 4:26 pm #
nice work!!!
well yung blog ko, mabagal hahaha
berryblitz´s last blog post..Egg Drawing #20090126
Gem
February 7th, 2009 at 7:14 pm #
Kahit yung PTC blog ko mabagal rin. Dahil sa performancing ads kasi.
Cesar Noel
February 7th, 2009 at 7:58 pm #
Well pinagpuyatan mong ayusin to it’s a good thing is back online.
Cesar Noel´s last blog post..50 Very Useful PHP Tools