Category: the blogosphere

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It seems to be working

This site now runs on WordPress. If you see anything that is broken, please let me know.

I’m still sorting out the archives at the moment, and there also seem to be some CSS issues which need fixing. Give me a few days and I’ll get there. I also need to sort out the comments template.

General comments:

  • install WP in the same directory as your blog if you want an easy life
  • the five minute install certainly works if you are starting a completely new blog – in fact, if you’re a little web-savvy, I reckon you could do it in four!
  • it is possible to run several blogs from one database using multiple installations of WP, in spite of what some of its detractors will tell you
  • the documentation isn’t bad at all
  • importing MT entries is a doddle
  • it’s free, and that has to be a good thing

Overall, I’d definitely recommend it. It took me about three hours to do the transfer from MT to WP, including revising the templates so that they look something like the site that you are used to.

UPDATE: I’ve been trying to get a gizmo going so that, if you should try to follow a link on another site that goes to the permalink for an old entry, you get pointed towards its new home. Unfortunately, it seems at the moment to point you to entirely the wrong entry. I am, as they say, working on it.

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Vaughan de Jour

Vaughan on the mystery of Belle de Jour.
I’ll be quite honest – I was quite fascinated by the Belle de Jour site. And, in a way, it has brought blogging even further into the mainstream, as the tabloids (and the broadsheets) get their fishnets in a twist over who may or may not be behind BdJ. I’m sure that it was the high quality of writing and insight into another mind that drew me to the site, and nothing to do with sexual depravity and voyeurism at all.
But now, I find the whole thing a little tiresome. The content at BdJ has veered towards embroilment in the whole "is she a she, or isn’t she, and who is she anyway?" thing, and has become quite tiresome. Some other blogs have become fairly tiresome on the subject, but that tiresomeness is fairly widespread in the blogging community right now. It reminds me of the whole Salam Pax thingy, a good weblog that was spoiled by people busying themselves with trying to unmask the author, rendering the whole thing …well, tiresome.
Thankfully, readers of this site have averted tiresomeness because your author has never made any secret of his identity, and I think that should be the model that all bloggers follow. It’s much more simple that way, and makes it easier for publishers to come running with their cheques for the book deal.
Doesn’t it?

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Blogdaddy

Oh yay! yay! and triple yay! Emma is back. Not that she ever really went away. She just wore high collars and dark glasses a lot.

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Like, um, lazy students.

Karen has an ongoing problem with lazy GCSE students cluttering her comments requesting analysis of the poems that she publishes on her site.
Grayblog, on the other hand, seems to attract business studies students seeking SWOT and PEST analyses for big-name companies like Waitrose and B&Q. And I don’t think that any of us will forget the large wads of moolah that was made from selling our CIM case study analysis.
Maybe I should set up a sideline doing some of these things? If only I had the time.