WELL COMBE

typed for your pleasure on 13 December 2006, at 12.01 am

Sdtrk: ‘Panic’ by the Smiths

Hallo there! So d’ye like what I’ve done with the place?

You are looking at the sum total of a week’s worth of work, give or take a couple of days. Many, many thanks are due to MontiLee, aka Penda of the Diner, for helping me set up my WordPress account and getting me well on my way to true Mania. She’s been working with (and sometimes struggling against) WordPress for a number of years now, so she knows what she’s doing. Or, at the very least, gives an air of knowing what she’s doing. I owe you a dinner, babe!

So! Allow me to take a moment to point out the sassy new features of ‘Shouting etc etc Mk II’:

+ Note the picture behind the header at the top of the site? Jamming repeatedly on your keyboard’s F5 button will swap out the pic with various other Davecat-related pics. Synthetiks? Tiny Sixties Euromobiles? Err… Synthetiks? Test your luck with the Magickal Incredible F5 button!

+ CATEGORIES, baby; sexy categories. Makes looking for posts on assorted topics oh so much easier. Each category, if you’re perplexed, has descriptions that pop up if you hover your pointer over them. And if you absolutely can’t find what you’re looking for, there’s a Search function just below them. And unlike the search engine in this blog’s previous incarnation, this one actually works

+ A larger typeface, cos the micro-style one of the previous blog was getting on my wick

+ Century Gothic! Cos unfortunately, most people don’t have the font ‘Futura T’ installed on their computers

+ (Slightly) Larger pictures

+ (Ab)use of the ‘Open link in new window’ function. Now see, personally, since I’m clever enough to use Firefox, I just open a lot of links in separate tabs for later inspection, cos that’s much better than having a herd of windows fighting for space on your desktop. We’ll see if I continue to use that or not…

Also, I’m no longer with YouTube! Well, I’m no longer hosting videos there, as they’re afraid of artificial humans, apparently. So my lovely Synthetik partner Shi-chan is taking the reins, and hosting the clips over at Dailymotion.com. As they’re based out of Europe, they don’t have any problems with seeing bOObs at all, so you can now view what got YouTube into an apoplectic fit by clicking on the ‘Synthetiks videos’ button just beneath the header. Easy peasy!
The move to WordPress still has some bugs to be ironed out, however:

+ So far, I can’t get all your lovely HaloScan comments to import. I’ve got them saved, thankfully, but so far, I’m at a loss Finally done with that particular task, praise “Bob”

+ As far as the links, I still have to indent them properly and place them in the order that I desire

+ Really, everything in that sidebar needs to be indented

+ I require clever little icons for each category, cos I’m anal particular like that

+ Getting descriptive text next to each link in the Synthetik companion types category, just like in ‘Shouting etc etc Mk I’

+ Gravatars need to be implemented again. Of course, it would help greatly if Gravatar’s servers didn’t crash if you merely thought of them. For fuck’s sake, people; really.

So if anyone out there has any formidable WordPress skillz, do let me know, cos I’d greatly appreciate the help, as those Codexes can be intimidating sometimes. In the meantime, ‘Shouting etc etc Mk II’ will be a work in progress. Hopefully that path of progress won’t be too lengthy, but won’t you take my hand, so we can walk it… together?

Random similar posts, for more timewasting:

Grrr on August 30th, 2005

HELLO I AM BACK on September 13th, 2009

7 have spoken to “WELL COMBE”

  1. MontiLee writes:

    I’ve got your Category Icon plugin downloaded. Gravatars are easy enough and I have a plugin for that too. Gimme a bit to not feel so damned tired and I’ll get all of those over to you.

    And I owe you dinner first.

  2. PBShelley writes:

    Congratulations DC, and a tip o’ the hat to Penda for the assist! Things look very promising indeed!

    New toyz for Christmas, how cool is that? Will be checking out the linkees as well. Hopefully you can get Gravatar up and working; everything looks like… well, nude, y’know.

    Not that there’s anything wrong with that 😛

    Happies to ya!

    PBS, Lily, & Eden

  3. SafeTinspector writes:

    Sweet! Tell me about the header pics. Are they random? Manual? Change daily? I love the one up there now (two frustrated fellows wrestling with a 1970’s-era mainframe)

  4. Camilla writes:

    nice work Davecat. i love the random pics! 🙂

  5. Davecat writes:

    Camilla –
    Thanks very much! 🙂

    SafeT
    The header pics are random, thanks to a very simple WP plugin, the link to which I cannot find right now. They change as often as you strike your F5 key! At the present time, there’s, errm, ten header pics, and I intent to add more, but that size is so restrictive… Remind me, and I’ll send you the full pic of those Seventies-era computer boffins.

    PBS and everyone else –
    Yeah, I know what you mean about the Gravatars; I’ll definitely require Monti’s help on that’un. But then, Gravatar lately has been as fragile as glass — right now they’re ‘creating new server architecture’, which they’ve been working on for weeks. I think Gravatar’s problem was that they didn’t expect it to be as popular as it was, and didn’t expect the massive load on their servers. Companies like that usually never do. :-\

    Monti
    As always, I am in your debt. 🙂 But we gotta start keeping a dedicated dinner tally scorecard, as it’s beginning to get confusing. Why can’t these dinners pay for themselves??

  6. Ray Rentell writes:

    Hey DC

    Definitely approve of the move.
    I do not need a magnifying glass to read the erudite , amusing and downright SHOCKING words you keep on stringing together so well for all our entertainment and furtherance of the human condition.
    Well, some of its BS but the type I enjoy.[ smiling behind hand , tee hee ]

    Trust you and Shi-chan are enjoying the holidays, I know I am … no W..K [dirty word ]for ten whole days.

    As for the track the senses are using at the moment .. Roxy Music … Re make/Re-model which would appear to be apt.

    Being a sad old git I have never heard of most of the stuff you put up, I will never understand you young kids and there tastes … Wheeze, cough, splutter.
    Was not like this in my days !

    From Disgusted of Swindon …. Nah … its Rentell really or it was the last time I looked.

    Keep it up and the writing as well, thanks for stirring up the grey sludge in my head for so long.

    BIG kiss …. by for now.

  7. Davecat writes:

    Hey Rentell –
    Good to see you (after a fashion) again! And glad to see you approve of the move!

    Shocking? BS?? ssshh, keep it down sir, otherwise everyone will see me for the horrible writing fraud that I am. The Emperor has no clothes! etc etc

    Y’know, I’ve not heard any Roxy music, apart from ‘Love is the drug’. They are, however, on the list of Bands to Hear and Investigate. Problem is, it’s a long fecking list…

    Sweetie and I are making the most of our holidays! Well, we’re trying. Since I just started my (relatively) new job, I’m still w**king straight through most days, but at least there’s Christmas and New years to be savoured. All that’s easier when you have a Doll to come home to, though. But you know that. 🙂

    Tell Ren, Betty, Kukoki, Aiko, Rachel, Matilda… err, George… Ringo… all of your lasses, you bloody well know who I’m talking about — do send them our regards, keep up the glamour-shoot quality photos (you’re one of the reasons I’ve not done as many shoots recently — how’m I supposed to compete with you??) and don’t be a strange!
    ‘Stranger’, I mean. 🙂

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