Archive for the “WebCommons Announcements” Category

I just wanted to let everyone know that the WebCommons site crashed yesterday due to some MySQL tables getting inexplicably locked. The restoration of the data has left some things a bit messy. I will attempt to clean up most of it today.

Of course, I don’t want anyone to think this is the final incarnation of the WebCommons site. It is really just a start of a new approach. In reality, all websites stay in flux, and what is here now is just the culmination of moving much of the old content from other WebCommons locations to this WordPress-based site.

But I really do want to know: What do you think, and how can I make this site better? What can I do better to explain what it is that WebCommons does? What information am I missing, except for a visual portfolio (I already have plans for reinstating that).

By the way, if readers of this site can’t easily figure out that WebCommons does programming for websites, and what that means for their web development needs, I’m in big trouble!

As part of the ongoing WebCommons site merger, I developed a new contact form.   I realize that this kind of development naturally doesn’t create a lot of excitement, but I think a lot of the power of the WordPress platform shines through with this example.

A contact form is one of those common things that a web programmer shouldn’t want to re-invent, so I went plugin shopping at the WordPress site and found a straightforward, well-ranked, WordPress 2.7-compatible plugin called Contact Form 7.   I was especially charmed that it had easy-to-setup CAPTCHA and Akismet support (great for stopping spammers!), and upon my initial testing of it, I was pleasantly surprised at how robust and straightforward the admin-side contact form management was.

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I just changed the WordPress setting that required registration here before commenting on a blog post or page.   However, entry of your name and e-mail address is required, and the first post by an individual will always be moderated.

I made this change because most blogs don’t seem to require registration before commenting, and spam blocking mechanisms in WordPress are pretty strong.   I also think this should actually encourage comments more, or so I hope.   It’s a convenience thing.

Now, please understand, I didn’t make this change to encourage anonymity, as I think everyone should stand behind their words.   So, any attempts to “play anonymous” by obfuscating or frequently changing one’s identity will be screened out.

At any rate, I do hope that regular commenters (once I have them) will choose to register.   It does make frequent commenting easier, and it allows the commenter to build a kind of identity that readers can tie from comment to comment.

On edit: I have shut off comments for this post, as I am under the impression that people are commenting for self-promotion purposes and not contributing much value.  Just being honest!

You may have noticed that this blog/site has been undergoing some structural changes, and you would be correct.

What’s going on is fairly straightforward — I am simply moving most of my content from my old WebCommons site as well as my resume into this WordPress-based blog, and scrapping the rest.   I am doing this for three reasons:

1. I wanted to streamline my updating of the content, and have it all be in essentially one place.   Now, considerably less programming or otherwise awkward intervention will be involved in adding/updating most content from now going forward.   The only exception will be when I want to add specially programmed content.
2. I wanted to learn more about how WordPress can be used as a content management system, including how plugins can be configured or altered, or templates created, to deliver special content features.   WordPress is increasingly looking like a very important platform for website development, and obvious for a web programmer like myself, I need to know it from top to bottom.
3. I wanted a demonstration project I can show potential clients what can be done with their (sometimes very static) existing websites and how much more powerful their sites can become, while not requiring as much attention from hired web programmers (and the expenses associated with that).   Imagine your company website that its owner or administrator (normally a non-programmer) can make most of the content updates to!

Of course, I’m not quite finished, so don’t judge, yet.     But if you’re interested, you get to watch three separate sites merge into one, and I will post about what I’m actually doing.