VirusHead

I’ve added a new feature to the sidebar. It now generates a random thumbnail from the VirusHead Photo Gallery. Of course, that puts a little more pressure on me to take some photos, but that’s a good thing. I’ve been remiss for several months.

It took a little work to get the thing working right. Initially, the thumbnails refused to refresh and I had to mess around with some changes to the image generator.

All is well now, though, so you can enjoy a range of photos of my (extended) family, friends, trips, flora, fauna, skyscapes and whatever else happens to be there.

I’ve been trying to troubleshoot to find out what is making the blog take so long to load. In the process, I’ve been updating and optimizing the new design. Here’s what’s new:

• Imported the tag database from the Simple Tags Plug-in to the new native tags function of WordPress 2.3, deactivated the old plugin, and implemented the new Tag format in the template file.
• Installed the Technorati Tags and Related Posts for WordPress 2.3, and implemented them. Got rid of the old Related Posts plug I was using.
• Added the new sidebar code from Techorati.
• Got rid of the users online code that I was using and installed the Users Online plugin. Added a page so that you can how many guests, users and bots are on the blog.
• Updated the Text Links code, and added a “Feedvertise here” button on the sidebar.
• Deactivated the Twitter plugin, which doesn’t work with WordPress 2.3 and has not yet been updated.
• Deactivated the WP-Amazon plugin, which really really needs to be updated (get on that!). Also took off the context-sensitive ad because it was slowing things down.
• Deleted the Sociable plugin, since I prefer the AddThis Bookmark code.
• Deleted WP-PostRatings, just because it seems a bit silly.
• Deleted the Kill Preview plugin because the new version of WordPress doesn’t need it.
• Updated the All in One SEO pack plugin.
• Updated the WP-DB-Backup plugin.

Still to do

• See if there are updated options at Amazon.com.
• Find out when the Twitter update is expected.
• Change the styling of the “VirusHead” text header at the top of the left-hand column. I don’t like it.
• Research new anti-spam options. If nothing looks very good, consider updating Peter’s Custom Anti-Spam, and trying it again. I haven’t used it in a while, but I’m getting some leaks over Akismet again.
• Look at the css stylesheet and figure out why all the links are suddenly underlined. I want them bold in the post, and unstyled in the sidebar.
• Get rid of the space before the Related Posts are listed. It’s not in the template, so check the php file.

Any other suggestions? Is anyone still getting a script error?