Category Archives: Site Updates

And It Is Done

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“Garretspage.com” has now completely moved to GarretEvans.com. So far it looks exactly the same but don’t let that fool you; some of the guts inside have changed (which has given me an extra $5-6 a month to spend).

Update your bookmarks if you please, but if you don’t no worries, the old URL should begin forwarding you here shortly.

Edit: I took some time this afternoon to go through and make sure all of the image links are working correctly. For the first 34 pages or so of the blog everything should be fine, but after that it all goes to hell So if you really want to see that picture from 2007 and can’t, I’m sorry.

Not That Anyone Is Even Here, But…

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In the next couple of days I will be attempting to transfer this domain over to a new hosting plan. What you can expect from that is some possible downtime to the site, which will be devastating to some people (read: no one).

I’ve also purchased the domain garretevans.com, which to me sounds more appropriate in this crazy Web 2.0 world than garretspage.com. Although in the end, either one of those URLs that you type in will get you to the same place. I just figure that since all of the hip people have their own name as a .com I needed one too.

The benefit of moving this all around (outside of the new name) is that I will be consolidating three hosting payments into one, for a total savings per year of something like $100, which I will quickly turn around and buy LOADS of ice cream with. If I can get this site up and running well, I plan on moving Pressed & Bound over as well, as it has a similar plan set up as this site does.

I’m hoping that none of my files get lost and that all of the links will still work, but I can’t really guarantee anything, so if it all breaks I’m sorry, we’ll just have to deal with it together.

I’ll see you on the other side.

Angersauce

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My Amazon Showcase widget broke. It was the widget to the right that showed what I was currently reading. I really liked the flexibility of the widget (you could change the size of the image, as well as what actually displays for text), but they recently updated the widget with something that can only be work-in-progess, as it doesn’t actually work now.

Basically what the program does, for the unawares, is pull an image from Amazon if you supply it with the ISBN number. Simple enough; or it should be. Before, it would work without a hitch. I had it set up to post the first novel I was reading as a fairly large image, while the subsequent images would be smaller underneath. Now it shows nothing, because whatever operator they have for pulling the links from Amazon is borked.

Does anyone know of a good widget or service for WordPress that will display books you’re reading without much hassle? I might just have to end up using my Amazon Associate’s account to do the work for me, but that will take a couple of extra steps that I don’t really want to have to go through. Oh well, as they say: Say La Vee (Yes, I know it’s not spelled that way.)

Moved Some Things Around

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Just so everyone knows (because everyone who reads this certainly cares), I have moved the “Novels I’ve Read” link from the left side of the page to the right side of the page underneath the list of what I’m currently reading. It seems to make a little more sense to me that way. Additionally, the link now brings up an Amazon page (within a Lightbox, so it won’t take you away from this page) where it’s much easier to browse my novel collection. You can even make a purchase from it if you’d like.

I was using an old WordPress Plugin called AMM (or Amazon Media Management extension) that was…ok. It seemed to work much better on a small scale. I was listing around seventy novels and for whatever reason after so many it would return broken images all the time. This new way should be better, as you can also read the description of the novels and such straight from the application.

So there you have it. Garret out.

Changes Abrewin'

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Now that I have a new layout, I want to do more with the site. Since I started this in 2001, pretty much everything written here revolves solely around things that I’ve found intereesting or things that I have issus with. Now I feel like adding more substance to the content. I need to find something of interest that I can write about rather than simply having this be a “whire about stuff” blog.

First things first, I’m thinking of bringing back the reviews of books and games to the site; games expecially. The books thing is pretty much covered with P&B, so if I wanted to write about anything of that nature, I’d post it there. Here I think games would not be bad to write about. I don’t really know why I dropped those reviews. It just…happened.

Next I’m going to put some more emphasis on this social craziness. I don’t know why I’m intrigued by all of these sites that allow these quick, worthless, status updates, but I am. If you haven’t notcied already, on the right side of the page you’ll see quick links to the latest comments on the stie in addition to my latest Twitter and Plurk posts. You may not care about any of these comments, but if you’re curious, add me as a friend. Plurk is a new thing, and I’ll add more information about that once I’ve used it for more than about a day.

The last thing that I need to do with the site is change the rotating banners and to potentially change some other minor things. The weekend I am hoping to capture some photos of good landscapes or other things for the rotation. I’m not sure exactly what types of photos I am going to put in there, but I’ll figure it out.

The last last thing that I want to do is possibly update the look of Pressed & Bound’s site. Change some things around. I’m in this mood to do some “Spring Cleaning” so to speak on these sites. I just don’t have the time for it all most of the time. I need more hours in the day.

New Layout 2

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Well, it looks like I’ve got everything at least running. Nothing exploded and no babies were harmed (much). Although I did just notice that I’m using the same theme as Blake Huggins. He (and 80,000 other people) did find it first, so I cannot take credit for this theme. It’s a good theme though, so I hope everyone is ok with me using it.

Now all I need to do is get new pictures for the rotating banner and fix the issue with the dark text when using the lightbox feature. I’m sure it’s somewhere stuck in the CSS.

WordPress Upgrade

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This is really just a test of the new WordPress software. I want to make sure everything is working correctly and that all posts go through. For those of you who use WP and haven’t upgraded yet, I’d advise you to. The new dashboard layout is interesting, and things seem to be running a little more smoothly. I haven’t tried out all my plugins yet, though, so we’ll see.

The one thing I have noticed that I don’t know if I like is that the Categories are now below the posts. I think those worked better on the side. Oh well. Nothing huge.

Cheers