Unfortunately, due to the fact that I am not as active on the site as I would like to be AND that there is a LOT of garbage out there, I have to crank the security on this site way up.

As a result many of your comments, as innocent as they appear to me, don’t get through to my ok-ing them. I’ve pulled what I thought were the most valid of the bunch out of the cesspool and it is possible that there are a few other’s that I have missed. If I did, I again apologize.

This all has to do with the garbage out on the web these days, the spam robots out there are ferocious! When I first set up this site, it was literally buried by them. I would get hundreds of garbage replies a day and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t keep up with manually deleting the stuff out there. My only recourse was to tighten things up as much as possible.

Unfortunately, this usually causes any quick one liners to get put in the spam filter, but why the others about Gipp Forster or the CherryPal fell into it boggles my mind, it could be the ip address or it could be something else. I really don’t know.

I will try to take a much closer look in the spam sewer in future – in hopes of rescuing other valid comments, but until then, let me again apologize for missing your comments. They really REALLY are appreciated. Even if the computer doesn’t like them….

Rick

The reason I went with this little gem was that it was simple and straightforward to use, had no restrictions vis-a-vis what your site may or may not be about ( private or commercial ), was very flexible and very configurable AND most importantly – FREE!

What I was also impressed with was that it was already configured to work with my blog without having to adjust any of it’s settings, and it has lots of settings! Pretty well everything is configurable. It has become so popular now that they even have their own support forum now -> wpmarketing.org/forum/forum/wp-plugin-hana-flv-player

Here is how you would implement it and adjust quite a few settings ( which again were not necessary on my blog .) You would just add the following code (using the appropriate address of the real video you want to show ) in the text of your posting:

As you can see it’s quite simple to use and can be easily adjusted to suit your needs!

I would recommend this package/plugin to anyone, who has a WordPress blog, who is wanting to embed ANY internet video ( that’s right you don’t have to host it on your own site – all you need is the URL or address ). I’m thinking that in future I’ll use this engine to play any and all future videos that I might want to post. It’s a great tool to have in your blogging quiver!

Till next time!

The most noticeable change is the Coffee Cup icon and in case you hadn’t noticed I’ve actually done two different things with it.

The first one was pretty straight forward. I just added it to the bottom of my posting. I think it helps  to identify the break between one article ( including any comments ) and the next.  It also helped to tell me that I was done with it ( in that I can now sit back and enjoy my coffee. )

The second icon is more subtle, but actually took me a long while to figure out ( like over two years to be exact…. )

What I’m referring to is the small icon that now shows up in your web address, and if you were to bookmark my site in the bookmark as well. This one really took me quite a while to track down and get operational.

Suffice to say, it all starts with web-page envy. From time to time I would come across a website that had one of these cool icons in it’s address and I thought it looked great. I also noticed that for me ( and I suspect the average reader ) it helped me to identify the website quicker when I was looking for it. It also was a huge advantage when I put the link on Internet Explorers Favourites or Mozilla’s Bookmark Toolbar ( that little bar across the top of your web browser ) more compact in that I didn’t need to put a name beside it – the icon spoke volumes already.

I had been studying the pages on many of these websites and couldn’t track down how this was done.  I’ve also searched Google extensively trying to find the solution and only recently did I finally come across a small web-page with the info that I was looking for. So for the benefit of those who may also be looking, here is what you need to know. All thanks to the discussion I found on Gidforums – ( www.gidforums.com/t-3121 )

There are two parts to this solution, and while there is some discussion ( and history ) as to whether both parts are actually needed, I recommend implementing both to ensure complete satisfaction. I also recommend changing your selected icon into the formats used in the examples. There are plenty of graphics tools out there that will do that for you, both commercial and free. The fact is that these instructions will work if you follow them exactly….. so why mess with success I say.

Part One: The Title Icon

This icon is embedded within your HTML code for your web-page. The graphic ( in PNG format ) would be located where ever you keep your graphics for your web-page, in this example it would reside in the obvious directory called graphics. The code follows just after your TITLE declaration within the HEAD declaration for your home page and looks like this:

<HEAD>
  <TITLE>Your Web-page Title</TITLE>
  <link rel="shortcut icon" href="/graphics/your-icon.png" type="image/png">
</HEAD>

Part Two: The Favicon

This second icon is sometimes fixes the problem with the icon not always showing up in the address and/or tab. For this one you need to convert your icon to an icon or ICO format. Once that is done you need to save it in the root directory of your website with the name favicon.ico. For WordPress users this would be in your www directory.

There are apparantly some issues with icons and older versions of Internet Explorer, but the newer versions seem to be better at handling them. Also for those in a hurry to see their creation they “might” have to clear their browser or web cache first.

That’s it, that’s all. With those two steps you too can be a fancy website with it’s own website icon!

Enjoy!

Annual and/or monthly indexes are nice if you are trying to catch up on your reading of a blog or subscription that you haven’t had the chance to check for a while,. But heck, most people use RSS feeds for that sort of stuff and when it comes to researching it is a real pain to have to open up individual pages hoping to find the gem you are looking for. Plus ( such as in my case ) most archives are set to monthly with only 10 on a page – which make matters worse! ( Not forgetting to mention that my on-site search engine isn’t working right either! )

So with my goal for a single listing ( all on one page ) of all my postings yet another search was underway. It was actually amazing how few resources addressed this issue. Most of the hits that I found pertained to tweaking the original Archive.php file within your original WordPress theme pack, but none on how to build a single page document for easy access!

Then I hit pay-dirt, and a great site for future reading and referencing, Herself’s Webtools. Not only did she have the type of archive that I was envious of, but she showed everyone how to make one for themselves!

She had taken an original plugin, Frucomerci’s ‘List Posts by Category Plugin and modified it for her own use. After she had what she liked, she then shared it with the world and included instructions on how others could do the same – said link to those instructions being available here.

She has also modified her own plugin at least three more times, to accommodate those who may have a special need, or have challenges with implementing or following her clear direction. This is a very busy lady, whom I cannot even refer to by name as it is not listed anywhere on her website, that being said, the website that I visited was one of many on various subjects, that she now maintains and writes on!

I had to do a little tweaking of her plugin myself ( to better fit my particular theme .) As she gave permission in advance to do so, so I did. Since it was written in PHP ( a type of scripting language ) it wasn’t terribly difficult to understand and follow, and by quickly changing a few pieces of the code it was up and running, and looking great ( in my not so humble opinion! )

Well to be truthful, it did point out a problem that I was developing, in that my categories were blurring together and the Index could be better “categorized”. If I am going to have an index of articles, I should at least make the index as usable as I can. Which means more categories PLUS now I have to go back and fix ALL the previous articles that I have posted, and put them into the “newer” categories that I develop.

And I can see already that I will have to “reorder” my sidebar and shift a few things around…

So it goes… until next time then!

I just tried searching for several previous articles that I had written and found out just how badly the WordPress upgrade and/or Google has broken my blogs presentation!

I do apologize and will start working on “re-aligning” the blog to present properly again – sorry for the mixup/mess. I sure hope this is a recent issue and not something that has been going on for a while…

I guess I might as well try and fix the issue for Internet Explorer users too….   Ahhhh the joys….  Wish me luck – and hopefully there will be a final story on this as well <grin>.