Category Archives: Technical/Site Issues

Technical/Site Issues

Finding Your Way

2 Comments

Now that I’ve changed the look, I had to make some changes in navigation.  In my old theme, the links to my Ideas, Handouts, and Classroom Blog could all be found in the green bar that used to run along the top of the page.  They are now accessible in the sidebar under “Links.”  Archives that used to be in the sidebar are now on their own page — Archives — which can be found in the top of the page.

It is my hope that now that this blog, aimed at other educators, looks different from my classroom blog, perhaps my students will no longer be confused when they arrive here and cannot find what they are looking for.

As always, if you are confused, feel free to contact me, and I’ll help you find what you’re looking for.

Technical/Site Issues

New Theme

3 Comments

I have changed the look of the blog after having the same theme for some time.  I realize some of the familiar navigation links are not yet available.  I will make all the alterations I need to make for those links to appear.

The header image is courtesy of my husband.  One of my colleagues told me that she happened upon an intersection of Huff Rd. and English St. — right here in Atlanta, and I never even knew about it — and I knew I had to make a photo of the intersection sign my header.  Well, the problem was that I’m OCD enough that the colors not matching any longer really bothered me.  Thus, a whole new look.

I’ll get the old links up soon.

Technical/Site Issues

Subscription

It looks like the plugin I use to enable visitors to subscribe to updates via e-mail is a bit buggy. It’s not supposed to send e-mails to user when I create Pages, the WordPress name for static pages as opposed to blog posts. It looks like it is sending them, however. I’ll let the author know; meanwhile, feel free to visit the pages or ignore as you see fit.

[tags]wordpress, e-mails, updates, plugin, subscribe2[/tags]

Technical/Site Issues

WordPress 2.3: One Day Later

For those of you who didn’t see my previous post, I upgraded to WordPress 2.3 yesterday. Most of my previous upgrades have been seamless. This time, I had two problems, one of which is really puzzling to me.

The first, as I mentioned in my previous post, is that I can’t get tags to work with my theme. I have decided to continue using my plugin, SimpleTagsPlus, because it does what I want with a lot less fuss (at least for me).

The second is that for some reason, the image padding code I had in my stylesheet was suddenly ignored, and my images and text butted right up against one another. I fixed it by adding image code to the “Content” div layer, which means nothing to 99% you, I know, but it worked.  However, this makes no sense to me because my stylesheet should not have been impacted by the upgrade in any way.

[tags]tagging, wordpress, upgrade, css[/tags]

Technical/Site Issues

WordPress 2.3

6 Comments

I have just upgraded to WordPress 2.3, and I am maily posting to check it out. I had to disable the feature that used to appear in my sidebar called “Most Popular Posts.” It was generated with a plugin called “Popularity Contest” that is broken for 2.3, and although the author has stated previously that it will no longer be supported, it looks like Alex plans to fix it, but it may be some time.

So far, I like some of the features. For instance, I receive notifications when plugins are updated right through my user interface, so I don’t have to check every once in a while to see if new versions are available. I also like the new implementation of tags. I am going to try to figure out how to import my SimpleTagsPlus tags so I don’t have to keep that plugin.

You can learn more about WordPress 2.3 at the development blog.

Update, 9:36: I’m having trouble getting the tagging to work. Hopefully, I can figure it out tomorrow.

Update, 8:29 on September 26: Well, I still can’t get it to work, so until the theme is either updated to integrate tags or someone is able to help me figure it out, I’m going to stick with SimpleTagsPlus. I am quickly becoming frustrating trying to guess where the line of code I’m supposed to add goes and which templates it goes in. Using the tagging feature saves me eleven keystrokes, so maybe it’s not worth the aggravation.

[tags]plugins, upgrade, wordpress[/tags]

Teaching Grammar, Technical/Site Issues

Technical Difficulties

2 Comments

If you tried to access my site earlier today and saw an odd error message, I just wanted to assure you it’s been fixed. I tried everything I could figure out, but finally wound up calling tech support at Bluehost. The wait on the phone was longer than I wanted to wait, particularly on a cell phone, so I hung up when I noticed they had live chat, too. Tech support solved my problem in less than five minutes. Thanks, Bluehost!

I decided to do my UbD Comma Unit with my 10th grade Writing Seminar class, and it went great. Well, I have a great group in that class anyway, but they were really interested in the costly comma mistake, and I think it really made them think about the importance of using language and punctuation correctly. I have haven’t checked out the unit, you should. I would be the first to admit that grammar isn’t the most fun to teach and sometimes it’s hard to help students see the importance. I think I did a good job making this unit relevant.

[tags]commas, grammar, education, english, bluehost[/tags]

Technical/Site Issues

Contact Me

Lisa Breininger, you sent me a message on my contact form, but my e-mail reply bounced.  Please get me your e-mail address.  Mine is dana dot huff at gmail dot com.

Thanks.  Other folks who have contacted me, please know I’m in the process of responding to mail.  You will hear from me shortly, but in case you don’t, feel free to remind me you asked me something.

Technical/Site Issues

Feedburner

I wanted to let you all know that I created a Feedburner feed for this blog. I had felt happy with the feeds that come with WordPress’s installation, so I used one of them for the Feedburner feed, but I like some of the statistics and other bells and whistles that come with a Feedburner feed, so if you do, too, you can now subscribe to huffenglish.com with a Feedburner feed.

Update: If you are interesting in knowing what I bookmark in del.icio.us, you can subscribe to this feed and receive my del.icio.us links, too.

[tags]feedburner, rss, feed, wordpress[/tags]

Technical/Site Issues

Feeds

1 Comment

I want to apologize to my feed subscribers.  I upgraded to WordPress 2.2 earlier this week, and I didn’t immediately realize there was a problem with my feeds.  I have corrected the problem, and those of you reading me via a feed reader should be receiving updated posts.

Incidentally, a quick Google search for the error message I was receiving and a glance at the WP Support Forums tells me I am not the only WordPress blogger who appears to have had this problem.  If it happens to you, simply re-upload all the WP 2.2 files.  I originally uploaded mine using an older version of WS_FTP, and the default uploading mode is Binary.  I think you should probably set it to Automatic, so the program can upload it in either ASCII or Binary depending on the type of file.  I am not certain, but I think uploading my files in Binary is what broke my feeds (read more about ASCII and Binary modes).

[tags]WordPress, uploading files, FTP[/tags]

Technical/Site Issues

“Helping” Student Visitors

3 Comments

I have had to make a revision to my policies. I want to make it clear to any student who happens by here that the purpose of this website is not to help students who are unwilling to read their assigned reading, do their homework themselves, or apply themselves to their study. I am happy to answer questions for students who have tried these things and are genuinely stuck, but I am starting to receive requests from students who have not done their work and are panicking the night before it is due. I cannot give you a list of all the [insert literary device here] in [insert work of literature here]. I cannot write your essay for you. Students who happen by here looking for ways to weasel out of assignments should know that the purposes behind this blog are to reflect upon teaching practices, discuss issues in education, and share ideas with teachers. I hope you understand, and I also hope in the future that you will try to do the work yourself first. I don’t mean to be unhelpful or rude, but you must understand that I have a conscience, and it won’t allow me to help you cheat.

[tags]education, student assistance[/tags]