Just completed the upgrade to WordPress 2.7 for geekgather.org. I had to disable two plugins: “Admin Management Extended,” which did some web 2.0-esque inline editing stuff on the manage posts screen; and “WordPress Admin Bar,” which has not been upgraded to work with WP 2.7 and was screwing up the admin interface.

As soon as updates to either plugin are available, I will install and activate them.

Update: WP Admin Bar is back. An upgrade was released just last night. Guess I should have waited one more day to do the upgrade.

It took some doing, but I got the site upgraded to WordPress 2.5!

Our previous version was 2.0.2, and it was far enough behind that the automatic updater didn’t work right — even though it was supposed to. Lots of database fiddling ensued, but I got it done. That’ll teach me to wait on upgrades, that’s for sure.

Two things we lost:

1. The Tiger-style admin screens. The plugin that handled this feature doesn’t work with WordPress 2.5.
2. The spell checker for posts. I could not find a suitable replacement for the new version. I’ll keep an eye out, but most operating systems and browsers take care of this in-line these days, so I don’t know how necessary it actually is.

Please let me now if you find anything funky and I’ll see what I can do to fix it.

I was originally going to post this back on the 27th. I had written it in advance and saved it, thinking WordPress would take care of it for me (kind of like Movable Type does). Not so.

<flintstones>

Happy Anniversary
Happy Anniversary
Happy Anniversary
Haaappy Anniversary

Pour a cheerful toast and fill it
Happy Anniversary
But be careful you don’t spill it
Happy Anniversary

Ooooo Happy Anniversary
Happy Anniversary
Happy Anniversary
Haaappy AnniversaryOoooo Happy Anniversary
Happy Anniversary
Happy Anniversary
Haaappy Anniversary

Happy she and happy he
They’re both as happy as can be
Celebrating merrily
their happy anniversary

Ooooo Happy Anniversary
Happy Anniversary
Happy Anniversary
Haaappy Anniversary

Ooooo Happy Anniversary
Happy Anniversary
Happy Anniversary
Haaappy Anniversary

We now state emphatically
its happy anniversary
Not another day could be
a happy anniversary

Ooooo Happy Anniversary
Happy Anniversary
Happy Anniversary
Happy
Happy
Happy, happy, happy, happy, happy, happy, happy, happy Anniversary!!!

</flintstones>

Today is (really January 27th WAS) the 1-year anniversary of our little blog! I’d like to thank everyone for a great year and especially Patrick for coming up with the idea in the first place.

We really need to get more of the regulars posting here. That means opening up new author accounts. Who are we missing? Are we still happy with the template? What other features would we like to see here?

It was high time we replaced that picture of Richmond, VA with one of our own fine city, I installed a new banner.

The original photograph was taken by our own Tim Eian. I did a quick crop and just the tiniest levels adjustment and tossed it on-line. Many thanks to Tim for the photo!

Read on for an overview of coming minor changes. Continue reading New Banner and Other Whatnot →

I asked Richard if would like to help with the banner picture. He is a great photographer and he could help us get some original shots of the two skylines. I initially thought about using stock photography, but this way we can turn it into a fun project and add a more personal touch. I will try to keep you in the loop on how things develop. As the birth of our first child approaches I am trying to keep everything together as much as I can. Please be patient with me. Thanks.

OK, Folks. I’ve got the theme snapshots done and we’re ready to make a selection. Each sample is a full-size screenshot of the main page and there are 12 to choose from. Click through to the full post and please leave comments to vote for your favorite. Continue reading Theme Spectacular →

– Access/sort/filter blog entries by author
– Automatically cut off posts after so many lines and add a read more button, or should this remain at the author’s discretion? Thoughts?

Geeks,

Even though we are still working on some details of the blog, I’d like to propose to go public (meaning inviting the rest of the mailing list). It seems that we are already making good use of it, and therefore a broader audience would be wonderful. Any objections? Michael, do you still have the mailing list?

OK guys, I sort of made an executive decision. I found a template I’m happy with, so I installed it put it into action. I’ll still do the snapshots of a few other templates, but I have to say that I really like this one. Other than some basic fine-tuning, the only thing I think really needs to be changed is to replace the banner image, and even that doesn’t have to happen.

Personally, I like the current banner image, but certainly wouldn’t mind changing it to a suitably scaled picture of the Twin Cities skyline (can we get one with both Downtowns and put the title in between?), or other geekish image — although I really don’t want to go with the whole circuit board clichè. Whatever image it is, we should make sure it’s royalty free or properly licensed.

In other news, I added the email links where author names appear on the main page. I’ll go through the rest of the site design once we pick a final template layout. I also took Mr. Eian’s stab at the about page, made some (quite) liberal edits, and installed it. Edits/comments welcome/encouraged, especially when it comes to the “we’d like to see more chapters…” part. (I really like Scottie’s idea.) I’m working on getting author profiles in there to flesh it out a bit more. Give me some time on that one.

Things to do (in no particular order):

• Set up the mailing list
• Invite/notify the other geeks
• Create the @geekgather.org aliases for each author
• Make a theme decision

Thoughts?