First Changes to My New WordPress Installation

The content below used to be on the page called “Updates.” I no longer need to keep track of changes to my site, so I’m moving this to a regular post under the WordPress category. This page simply lists all the changes I made to my site during the first month after I installed Thesis/WordPress. It might give you some ideas for what to do after a fresh WP install.

Nov. 28, 2009

• Updated a few posts with new formatting styles.

Nov. 27, 2009

• Added the WordPress Super Cache plugin.
• Added the Bad Behavior on WordPress plugin.
• Added the WordPress Breadcrumbs plugin.

Nov. 26, 2009

• Added a sweet, sweet image of stupid Taz to my Stupid People Hate Twitter’s New Retweet post.

Nov. 23, 2009

• Added custom default Gravatar image.

Nov. 21, 2009

• Added social network links and widgets after the content of each post.

Nov. 20, 2009

• Published a post about why Stupid People Hate Twitter’s New Retweet.

Nov. 19, 2009

• Spent most of the day trying to ignore the constant stream of complaints about the new Twitter RT feature.
• Started writing a rant about stupid people.

Nov. 17, 2009

• Changed home page <meta name="description" /> content (back to my ASCII art version).
• Configured Comment Link Manager to whitelist a few comment authors.
• Enabled nested comments.

Nov. 16, 2009

• Published How to Monitor Google Sidewiki Comments.

Nov. 14, 2009

• Installed the Comment Link Manager plugin, which requires comment authors to have 10 approved comments before their links become active.
• Installed the PS Disable Auto Formatting plugin, which prevents WordPress from adding/deleting <p> and <br />.
• Modified my Twitter icon again. This time I made it into a sprite to reduce page size and speed up the hover effect.
• Started adding content to my About page.

Nov. 13, 2009

• Installed the TweetMeme WordPress plugin.
• Modified a Twitter icon to use for “Follow Me” link.

Nov. 12, 2009

• Updated to WordPress 2.8.6.
• Set up the MyBrand feature on Feed Burner. Feed URL is now http://feeds.seomofo.com.
• Installed the FeedBurner FeedSmith plugin.
• Added Subscribe links to right-hand column.
• Enabled the Google XML Sitemap plugin.
• 301 redirected all date archive URLs to the home page. Here’s the mod_rewrite code I added to .htaccess:

  RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/[0-9]+/ [NC]
  RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.seomofo.com/ [R=301,L]
  

  
  
  

Nov. 11, 2009

• Battled the DNS monster some more today and finally defeated that beast. Site should be up and running now.
• Removed the smiley face image [ ] that’s inserted by WP Stats.

  /* KILL THE WP STATS SMILEY IN FOOTER */
  img#wpstats{display:none;}
  

  
  
  
• Added Updates tab to top navigation.

Nov. 10, 2009

• I spent most of today battling the semi-functional DNS dashboards on 3 different hosting sites. Site will be down until DNS propagates. Probably could have avoided down time if I were patient, but I’m not…so to the 20 people who visit my site today: I apologize.

Nov. 9, 2009

• In preparation for setting up my blog feed at feeds.seomofo.com, I’ve started to move my site from its cheap hosting over to my VPS hosting.

Nov. 4, 2009

• Wrote a post called Best Way to Research Google Patents.
• Removed the Thesis default header and added my own.
• Added some sweet, sweet shadow effects to my new header logo and some <h2> headings.
• Here is the code I added to the custom_functions.php file:

  // Remove the Thesis header
  remove_action('thesis_hook_header', 'thesis_default_header');<br /><br />// Define my own header
  function mofo_header() {
  ?>
  		<div id="logo_mofo">
  			<div id="domain_mofo"><a href="/"><em>SEO</em></a><span> </span>mofo<span id="dot_mofo">.</span>com</div>
  			<div id="slogan_mofo">The <span>&uarr;</span> <b>SEO</b> links to my home page!</div>
  		</div>
  <?php	
  }<br /><br />// Add my header
  add_action('thesis_hook_header', 'mofo_header');
  

  
  
  

Nov. 3, 2009

• Wrote a post called Thesis Phi-Column Layout. In it, I marked up phi with <var></var> tags, despite the fact that φ represents an irrational constant. Does that make me a bad person?
• Changed a bunch of formatting in custom.css file.

Nov. 2, 2009

• Added favicon code to <head> section.
• Changed Twitter widget settings to show last 3 tweets.
• Installed the Syntax Highlighter Evolved plugin.
• Changed Thesis default formatting for the “current” tabs so that it shows a pointer when you mouse over it (instead of the text cursor). Here’s the CSS I added to custom.css:

  ul.menu li.current a:hover{cursor:pointer;}
  

  
  
  
• Edited .htaccess file to redirect /blog to /.
• I’ve also temporarily deactivated my XML Sitemap plugin and the ping-o-matic feature until I’m ready for the new URLs to be crawled.
• Installed the Subscribe to Comments plugin.

Oct. 30, 2009

• Posted Nokia Promo Spam Email.

Oct. 29, 2009

• Moved WordPress from /blog to /.
• Edited Thesis design options and custom.css styles.
• Wrote a post about how to add rounded corners to the Thesis top navigation menu.

Oct. 25, 2009

• Wrote a crapost about a typo/bug I discovered in the Thesis font formatting options, but then Thesis 1.6 was released and the typo/bug disappeared.