#Upgrading Wordpress

[aurosoulart]

I have hi-res print files available on my website now! for FREEEEEEEEE 🎊🎊🎊

I'm tired of monetizing and advertising and capitalizing and.... everything, honestly. you can still buy gallery-quality giclée prints of my work on INPRNT if you want those - but now you can also just download these and print them someplace local!

there's only a couple Celestial artworks available for now, but I'll be adding more later... and potentially some VR art files in the future as well ✌

[curryvillain]

.@FullyBadMusic Perseveres With "Faith And Prayers"

In life, you’re faced with challenges. When you’re trying to do good, the challenges are harder. Dancehall Artist Fully Bad has faced his share of challenges this year, but is determined to emerge out of them a stronger Man. He speaks on it in the video for the single, “Faith And Prayers“. Directed by Yokori Media, Fully Bad reflects on his life and what he has experienced, sharing overall that…

[johndball]

Ubuntu Azure 20.04 --> 22.04 --> 24.04 upgrade caveats

Like many others, I recently received the End of Support (EOS) notice from Azure for Ubuntu 20.04. With the clock ticking, I decided to upgrade my servers to Ubuntu 24.04 using the do-release-upgrade command. The upgrade process went smoothly overall, and I wanted to share a few insights and lessons learned from the experience: If on Azure, use Azure Snapshots to make a backup. Same for VMware…

[wordpressblogsblog]

Why It Is Important To Switch Your Business Website To WordPress

Introduction

In today's fast-paced digital world, your business website is often the first impression potential customers have of your brand. If your website isn’t on WordPress yet, it might be time to consider making the switch. WordPress Development Services can take your website to the next level, offering flexibility, scalability, and ease of use. Let’s dive into why switching to WordPress is a smart move for your business.

1. Flexibility and Customization with WordPress Development Services

WordPress is one of the most customizable platforms out there. Whether you're a small startup or an established business, WordPress development services give you the tools you need to create a website that reflects your brand and meets your business goals. You can easily choose from thousands of themes and plugins, or work with a Custom WordPress development company to create a truly unique website.

From adding contact forms to integrating payment systems, WordPress offers endless possibilities for customization. It’s easy to scale your website as your business grows, without having to rebuild everything from scratch.

2. SEO-Friendly Features for Better Search Engine Rankings

If you want to get noticed online, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is key. WordPress is built with SEO in mind, making it easier for your website to rank well on search engines like Google. With the right WordPress website development service, you can optimize everything from meta tags to image alt texts, helping improve your website's visibility.

Plus, WordPress works seamlessly with popular SEO plugins like Yoast, making it simple to improve your site’s SEO performance. A WordPress development company can further optimize your website to ensure it gets found by your target audience.

3. Strong Security with WordPress Development Service

Security is a major concern for any website. WordPress regularly updates its core software to keep your site safe from the latest threats. By working with a custom WordPress development service, you can ensure that your site is built with the best security practices in mind, including using SSL certificates, strong passwords, and secure hosting.

Regular updates and security plugins make it easy to keep your site secure without a lot of hassle.

4. Seamless Integration with Third-Party Tools

WordPress allows you to easily integrate with a wide range of third-party tools and services, from email marketing platforms to CRM systems. Whether you need to connect your site with Google Analytics or set up an automated email campaign, WordPress can handle it all. If you need more advanced features, working with a custom WordPress development company can help you integrate complex tools without any issues.

5. Easy to Manage and Update Your Content

With WordPress, you don’t need to be a web developer to manage your content. The platform is incredibly user-friendly, allowing you to update pages, add blog posts, and manage media all from a simple dashboard. This makes it easy to keep your site fresh and up-to-date with the latest content.

Having access to WordPress developer services can help you set up everything properly, so you’re ready to manage your site on your own.

6. E-commerce Made Easy with WordPress Development Solutions

If you’re running an online store, WordPress offers powerful eCommerce solutions. With plugins like WooCommerce, you can easily set up an online shop and start selling products. A WordPress eCommerce development service can help you customize your online store to meet your specific needs, whether you're selling physical goods or digital products.

WordPress also makes it easy to track orders, manage inventory, and integrate payment gateways, providing a smooth shopping experience for your customers.

7. Cost-Effective for Small and Large Businesses Alike

One of the main reasons businesses switch to WordPress is because it’s cost-effective. Unlike other website development platforms that can be expensive to set up and maintain, WordPress is an affordable option for businesses of all sizes. With access to free themes, affordable plugins, and a large pool of WordPress web development services, you can create a professional website without breaking the bank.

And as your business grows, WordPress can scale with you, adding new features and functionality as needed.

Conclusion: The Power of WordPress for Your Business Website

Switching to WordPress offers numerous advantages, from ease of use and flexibility to SEO optimization and strong security. Whether you're a small business looking to establish an online presence or a large enterprise needing custom features, WordPress development solutions can help your website perform better and grow with your business.

If you're ready to make the switch, partnering with a WordPress development company will ensure your site is built to meet your business needs, giving you a strong foundation for future growth.

[brandngraves]

When to Upgrade: Drupal to WordPress Service Explained

Discover the key indicators for upgrading from Drupal to WordPress in our comprehensive guide, When to Upgrade: Drupal to WordPress Service Explained. Learn about the benefits of making the switch, including enhanced usability and SEO advantages. Understand the optimal timing for your migration and how HireWPGeeks can ensure a smooth transition. Elevate your website's performance and user experience today!

[tiny-talks-big-tales]

Cyborg upgrades on the way (Original post date: 17.05.24)

In the last update post I described a lot of stuff that’s missing or going wrong. Some of those about stuff I need, but don’t yet have. Stuff for augmenting my disabled body to function better. Like a cyborg! I’m leaning into the silly cyborg analogy because it’s funny and makes me feel good.

So here are 4 currently pending cyborg upgrades that I should be getting in the near-ish future. If nothing more goes wrong to halt these processes, that is.

Highly custom power wheelchair: We’re awaiting parts needed for one more day of fitting, which will probably happen the first week of June. After that, the final chair delivery ETA is end of June. Only 1.5 months from now! I’ve been without a wheelchair since November last year and absolutely cannot describe how much I look forward to finally having one again. The techs working with me on it are also really good, and it seems like I might get a wheelchair that’s comfortable to sit in!!!

Dedicated AAC device with eyegaze option: A very cool Grid Pad Eye 15″ along with an adjustable floor stand should be sent out to me next week, for an extended home trial. After summer we’ll have a meeting about how it worked for me, and if it worked well i can apply to keep it indefinitely. It will be mountable on my new wheelchair, too.

Hearing tests and hearing aid evaluation: Got 2 appointments coming up, one in the end of May and one in early June. So far looks like i might actually be able to make it to these! I will ask for hearing aids and what I’ve been told so far in the process sounds like it shouldn’t be too hard to get? The audiologist I saw last year said I need them, and lots of sources has said the threshold for getting hearing aids covered is pretty low. So I’m hopeful.

Breathing better machine: All the doctors so far agree it sounds like I need one, probably a BiPAP? And I’m finally being referred to a pulmonology clinic for testing and evaluating for that. I really hope it works out, my breathing is so poor it knocks me out multiple times a day. Breathing alone is responsible for a significant chunk of my bad quality of life. It’s because my chest is too weak to inhale/exhale properly, and thankfully this is a well known issue with my levels of bad body strength. It being well known has made it pretty easy to be believed about it, so far. And the usual cyborg upgrade solution to this problem is “make a machine shove the air in harder”, which is hilariously crude compared to most of modern medicine.

Cross all your fingers and toes with me that all of this works out well because I am McHeckin Strugglin' :c

[insolent--son]

remember when websites used to not hate us?

[jnexttech]

Explore our WordPress upgradation services to ensure your website stays at the forefront of innovation. From security enhancements to the latest features, our experts will guide you through the process of upgrading your WordPress platform for a more robust and engaging online presence. Upgrade your website with confidence, backed by our experienced team.

[fligniuz]

Idk why but all I can think about is how lu is probably the type of bf who’d be so in love and obsessed with his girlfriend. Like he’d be the type of bf who is very supportive of what his girlfriend does. You wanna start working out? He’s going with you to your gym sessions and Pilates classes so you’re not on the journey alone, you wanna start eating healthy? He’s looking up healthier recipes to cook for you both. You speak another language? Mans is already on Duolingo as we speak learning as much as he can! I also saw a tiktok recently of a bf cooking his gf steak when she’s on her period so she can get iron and that screamed ‘lu’ to me lmao

i just wrote this whole thing out and thought it posted but it didn’t UGH whatever let’s try again

YES NONNIE!!! luigi is the definition of active boyfriend!

he loves to get involved in all your hobbies and activities. you like biking? luigi will be doing research for a whole fucking week narrowing down the best brand, seat size, and tires for the kinds of rides you like to go on. def will surprise you with a little bow tied on the seat, like in the ice cream pic :-) his sweet smile. and you know he’s got his own bike to go with you every time!

heavy on pilates classes ORRRR we know he did yoga for some time? would absolutely come to yoga with U! you get jealous because all the girls in class stare at him but you KNOW that man is all yours so you’re not too worried. if U like cooking/baking i can see him organizing a digital recipe book for U, adding new things you mention wanting to try whenever he can (and sneaking in his own suggestions, of course☺️). if you’re outdoorsy, he is too!! loves hiking with U!! is the most prepared when it comes to this shit too, since we know he likes the idea of having an efficient one-bag lifestyle. he brings extra water for the both of U, sweat rags (LOL☹️sorry), a change of clothes in case you’re somewhere kinda messy, and absolutely has scoured some perfect walkers with the best tread on them so you’ve got a reliable pair of shoes! everything U need for an adventure with him, he’s got two bags packed and ready to go, and he’s never going to miss out on an opportunity to explore nature with his fav person. he loves seeing new things with U

i can imagine that he’d like to play video games with U!! i like animal crossing and he made his own wordpress post about the og version for the gamecube so i know he likes it too! don’t know if he ever tried new horizons out but he’d like the summery feel of it and the setting of the island. would set up his own house on your island although he never gets around to upgrading it completely and it’s just filled with fish he’s caught (in that post he said his favorite part was fishing!) and waiting to sell to the nooks😭but i think he would use that one website that allows you to make your own pictures into custom designs, and he would have his favorite image of you guys together hanging on the wall!!! would lowkey be the breadwinner in your little animal crossing family. he likes the simpler, more nature-focused aspects like collecting materials, bug catching, and crafting, while U appreciate the creative parts that allow customization and design. he stocks up on bells for U and is always trying to help U complete your catalog! asks shit like “i know you’ve been looking for that one wallpaper and it’s finally in stock at the shop, you want to take some of these bells off of me?” :-) i’ve seen a few fics where U play mario kart together and he always wins which makes me mad because personally i would be whooping that ass AND laughing at him for it but whatever🙄 (the sex after a hard match would be…well i’ll let U imagine it ehehehe)

i’ve got a stomach bug rn so i’ve been thinking a lot about him being your caretaker when you’re sick or just hungover🥺stays in bed with U, keeps fluids in U, reminds U to take meds when needed, ties your hair back when U vomit, just constantly worried about his baby’s health. tries to be very careful about what he says and how he reacts so he doesn’t make you feel embarrassed or bad about being all icky. never forces U to eat if you don’t feel like it because he understands completely, but will gently encourage U to take some bites of a banana or toast, just so you have something in your stomach

“baby i know you’re dehydrated and probably thirsty, you want some water with ice? maybe some juice? i could go get some gatorade, that’ll replace all these electrolytes you’re losing!”

and when U do have a drink he reminds U “little sips, honey, little sips. too much at once will make that nausea worse”

definitely coos at U like “ohhhh my poor baby” or “i’m so sorry” or “it’s okay, mia cara, it’s okay. i’m right here with you, baby. i wish i could take all the pain away from you.”

sorry this got kinda self-indulgent😭i do NOT feel good

[screentones-webcomicresources]

There are many web hosting companies to choose from if you're taking the plunge into making your own website with a comic content management system (CMS) like ComicControl or Grawlix, a Wordpress comic theme like Toocheke or ComicPress, or a HTML template to cut/paste code like Rarebit. While these solutions are generally free, finding a home for them is... generally not. It can be hard to choose what's best for your webcomic AND your budget!

We took a look at a few of the top hosting services used by webcomics creators using webcomic CMSes, and we put out a poll to ask your feedback about your hosts!

This post may be updated as time goes on as new services enter the hosting arena, or other important updates come to light.

Questions:

💻 I can get a free account with Wix/Squarespace/Carrd, could I just use those for my comic? - Web hosts like this may have gallery functions that could be adapted to display a series of pages, but they are very basic and not intended for webcomics.

📚 Wait, I host on Webtoon, Tapas, Comic Fury, or some other comic website, why are they not here? - Those are comic platforms! We'll get into those in a future post!

🕵️‍♀️Why does it say "shared hosting"? Who am I sharing with? - "Shared hosting" refers to sharing the server space with other customers. They will not have access to your files or anything, so it is perfectly fine to use for most comic CMSes. You may experience slowing if there is too much activity on a server, so if you're planning to host large files or more than 10 comics, you may want to upgrade to a more robust plan in the future.

Web Host List

Neocities

Basic plan pricing: Free or $5/month. Free plan has more restrictions (1 GB space, no custom domain, and slower bandwidth, among other things)

Notes: Neocities does not have database support for paid or free accounts, and most comic CMS solutions require this (ComicCtrl, Grawlix, Wordpress). You will need to work with HTML/CSS files directly to make a website and post each page.

Hostinger

Basic plan pricing: $11.99/month or $7.99/month with four year commitment (monthly, 1, 2, and 4 year plans available).

Notes: Free domain for the 1st year. Free SSL Certifications. Weekly backups.

KnownHost

Basic plan pricing: $8.95/month or $7.99/month with four year commitment (monthly, 1, 2, and 4 year plans available).

Notes: Free DDOS protection. Free SSL Certifications.

InMotion Hosting

Basic plan pricing: $12.99/month or $9.99/month with three year commitment (monthly, 1, and 3 year plans available).

Notes:  Free SSL Certifications, free domain names for 1 and 3 year plans. 24/7 live customer service and 90-day money-back guarantee. Inmotion also advertises eco-friendly policies: We are the first-ever Green Data Center in Los Angeles. We cut cooling costs by nearly 70 percent and reduce our carbon output by more than 2,000 tons per year.

Reviews:

👍“I can't remember it ever going down.”

👍“InMotion has a pretty extensive library full of various guides on setting up and managing websites, servers, domains, etc. Customer service is also fairly quick on responding to inquiries.” 👎“I wish it was a bit faster with loading pages.”

Ionos Hosting

Basic plan pricing: $8/month or $6/month with three year commitment (monthly, 1, 2 and 3 year plans available).

Notes: Free domain for the first year, free SSL Certification, Daily backup and recovery is included. Site Scan and Repair is free for the first 30 days and then is $6/month.

Reviews:

👍“Very fast and simple” 👎“Customer service is mediocre and I can't upload large files”

Bluehost

Basic plan pricing: $15.99/month or $4.95/month with three year commitment (monthly, 1, 3 year plans available).

Notes: Free domain and SSL certificates (for first year only). 24/7 Customer Service. Built to handle higher traffic websites. Although they specialize in Wordpress websites and provide updates automatically, that's almost a bad thing for webcomic plugins because they will often break your site. Their cloud hosting services are currently in early access with not much additional information available.

Reviews:

👎"The fees keep going up. Like I could drop $100 to cover a whole year, but now I'm paying nearly $100 for just three months. It's really upsetting."

👎"I have previously used Bluehost’s Wordpress hosting service and have had negative experiences with the service, so please consider with a grain of salt. I can confirm at least that their 24/7 customer service was great, although needed FAR too often."

Dreamhost

Basic plan pricing: $7.99/month or $5.99/month with three year commitment (monthly, 1, 3 year plans available).

Notes: Free SSL Certificates, 24/7 support with all plans, 97-day moneyback guarantee. Not recommended for ComicCtrl CMS

Reviews:

👍“They've automatically patched 2 security holes I created/allowed by mistake.” 👍“Prices are very reasonable” 👎 “back end kind of annoying to use” 👎 “wordpress has some issues” 👎 “it's not as customizable as some might want“

GoDaddy

Basic plan pricing: $11.99/month or $9.99/month with three year commitment (monthly, 1, 2, and 3 year plans available).

Notes: Free 24/7 Customer service with all plans, Free SSL Certificates for 1 year, free domain and site migration.

Reviews:

👍Reasonable intro prices for their Economy hosting, which has 25GB of storage 👍Migrated email hosting service from cPanel to Microsoft Office, which has greater support but may not be useful for most webcomic creators. 👎 Many site issues and then being upsold during customer service attempts. 👎 Server quality found lacking in reviews 👎 Marketing scandals in the past with a reputation for making ads in poor taste. Have been attempting to clean up that image in recent years. 👎 “GoDaddy is the McDonald's of web hosting. Maybe the Wal-Mart of hosting would be better. If your website was an object you would need a shelf to put it on. You go to Wal-Mart and buy a shelf. It's not great. It's not fancy. It can only hold that one thing. And if we're being honest - if the shelf broke and your website died it wouldn't be the end of the world.The issue comes when you don't realize GoDaddy is the Wal-Mart of hosting. You go and try to do things you could do with a quality shelf. Like, move it. Or add more things to it.” MyWorkAccountThisIs on Reddit*

Things to consider for any host:

💸 Introductory/promotional pricing - Many hosting companies offer free or inexpensive deals to get you in the door, and then raise the cost for these features after the first year or when you renew. The prices in this post are the base prices that you can expect to pay after the promotional prices end, but may get outdated, so you are encouraged to do your own research as well.

💻 Wordpress hosting - Many of the companies below will have a separate offering for Wordpress-optimized hosting that will keep you updated with the latest Wordpress releases. This is usually not necessary for webcomic creators, and can be the source of many site-breaking headaches when comic plugins have not caught up to the latest Wordpress releases.

Any basic hosting plan on this list will be fine with Wordpress, but expect to stop or revert Wordpress versions if you go with this as your CMS.

🤝 You don't have to go it alone - While free hosts may be more limited, paid hosting on a web server will generally allow you to create different subdomains, or attach additional purchased domains to any folders you make. If you have other comic-making friends you know and trust, you can share your server space and split the cost!

Want to share your experience?

Feel free to contribute your hosting pros, cons, and quirks on our survey! We will be updating our list periodically with your feedback!

[blubberquark]

Are Game Blogs Uniquely Lost?

All this started with my looking for the old devlog of Storyteller. I know at some point it was linked from the blogroll on the Braid devlog. Then I tried to look at on old devlog of another game that is still available. The domain for Storyteller is still active. The devblog is gone.

I tried an old bookmark from an old PC (5 PCs ago, I think). It was a web site linked to pixel art and programming tutorials. Instead of linking to the pages directly, some links link led to a twitter threads by authors that collected their work posted on different sites. Some twitter threads are gone because the users were were suspended, or had deleted their accounts voluntarily. Others had deleted old tweets. There was no archive. I have often seen links accompanied by "Here's a thread where $AUTHOR lists all his writing on $TOPIC". I wonder if the sites are still there, and only the tweets are gone.

A lot of "games studies" around 2010 happened on blogs, not in journals. Games studies was online-first, HTML-first, with trackbacks, tags, RSS and comment sections. The work that was published in PDF form in journals and conference proceedings is still there. The blogs are gone. The comment sections are gone. Kill screen daily is gone.

I followed a link from critical-distance.com to a blog post. That blog is gone. The domain is for sale. In the Wayback Machine, I found the link. It pointed to the comment section of another blog. The other blog has removed its comment sections and excluded itself from the Wayback Machine.

I wonder if games stuff is uniquely lost. Many links to game reviews at big sites lead to "page not found", but when I search the game's name, I can find the review from back in 2004. The content is still there, the content management systems have been changed multiple times.

At least my favourite tumblr about game design has been saved in the Wayback Machine: Game Design Tips.

To make my point I could list more sites, more links, 404 but archived, or completely lost, but when I look at small sites, personal sites, blogs, or even forums, I wonder if this is just confirmation bias. There must be all this other content, all these other blogs and personal sites. I don't know about tutorials for knitting, travel blogs, stamp collecting, or recipe blogs. I usually save a print version of recipes to my Download folder.

Another big community is fan fiction. They are like modding, but for books, I think. I don't know if a lot of fan fiction is lost to bit rot and link rot either. What is on AO3 will probably endure, but a lot might have gone missing when communities fandom moved from livejournal to tumblr to twitter, or when blogs moved from Wordpress to Medium to Substack.

I have identified some risk factors:

Personal home pages made from static HTML can stay up for while if the owner meticulously catalogues and links to all their writing on other sites, and if the site covers a variety of interests and topics.

Personal blogs or content management systems are likely to lose content in a software upgrade or migration to a different host.

Writing is more likely to me lost when it's for-pay writing for a smaller for-profit outlet.

A cause for sudden "mass extinction" of content is the move between social networks, or the death of a whole platform. Links to MySpace, Google+, Diaspora, and LiveJournal give me mostly or entirely 404 pages.

In the gaming space, career changes or business closures often mean old content gets deleted. If an indie game is wildly successful, the intellectual property might ge acquired. If it flops, the domain will lapse. When development is finished, maybe the devlog is deleted. When somebody reviews games at first on Steam, then on a blog, and then for a big gaming mag, the Steam reviews might stay up, but the personal site is much more likely to get cleaned up. The same goes for blogging in general, and academia. The most stable kind of content is after hours hobbyist writing by somebody who has a stable and high-paying job outside of media, academia, or journalism.

The biggest risk factor for targeted deletion is controversy. Controversial, highly-discussed and disseminated posts are more likely to be deleted than purely informative ones, and their deletion is more likely to be noticed. If somebody starts a discussion, and then later there are hundreds of links all pointing back to the start, the deletion will hurt more and be more noticeable. The most at-risk posts are those that are supposed to be controversial within a small group, but go viral outside it, or the posts that are controversial within a small group, but then the author says something about politics that draws the attention of the Internet at large to their other writings.

The second biggest risk factor for deletion is probably usefulness combined with hosting costs. This could also be the streetlight effect at work, like in the paragraph above, but the more traffic something gets, the higher the hosting costs. Certain types of content are either hard to monetise, and cost a lot of money, or they can be monetised, so the free version is deliberately deleted.

The more tech-savvy users are, the more likely they are to link between different sites, abandon a blogging platform or social network for the next thing, try to consolidate their writings by deleting their old stuff and setting up their own site, only to let the domain lapse. The more tech-savvy users are, the more likely they are to mess with the HTML of their templates or try out different blogging software.

If content is spread between multiple sites, or if links link to social network posts that link to blog post with a comment that links to a reddit comment that links to a geocities page, any link could break. If content is consolidated in a forum, maybe Archive team could save all of it with some advance notice.

All this could mean that indie games/game design theory/pixel art resources are uniquely lost, and games studies/theory of games criticism/literary criticism applied to games are especially affected by link rot. The semi-professional, semi-hobbyist indie dev, the writer straddling the line between academic and reviewer, they seem the most affected. Artists who start out just doodling and posting their work, who then get hired to work on a game, their posts are deleted. GameFAQs stay online, Steam reviews stay online, but dev logs, forums and blog comment sections are lost.

Or maybe it's only confirmation bias. If I was into restoring old cars, or knitting, or collecting stamps, or any other thing I'd think that particular community is uniquely affected by link rot, and I'd have the bookmarks to prove it.

Figuring this out is important if we want to make predictions about the future of the small web, and about the viability of different efforts to get more people to contribute. We can't figure it out now, because we can't measure the ground truth of web sites that are already gone. Right now, the small web is mostly about the small web, not about stamp collecting or knitting. If we really manage to revitalise the small web, will it be like the small web of today except bigger, the web-1.0 of old, or will certain topics and communities be lost again?

[blumoonfiction-blog]

Power Shifts and Secret Love: The Gilded Age Season 3 Premiere!

Season 3 of The Gilded Age is back—and thank God it is! Last season gave us broken engagements, upgraded clocks, stolen kisses, and even more stolen money. Somebody died, Peggy finally reconciled with her father, Bertha locked down a Duke like it was a stock option, and the war of the Opera Houses finally found its winner. But after all of that… we open season 3 in Arizona? What the heck is going…

[brandngraves]

7 Benefits You Should Know About Converting HTML to WordPress

Converting HTML to WordPress transforms your static website into a dynamic, user-friendly platform. This process offers improved content management, enhanced SEO capabilities, and the flexibility to add new features effortlessly. With a streamlined approach, you can modernize your website and boost its performance across all devices. Experience the benefits of a versatile and scalable WordPress site tailored to your needs.

[chynatic]

Upgrade Your Life in Silence

“BAGAIMANA CARA HIDUP KITA TENANG ? Tidak perlu menyimpan nomor whatsapp orang2 toxic, tidak peduli itu keluarga atau saudara. Tidak perlu menonton story whatsapp dan suka main sindir2an ketika terjadi konflik dengan diri kita, Selesai.” (ardisantoso on Threads) Continue reading Upgrade Your Life in Silence

[copperbadge]

I was at the library yesterday, which is now my go-to for distractionless work; I uploaded Dinner At The Palace with a few last edits so it's ready to go in print and epub, wrote all the sales copy, and updated my website with "coming soon" announcements. Wordpress really is just the worst; I can code what I want in about a third of the time it takes to tell Wordpress what I want and even then it fucks it up. It's like working with Word if it were designed by a toddler who hates me, personally. I'm building a new site on another platform, which is not much better but does allow me to copy, paste, or delete a block of text by selecting said text, something Wordpress's feeble grasp on structure is still grappling with. As we have daily proof. *gestures at Tumblr*

Anyway, I've been thinking about overhauling the older novels, standardizing them into the style guide I've developed. So I dug out all the upload files for Nameless, my first novel, and cracked them open just to see what kind of work it would take.

The document file for Nameless is so old that Windows wasn't sure how to open it. I mean it was just a .doc file and Windows likes to give you options when it's not a .docx, but I was still amused that I had to tell it how to get into the Ancient Tome. This was also before ebooks were as big as they are now, especially in indy publishing; these days you can just upload a word document and Lulu will convert it, but back in 2009 I had to create an HTML file of my novel to get it converted to ePub. Wild.

The bad news is that my early documents for my first few novels are a brutal mess, but the good news is that because I was less sophisticated in terms of how to typeset, they're also very simple and easy to upgrade, and even back then I was saving the covers as psd files, so it's all editable. I'd rather finish Royals/Ramblers than work over all my old manuscripts, but they're a nice break when I'm tired of other work.

Now I just have to determine if I have the emotional stability to re-read Nameless. It was a very personal novel to me, but it was also published almost 15 years ago, and I'm a little concerned about being able to read my deathless 2009 prose without wincing. I tell myself we all learn and grow, and Christopher and Lucas aren't real and won't suffer if I wrote them poorly, but I'm still bracing myself for all that.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Apologies if you’ve answered this sort of question before but may I ask how you made your website? As a writer who’s looking into publishing stuff online I’ve done some (admittedly rather minimal) research on making websites but I really like the way yours is set up and haven’t so far seen a good way to accomplish a straightforward navigation system like you have. Did you just purchase a domain and start from scratch or was there some sort of template you were able to build off of? I am still in the process of figuring out how websites work to begin with - feel free to discard I just really like your set up and was wondering how you put it together

I made a free Wordpress website and just poked around their templates until I found something I could live with. It's not set up exactly how I want but that's because I don't know anything about programming. I upgraded to a paid site when my patreon income made that viable.

But yeah it's a free Wordpress template. I just designed it to make it as easy as possible for people to find the pages they wanted (which should be the #1 priority in all website design, so many websites are full of bullshit).