Welcome to my blog

During my recent them upgrade I had some challenges with the Now Reading Reloaded plugin for WordPress and the frustrating “HTTP 500: Internal Server Error” messages. This took me on a journey of exploration into how the php modules used by WordPress and its plugins ended up as HTML on my browser and what logs were available to help me diagnose the 500 error.

The following article looks at how the pieces fit together in a typical Apache/PHP deployment (for WordPress and other PHP-based applications) and then shows how the pieces can be used to identify code problems….
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When redesigning my theme, I wanted to include a standard set of “share” links (or “social links” or “story tools”) for the posts and pages, featuring the usual print, email, rss and social-bookmarking links. Many people use the Sociable and ShareThis plugins for all of these, but I wanted to have a structure with separate links for each.

This article is a walk-through of creating two styles of “share” links, an inline set of links and a box (that also contains my tags).
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One of the great things about WordPress is the plethora of plugins that the user community has developed to extend and enhance the basic blog functionality. Some plugins, such as WP-PluginsUsed, are simple and add a function or two you can embed in a page and are implemented as a single php file. Others, such as Now Reading Reloaded, provide significant functionality and involve many files.

Some plugins are purely for administration of the blog, such as Ozh’ Admin Drop Down Menu, whereas others provide functionality viewable to your readers. I have found the need to tweak some of these, sometimes for look’n'feel, sometimes for functionality. But managing modified plugins can be a challenge. This article looks at the common areas of customisation and how they can be managed.
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It’s taken a while but I’ve finally got the new theme up and running. This explains the lack of posts over the last month.

I hadn’t realised how complex a task it could be and I’ve learned a ton about php, css and debugging along the way. I’ve made a few notes and will write some posts on my experiences.

There may be a few things I’ve missed between my testing blog and here. I’ll be looking for them over the next few days. But for now, please enjoy the updated look and feel of the blog.