Well Howdy there Internet People (for Beau!)

Welcome to my Blog. I have been writing to this blog (in its MANY forms) for over 20 years now… The content has bounced across many servers. I’ve run from my own code. From WordPress and others… Due to the many iterations of the blog, some of the content (most likely embedded graphic references) will 404. If you come across any – please let me know and I’ll see if I can relink them (if they exist).

I keep returning to use WordPress because I’ve found it simply the easiest to use to accomplish what I want, which is a highly customizable blog.

In March of 2022 I have reunited all of my blog posts under one WordPress roof. Huzzah! Due to dealing with idiot web hosts in the past the data wasn’t always in formats that allowed this to happen. But it has finally been sorted out.

Anyway, this is just a place where I bury some of my thoughts.

-dag

APTBT Log

May 25/2023 · Updated all remaining entries! 😃 Phew! Links that are labelled as (link is 404) have been set to src=”#”… the link won’t go anywhere. A lot of old links went to pages that no longer exist or domains that are inactive. Some went to very strange places now… So ALL the photos have been restructured in the standard WordPress manner of year and date. They have all been updated to the current URL as well. So, yeah, all the content is as good as it is going to get.

May 24/2023 · Updated entries to December 2007.

May 17/2023 · Updated entries to November 2011.

May 11/2023 · Updated entries to November 2013. Changed background to Wesley Tingey’s awesome Purple Bricks on Unsplash.

May 10/2023 · I’ve been editing the entries (one at a time… ughhhhhhhhhhhhh) and I’ve updated 2023-2016. I’ve also restructured the photo paths into the date sub folders they *should* have been in. Also updating the file path. Not sure why the dynamic path doesn’t work, it would alleviate so many headaches…

May 3/2023 · Noticed some of the images aren’t loading post-migration. WHY oh WHY are they HARDCODED with absolute URLs WordPress?? UGH. It will take a while to update them all…Le sigh..

May 1/2023 · Changed title font to Amatic SC.

April 27/2023 · Moved the site off my Raspberry Pi to a legit Ubuntu Server! It was several days of configuring, trial and lots of errors. But I’m hoping this will be a longer term solution. WordPress itself was a lot of the problem. Getting this monstrous blog of close to 3000 entries created an export file of over 500M. Everything was choking on it. I had to update php.ini settings to get the file to export… The real solution was the All in One Migration Plugin. What a saviour. New purple wiggle background by Anete Lusina.

Wow… I was using ZeroSSL for my SSL/https but I guess you only get three free certs then you are gouged for $10/m! Jesus… So I looked for a free option, and not only does Let’s Encypt  offer free certs but my gawd! they have an app (certbot) to automate it!! I still don’t believe it.

March 9/2023 · Added the guestbook.

February 22/2023 · Since 99% of the comments are spam from the totalitarian terrorist state r*ssia, I’ve changed the comments to require registration. This may just kick the ball from comments to registration but we’ll see. Sigh.

February 16/2023 · I’ve heard a lot about the Jetpack plugin for WordPress. It apparently adds a fair bit of functionality. So I decided to try it. It installed without bricking anything, so that is a good start.

February 15/2023 · The site is pretty much back to where I want it. I added the side widgets and some minor appearance updates. I’m pretty happy with the current look and functionality.

February 14/2023 · Attempted to install a Geo blocking Plugin and it *gasp* broke my wp-admin. I got a critical error and could not load my WordPress Admin. @%$#%! I was able to ssh into the server and rename the plugin folder. I also turned on debugging. Not sure which of those worked, but after a few refreshes I was able to get into the admin and delete the poorly coded plugin. Be careful kids. This can happen to you too! 🙁

February 9/2023 · Right. Well, I’ve moved the blog back to a home server. I just couldn’t stand having such a crippled WordPress on wordpress.com. They want a ridiculous amount of money for full functionality. So… hopefully, this works out. The aesthetic is a mess and will be a few days to get it back to where I like it. Importing over 2,700 posts timed the server out a few times. I had to edit php.ini, this article was super helpful. I set the max input time to -1. in php.ini and it imported successfully! So things will be wonky for a few days as I update the theme etc..

Aww yes – my beloved FMI theme is back in business. To show the full post:
a) Settings > Reading > Blog pages show at most = 1
b) Settings > Reading > For each post in a feed, include Full Post
c) Appearance > Customize (note: only with FMI Theme) > Homepage Layout > Post Summary > Use Read More Tag

December 6/2022 · In case it isn’t obvious, my primary domain, unsung.net is forwarding here. It should be SSL/TLS encrypted. It is at least enabled from unsung, I have zero control over the wordpress domain and whatever they do. All real functionality is locked behind a paywall.

November 24/2022 · I’ve noticed some of the older posts are not formatting very nicely with this theme. *shrug* It is disappointing but they are still perfectly readable but the centering and/or padding is a mess or missing. Sorry kids, I’m not going to re-edit 2000 posts for this, they are what they are…Ugh, also found a lot of photos are missing. They copied over in the export and are on the server but the filenames mapped wrong. *eyeroll* So I’ll fix them as I find them but again… that is a massive undertaking.

November 22/2022 · After a lot of tweaking the site is looking pretty decent IMHO. The new editor does allow you to tweak the template quite a bit… so I was able to modify the footer and add search to all the pages. There was a drop down for archives but I can’t find it now… somehow I’ll have archives. Probably end up just adding a page for it.

November 21/2022 · Well after non-stop password attacks on my self-hosted WordPress *eyeroll* … I said fsck it. I have moved the blog and content to WordPress.com. I will miss all the control and configuration options I enjoyed with a full version of WordPress but concern over hackers was too annoying. So this is it now.

November 1/2022 · Somehow with Style updates the favicon was lost. *sadness* Added it back. It is a little skull.

Also changed the background. Grabbed this lovely Black and White Landscape from Pexels

August 12/2022 · I was using Contact Form 7 for my form but it used some backend captcha. I’m getting Russian spam (sigh- really that nation needs to get their sh*t in order) so I’ve changed the form to WPForms with a more pro-active captcha. We’ll see what happens. Wow, WPForms is pretty slick!

July 28/2022 · Some minor UI tweaks.

July 27/2022 · Changes the site theme from Suits to FMI. Just felt like a change and the widget title font was irritating me so, *boom*. I think it is clean and easy to read. the spacing is nice and I like the Load More option. Also changed the background to a photo I took at Killbear PP.

May 23/2022 · Ok, ok, google has WAY TOO many great fonts. Changed the banner to Rubik Glitch. I did want something thicker so I add a 1px stroke to the text. No pun intended. Also redid the media queries, really the only downside to font hopping.

May 22/2022 · Yup, decided the header was a bit much. Changed it to just text. The google font is “Pathway Gothic One.”

May 16/2022 · Changed the header. Not sure about that font. I do like the transparency. It is a bit whacky.

May 14/2022 · After some hacking attempts – I’ve increased the site security. Not sure why you’d hack someone’s blog. 😕

May 13/2022 · Changed the background image to a smaller size. Still not really filling how I’d like. Hmm.

May 12/2022 · Hmm, not sure why I haven’t done a site log for my blog. It would have been interesting if had I actually maintained it, as the blog has changed so dramatically over the years. Oh well. I added the Contact page and this log today. The Contact form is using v3 (reCAPTCHA) which passively checks for spam instead of requiring any matching etc. I’ll be curious to see how well it works. Changed the background image to this stunning capture by Andre Furtado. Being North of Toronto – I thought it worked well. Cropped the header image to shorten its height.

Yes! the site name is inspired by the great band A Place to Bury Strangers.

September 18/2013 · Blog is converted to WordPress!