Blog Updated – Family Updates – News
Tammy and I have been hard at work on this site bringing it up to where we like it again. In this post, I touch on the blog update, what I’ve been up to, and at the end, some great news you’ll want to read, for sure!
First, we have also upgraded to WordPress 3.0 Thelonious and switched to the default WordPress 3.0 “twenty ten” theme. We customized it a little bit with a new header (non-rotating) and cleaned out a lot of old plugins and junk. You’ll probably notice the site loads and operates a lot faster now.
Second, we opted to keep Menalto’s Gallery for our photos. This choice was easy after considering our options. The main thing that kept us with Gallery2 is the fact that Gallery 3 is close to release and we won’t have to reupload all of our images to some new gallery system. That saves us from trying to add captions to over 5 years worth of photos on here (2,200+ photos).
Because we kept Gallery2, I went ahead and upgraded to the latest 2.3.1 so that we’ll be ready to upgrade to Gallery 3.0 in the near future. I even showed Tammy how I upgrade the software on this site. First time she’s shown a little interest in that, pretty cool!
Third, I removed the WPG2 plugin that allowed integration from WordPress to Gallery2. This plugin was a HUGE pain in the neck and forced us to stay with the same theme for all these years. You’ll notice if you visit our Buehler Family Photo Gallery that it no longer has the same theme as the main site, I’m keeping it this way so that we can change our main page theme to fit the times. If it is nearing Christmas, we can switch to a Christmas style and get all festive-like for you.
Fourth, all of the old posts were updated to show bigger thumbnails. Since we were forced to update all posts that had images, due to the removal of the WPG2 plugin, we went ahead and made the thumbnails on the posts much bigger. We are now uploading images to posts directly using WordPress’ built in upload/embedding features. This will make switching themes a SNAP. I also removed a lot of old news, outdated information, and irrelevant stuff from here.
Fifth, Tammy is now working on the blog again! She is going through all of our photos from last year to now and preparing them for upload and viewing. Once she is done updating the Photo Gallery, she’ll begin working on adding posts with all of the things we’ve done since the last family update! Many of you have requested new blog updates and now, they are a-commin’!
Sixth, I’ve done a lot of work on this site and during these updates, I accidentally fired off a few misfires from our email notification system. I’m sorry about that. This system is buggy with WordPress 3.0. I emailed the developer to try and join their beta release program to fix it. But from now on, you should see quite a few emails from us with updates over the last year.
Seventh, this all started because I needed a “break” from all the work I’ve been doing. I’ve spent the last two months coding my own website template for Customer Hosting Reviews and then working with a developer to upgrade the site to use the new theme with all of the new features I wanted (quite expensive). I’ve also been working with two content writers to add all new content to the site, the content isn’t perfect, but it works for what I needed. Also, managed to get a Google Streetview type site up that was inspired by Uncle Chuck’s vpike called House Street Views. I have several domains I want to launch with this that goes into niche topics that need street view maps.
And finally, #8 of this long blog update, it hasn’t been posted on here yet but I think we’ve told everyone already, Tammy is pregnant! We’re expecting our new baby sometime around Thanksgiving and we can’t wait! We have yet to buy any baby items, we need a crib, crib set, stroller, car seat, baby clothes, a take home clothing set, and of course, we won’t qualify for any assistance, so we’ll need to stock up on formula, baby diapers, etc. We’ll also need to cover $5,000 that our insurance won’t pay. Nonetheless, this is why I’ve been busting my ass working so hard to try and earn more money to help cover all of this. Top this off with yet another health insurance premium increase letter, it’s all piling up. But I’m keeping up a positive attitude, working hard, and feel great with all that I have accomplished.
Thanks for reading. We love reading blog comments on here, so if you read our new blog updates coming soon, please be sure to comment. We’d sure appreciate it!