Sherlock Holmes knows the answer to our search problem.
One minor quick morning note, late in the evening yesterday I was able to fix a bug I came across during some routine interface/content bug hunting where the df.com Search Page would be completely malformed (read: ugly to look at) though the contents were returning correctly for the search query itself. Turned out to be a conflict between my plug in that does in house searches on df.com and another plug in that does the “teaser” abbreviated News & Updates posts (including that nifty word count and permanent link feature at the bottom of this very post). With a little finagling I was able to get both the plug in’s to play together nicely. The result is the Search Page is fixed and all is good in the df.com world again.
I also updated all the various web page content site wide to reflect the current status (such as the Staff Page, etc…) of what we’re up to.
I know what you’re saying– there’s been no News updates for like five days. What’s up with that? Well, if you’ve been staring at the DF.com Code Info page on a daily basis (I doubt you have– really I seriously hope you have better things to do) you’ll notice we’ve crept up everyday a few code revisions and are now at df.com version 11.6.1c. Most of that work has been seamless background web page engine tomfoolery such as:
I upgraded web engine to latest WordPress code to fix known exploits with Flash and Flash image upload tools to insure security best practices are maintained.
I did updates to various widgets and plug-ins that run our site’s many features such as the Artwork gallery, the script optimization tools I use to speed up web page loads, the security tools I use to keep the site from going down, and the comment anti-spam tools I use to keep the comments free of spammers and scammers.
I moved the DF Pirate Radio FAQ to the Music sub-menu for consistency/logical organization (previously under the About DF.com sub-menu). I also updated page’s content to reflect some better MP3 players that have come out since the page was originally authored.
More notably (and of entertainment value) I added additional videos to our YouTube channel, which can also conventionally be browsed on our site in the Videos section. Our YouTube channel has also been branded in our color scheme. We now have 36 videos in our channel including some of my seminal favorites from Skinny Puppy, Chamillionaire, Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, and Jay Z. Check it out and let me know what you think.
Physically, I’m feeling a lot better. My range of motion and endurance is improving every day. Therapy continues to help a lot. So lack of updates has not been because of that. I guess the main culprit has been all the background work I’ve been doing on the site and our various third party social network profiles, as well as, my continued focus on my rehab exercises and PT visits.
Don’t be fooled though by the appearance of laziness because of lack of main page News updates. If you dig around on the site you’re always sure to stumble upon my latest experiment or some new content. You just never know what you’re going to find and you’re always sure to be surprised as to what I’m up to. Keeping it fresh; that’s what DF.com does best!
Stewie Griffin – “Everything I do, I do it for you”
This afternoon I spent some more time introducing tweaks to df.com. Our latest improvements are as follows:
Cleaned up the 404 Page Not Found quick search function. Better layout and coloring is now found on the 404 Search page making it easier to use than ever.
Updated CAPTCHA form to continue to reduce spam comments (haven’t had one sneak through yet proudly enough).
Cleaned up the Google.com Custom Search found at the bottom of our in house Search page making that also more user friendly and easier to read.
Introduced new “teaser” function to front page News posts. If the post goes over 500 words it will be abbreviated on the main “Home” page. This insures df.com load times stay under 15 seconds and helps make the site snappy when first loading. You’ll also notice a new “Permanent Link” is shown at the bottom of each post to help you with linking to the article on your blog/web page if you so wish to do so. Finally, you’ll notice each post also has the complete word count and estimated time to read it so if you’re on the go or in a hurry you know how much time you’ll need to tackle the text at a later time. All in all I think this will improve web site browsing speeds and also let you know just how long an article is.
These are some of the small, but important improvements I’ve recently implemented. Hopefully they will help you continue to enjoy our site even more. As always, feedback is welcome.
I spent this evening working on the 404 error page for df.com. The result is a nice friendly search is done on any page that doesn’t exist including a list of alternatives that might help you find what you’re looking for (assuming it’s actually still there). For example, if you go to: http://www.digitalflood.com/chicken.htm. You’ll see the page in action. It seems to work well enough though I plan on cleaning it up a bit over the long term to make it a bit prettier. For now though, at least it works.
No sooner did I back up the latest version of df.com this morning when I realized that comments where not showing up on various pages across the entire site. You could comment on blog posts though and that lead me right to my page templates where I noticed the blog template software I used left out one very important PHP array that coincidentally enough called comments on pages. A little cut and paste action to fix that aforementioned snippet of code and now we have comments again across the site. Joy!
While I was at it, I added two more links to the Links & Propaganda section. If you’re a personal acquittance of mine and I somehow missed your web site be sure to drop me a line so I can add you to the page. I think I got everybody I know who has some sort of band or project going on linked up, but I’m sure I missed somebody (and no– it was not intentional).
Well– what you waiting for? Comment away already! 😉
