The Recent “Improvements”
Over the past few days, I’ve been tinkering with the design of the site.
I am in the process of uninstalling the Ultimate Member suite of plugins because the UM effectively doubles our RAM use, from around 50% to 98% or more. When we hit 100%, I would have to move up to the next level of hosting services at an increase of around $20 a month, for no additional functionality.
Unfortunately, we are still depending on UM for certain functions. When I have figured out workarounds for those functions, we will be back to a 50% utilization, which will result in faster operations for everyone.
All of the CONTRIBUTORS who are currently enrolled on the site now have their own Member Pages. With Ultimate Member, everyone was forced to use the same format and a very awkward interface. Now, with the custom-designed Member Pages, I can customize them (to a certain extent) with external links, private messaging, and any other tools that I can cobble up. (Send suggestions for functions you want to have.)
You really should look at your Member Pages. Please send me a featured image that will ONLY appear on your Member Page, and whatever biographical notes you want to post on your page. Right now, I will have to set them up for you, but it is easy enough to learn how to customize these pages if you want to put in the effort. You should also look at Rose Guastella’s page, which has been customized to feature her artwork.
To find your Member Page, go to MEMBERS>CONTRIBUTORS from the main menu.
I’ve also reinstalled two pages that used to be interesting…and may be so again.
The TOP TENS page lists the ten most popular posts in each of the 11 (ELEVEN? Why Eleven?) topical categories, based on the number of comments earned by each article.
The GRAB BAG is just that, a random assortment of articles in each content category.
A careful eye will discern that the plugin used on the TOP TENS page does not show the names of the authors, but the Grab Bag does. This is because the Top Tens plugin is the only one that allows us to order the posts by the number of comments, but doesn’t allow us to display the authors’ names. The Grab Bag allows us to display the authors’ names but does not allow us order the posts by the number of comments. (There may be others that do both, but I haven’t found them yet.)
Do you think I should take the author names off the Grab Bag listings so that it is consistent with the Top Tens lists?
Lastly, feedback is hereby solicited on the categories. Do categories matter at all? Am I missing any? Are they categories (like Sports) that I really don’t need?
I’ve actually had a lot of fun making these changes…but there’s another purpose behind cleaning up the site. I am planning to publish my collected writings on Bindle, using a couple of new pages, one to list the poetry and the other to list the prose work.
I am going to be encouraging others to do the same to provide a permanent home for works that might otherwise be lost in the course of time. To facilitate this, I am investigating alternative hosting systems that are cost-free, which would enable the website to continue into perpetuity, while browbeating my son into taking responsibility for managing the site and paying for the annual fees that are required.
02/24/2023 @ 6:24 pm
Thank you. I’d love to have a place to store a lot of my old stuff in public, particularly the sound and music theory series and the Tales of J.
02/24/2023 @ 9:37 pm
This being the case, I am going to have to figure out how to do bulk imports. I think we can post previously written materials in their original formats, which can be imported directly into the hard drive where the website is located. You can then set up a post (exactly like the Contributors post accessed from Members>Contributors) to set up a table of contents in which each item in the table is a hyperlink to a file on the drive. You would however have to convert you documents to PDFs. It can work.
02/25/2023 @ 5:14 pm
I am
going to sit on the roof and watch the ice disappear. If the NE wind behaves we’ll trek to the John Lennon Peace Plaza toward darkness and hope to find ____our chair bound Wounded-Warrior VGF who’s battling pancreatic cancer. Couple of light years ago we were Wolf Den cub scouts and fished catfish in Loveland, CO. STILL MY GUITAR! We’ll probably palm slap.
02/26/2023 @ 7:25 am
Alan,
This is what I got when I clicked on my name:
“404
Page not found.
© BindleSnitch 2023”
I clicked on your name and got the same thing.
What’s up with that!
02/27/2023 @ 3:34 pm
What’s up with that is that you are clicking on your name INSIDE an article. That is part of the Ultimate Member system that I am trying to get away from. UM is four years out of date and I have not been happy with it every still Robert first installed it (or maybe I did. Who can remember back that far?)
I agree that it is nerve wracking, especially if it is happening to a naive user but, never fear, a solution has just this second popped up into my head. Shouldn’t take that long to implement.
Let’s see.
02/27/2023 @ 4:05 pm
It took exactly 30 minutes. Try it out. This is a workaround. Ideally, when your name is highlighted, it should automatically go to your archive but I still haven’t figured out how to do that. I have to budget my time right now. There are a lot of things going on in my life. Playing whack a mole.,
02/26/2023 @ 9:32 am
Sounds complicated.
Back in the day, I had an account here, but it appears to be gone now, maybe because I wasn’t using it? That’s ok, no need to restore. I’m more of a reader these days than a poster, and have enjoyed using the comments to converse with Rose.
04/15/2023 @ 1:04 am
Why must I sign in every 3/5 days when I constantly check the keep me signed in box…
Now I can’t even locate the sign in page!!!
This is not the first time I’ve brought this problem up…
There is no tool bar at the top of any page I can access….
04/15/2023 @ 2:21 pm
Using SageMerlin, with the same level of authority that you have, I am not having any problem accessing your page. It seems to work for me when clicking on your name in Members>Contributors by taking me to your page, where all of your posts are listed. It also works when I click on your name inside any post of yours.
The only way I can fix this is to duplicate the error. This requires that I have your user name and password. I don’t want to screw around with your password, so please send me your user name and password VIA EMAIL so I can see the problem.
04/15/2023 @ 3:39 pm
I can access my page but I can’t access the sign in portal….
04/15/2023 @ 1:21 pm
“I agree that it is nerve wracking, especially if it is happening to a naive user…”
Alan,
What kind of passive aggressive bullshit remark is this…
To suggest that any legitimate interrogatory is ensconced in naivety is both insulting and disrespectful…
BindleSnitch is purported to be above such rejoinders is it not?
Or, are we to devolve into a reincarnation of the Salons were such garbage was passed off as civil discourse?
04/15/2023 @ 2:13 pm
FROM MILNER:
I am using one of my dummy accounts to check up on the problem you are having….but I have no recollection of the conversation to which this comment refers. Can you provide a link to the context, the post or comment from which this was extracted?
04/16/2023 @ 8:24 am
…” I have no recollection of the conversation to which this comment refers…”
Alan;
The quote was extracted from a comment you made in response to me in this very post!!!
The fact that you can’t or don’t recall it is a testament to the notion that most of what appears on social media is of no substance, value, or consequence…
Despite this fact, I’ve endeavored to make BindleSnitch an exception. In so doing, I believe that I’ve earned the respect that such an effort deserves…
04/16/2023 @ 12:22 pm
No, Ron, it isn’t a testament to anything other than absentmindedness and lack of context. I wasn’t referring to YOU as a “naive.” user. I was referring to a hypothetical new user attempting to use the system for the first time. I was visualizing how that might affect someone if that new user keeps getting 403 or 404 messages. I can see how you might draw an inference from my comment that I was labeling you as a naive user but that was not my intention. I THINK that someone may have sent me an email complaining about this particular awkwardness, but I can’t swear to that either. No belittlement was being expressed and I apologize for the awkward phrasing,