Another WordPress upgrade. Ho-Hum.

New WordPress DashboardWell, I decided to live dangerously and upgrade the version of WordPress this runs on again, even though I was not at home and relying on the wifi at UPMC. The way things have been at home lately with my internet service, it’s probably just as reliable.

It seems to have worked, and I got through it without much trouble. I use a plugin, WordPress Automatic Upgrade, which does most of the heavy lifting for me, so it didn’t take long.

Ther plugin used to work really well, but the last time I used it, there were a few glitches with the database backup. That uses another plugin. I found out that by disabling all other plugins and changing to a default theme first, it all works and the upgrade proceeds smoothly.

The problem is, they do disable all the plugins during the upgrade process, they just do it automatically at a later point. If they would just move it up sooner, it would work without my intervention. They also put the site into a maintenance mode, which probably accomplishes what using a default theme does too.

But that’s all minor. The main thing the update seems to do is change the Admin interface, the part of the site nobody else sees except the privileged few. The screen shot shows part of the new Dashboard. They did clean it up and organize it really well. I like it, but there isn’t much for the user to see.

A Tale of Two Malls

So many ornaments, you can hardly see the tree...

It was the worst of times, it was the best of times…

The starting line of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities sure fits here.

Yesterday, after we got done with Al’s business at the hospital, we went out to see if we could get some shopping done. I was looking for a certain type of specialty store that Santa has sworn me to secrecy over, so I won’t mention it, other than that.

We did a little research on Google and found two shopping malls in or near Pittsburgh that we thought were worth a try. The first was across the river on the south shore and the other one was a few miles further away, but still not that far. Continue Reading…

We interrupt this program for election coverage…

[Photos first seen on Ezra Klein’s Blog]

Well, now that it’s over, I think I’ll say a word or two on the election.

I am so glad that Barack Obama won the election. I was afraid it was going to be closer that it was and that he was going to get robbed like Al Gore did.

But it didn’t happen that way and I think we’ve got a good chance at seeing some Change – the byword of his campaign, by the way – and I think it will be in a positive direction.

A message of Hope wins over Hate and Fear [seen on Twitter]

One of the things I like about Obama is he doesn’t seem to be caught up in the Old-Boy network of Washington Politics. Yes, he’s a Senator from Illinois, and he is adept at working in that framework, but he’s not afraid to go his own way. He seems to genuinely care about the people of this country, not just the rich and powerful ones, but all of them. Continue Reading…

Day 4-5: Change

Obama todayI never got around to posting yesterday. I was here in the morning, but decided to wait until later to write anything so I’d have the latest info. But by the time I visited in the evening I didn’t have my laptop with me. I’ll get to why later.

So, I’m double posting here, covering both yesterday and today. That’s all right, because there isn’t really any big news, just steady, incremental improvement. Continue Reading…