I apologize for any difficulty you've had recently connecting to the site. This blog is hosted on a shared server at SiteGround.com. Unfortunately, when you're on a shared box you suffer along with hundreds of other providers whenever someone gets spammed, DDOSed, or hit by a runaway process or script. I know — I've been the culprit a few times before, and paid the price for it. But once in a while I'm also the victim, and that seems to be what's happening today.
According to the SiteGround support center, everything's hunkey dory. According to the server notification center, there are no updates or information that I should know about. So, when I go through the laborious process of collecting information, pulling together stats on server performance (see the graph behind
Hello, Gentle Readers.
If you're part of the one-percenters who comment here from time-to-time you might be happy to know that I have enabled a feature to edit comments after you've posted them, and you don't even have to leave the page! (Thanks to Ronald Huereca.)
Come on, leave a comment and give it a whirl! You know you want to.
I've set the tool to allow you to edit your comments for 90 minutes after you've submitted it. I have no idea what the system will do if you've never commented before and your missive winds up in the moderation pool. But it would be useful to find out. (Hint.)
[tags]AJAX, blogging, BlogRodent, comments, editable-comments, WordPress[/tags]
In a mad dash of creative craziness, a few more things have popped up on the PneumaBlogs tool-set. So, for your blog-reading enjoyment, here's a quick summary of everything not covered in my previous post ("PneumaBlogs, PneumaSphere, PneumaSearch").
FireFox Search Plug-in
< ?php include ("/home/rtatum/public_html/blog/pneumatools.txt"); ?>
First off, fellow PneumaBlogger Christoph Fischer ("my cup of coffee") saw that I'd created a Google Co-Op tool to search within the entire set of PneumaBloggers (PneumaSearch) and he went off and quickly fabricated a PneumaSearch MyCroft extension for the FireFox search bar. What this means is that if you use FireFox and if you use the built-in FireFox search bar, you can quickly add a tool to your search box that will allow you to search only within the PneumaBlogs universe of bloggers.
Thanks Chris!
Squidoo alternate for PneumaBloggers
In case you haven't noticed, over the past several days I've been trying to bring my "Pneuma" pages up-to-snuff within the new design and to make them all a bit more usable.
Just now I've added a third page to my collection: PneumaSearch. Yes, that's right, I've gone crazy with the whole "Pneuma" prefix, just like I've irrationally appended "Rodent" to everything else. I guess, in the tradition of Web 2.0 mash-ups, I'm the PneumaRodent. But that may be carrying things too far. (Talk to my editor about it.)
Anyhow here's what's new:
I've finally gotten around to evaluating everybody who's been asking for consideration, and it shows. My paltry list of 70-80 PneumaBloggers has shot up to 130+. That number could change daily, or weekly.
Also, previously, I've used the built-in "BlogRoll" or "Links Manager" function of WordPress to manage my ever-growing
Sorry for the thrashing around on the blog lately. I've got too many plugins running here, so I'm pulling a lot of stuff off the server, cleaning junk up, and trying to get things running faster, faster, faster. This'll probably mean another change in themes. Whatever theme you see now is likely just a placeholder.
Thank you for your patience!
Rich.
[tags]BlogRodent, WordPress, weblog, site-updates, Blog Flux[/tags]
Just a very quick note to say that I've updated the PneumaBlogs list in recent days to include some stellar new names, including:
Okay, so I'm trying out the Windows Live Writer — because I'm a sucker for new tools and I'm always on the lookout for the better (free) blogging tool. Besides, Amy at GentleWhisper made me do it. ...
Installation
The install went okay ... the second time. The installer wants to add the Windows Live toolbar to Internet Explorer. I initially opted for it, but after Live Writer failed to read my blog settings, I uninstalled everything and started over — this time without the toolbar.
On the second install I de-opted for the MSIE toolbar, since I rarely use MSIE anyhow. This time, Live Writer started up nicely and read my blog settings without halting. Not sure why the toolbar would've made a difference. Not sure if it did or not, but second time was the charm.
Setup
After installing,
Since we're a year older here at the BlogRodent's bolt-hole on the Web (I use the royal "We," of course, any blame accruing from this blog is entirely mine--my wife happily observes), I thought it'd be a good time to effect a complete redesign. My WordPress install has gone from something pre-1.5 to something post 2.0 while my blog template has remained steadily prehistoric, and the maker of the old theme had dropped off the Web. It's long been time for an upgrade just on technical reasons, alone. Visually, I was due for an upgrade not long after launching. :: sigh ::
After carefully pawing through several dozen WordPress themes I settled on several I liked and tried them all out. If you were browsing the blog last Thursday night, you probably noticed the design dance the site was going through. Or maybe you thought you needed medication?
I settled on the WuCoco theme designed by Mike Lococo for a few reasons: 1) it was three-column, and I wasn't ready to leave that design structure. 2) It was WordPress 2.0-ready, so I didn't have to worry about the theme breaking in three weeks. 3) It was widget-enabled, which would allow me to fiddle with the contents of my sidebars without having to muck around in the template. And, more importantly, 4) It was very CSS-driven, no tables, and visually pleasing. Unfortunately, it's a big design. Anybody surfing with less than 800x600 resolution will be profoundly irritated right now.
I just realized that my subscription tool for subscribing to BlogRodent by email was dysfunctional. So, I’ve fixed it and wanted to let you know.
If you’re a regular reader of this blog and don’t use a feed reader to monitor the site, you can still catch all the blogalicious stuff right in your inbox by just subscribing to BlogRodent by email.
And, here’s something I have failed to mention before about this: You can get the notification in HTML format--but only if you register first (not my decision--it's a function of the plugin I'm using).
[tags]BlogRodent, subscribe[/tags]
For some reason, my weblog became the target of hundreds of referrer spam hits from pornographic websites over the last week or so. I keep an eye on my referrer logs (a record of URLs that generated traffic to my site), and lately a bunch of URLs showed up which had no business being there. Some URLs are obviously pornographic, but there were one or two that looked innocent enough that when I clicked through to see who had linked to me, I got an eyeful. I really, really, don't need that.
So, I did some research. I didn't want to get into a trap of having to hand-modify my .htaccess file or a whitelist or a blacklist file for obvious reasons: the universe of porn and poker sites is potentially infinite. I waste enough time on this blog anyhow!
Angsuman's Referrer Bouncer looked
Updated: See, instead, a live list of plugins, here.
For any who care, here are the plugins currently in use here on BlogRodent. I turned off BAStats for a while to improve performance, but then installed WP-Cache and performance improved so dramatically I’ve turned it back on for a test. However, if you use BA-Stats, yourself, you should know that there are serious performance hits as your database grows larger and larger. I may still have to turn it off as traffic here grows. We’ll see.
Akismet 1.12
“Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not. You need a WordPress.com API key to use this service.” (This has caught a ton of comment-spam since I installed it, however, there have been some concerns raised lately that spammers could be using Akismet themselves
I thought I’d take a look back on the last six months, since I began blogging here, and see which of my posts received the most attention from you, my patient readers. The results are in, and I am dutifully sharing them, despite the fact that this post will only serve to draw more attention away from my other, equally deserving but under-noticed, blogerature. (Yes, I know. It's not a word.)
I’ve added a page of RSS links and email newsletter links for official Assemblies of God news outlets (and a couple unofficial). This includes links to the AG-News newsletter, Dan Betzer’s “ByLine,” and several new Women’s Ministries newsletters that look good.
If you’re interested, see:
Assemblies of God newsfeeds
It’s also linked it in my sidebar under “God,” in case you need to find it again.
[tags]BlogRodent, Pentecostal, Assemblies-of-God, Assembly-of-God, News, General-Council-of-the-Assemblies-of-God[/tags]
Okay. I’ve finally completed the transition of TatumWeb, ChurchRodent, TypeRat, and BlogRodent, and everything else off of HostedToday and now onto the exalted servers at midPhase.
I was frustrated with HostedToday early on because the support staff were hired anonymous technicians one or two continents and three or four language groups away from here. There was nobody I could call—I had to submit a support ticket instead—and I constantly had to repeat my query to get my simple points across. The servers were slow, ailing, and un-hardy. If I blew hard, my website—thousands of miles away—would flicker and flame-out. I won’t bother describing what happened when I sneezed.
Transferring to midPhase was straightforward—or at least it should have been straightforward. In preparation for my move, I contacted midPhase over a month ago to find out what I needed to do to prepare.
Sorry, folks, but there’s going to be some blogflux over the next couple days as I move from my current web host to a new one. Hopefully, when the move is complete, we’ll have a much faster and more stable service. More later.
Rich.
Update, April 15, 2007: As of today, you can now link directly to your own entry in the PneumaBlogs list. Just look for the "link to this item" text to find your custom URL for your entry.
Update, April 10, 2007: You can also use the square-but-fiery button shown at right. Just see the updated section below.
For the 130+ PneumaBloggers currently listed on my PneumaBlogs page, if you want to host a button on your site promoting your pneumatic bloggy-ness, here it is in all its drab elegant simplicity:
Please right-click on the image and host it from your website (it's only 255 bytes) and then link to the PneumaBlogs page (or the PneumaSphere aggregator). Here's sample code you can use:
For all the curious, I’ve been remiss in adding an “About” page to this blog. I’ve finally done so. Find it here, or in the navigation area to the right.
I’ve been adding a few links here and there when I find them. So, check back to see what’s new. Also, I’ve updated the ordering of the list so that the newest items float to the top of the list.
PneumaBlog: Pentecostal & Charismatic & Assembly of God Blogs
[tags]BlogRodent, assemblies-of-god, assembly-of-god, blog, bloggers, charisma, charismatic, chi-alpha, church-of-god, division-of-foreign-missions, division-of-home-missions, evangelical, foursquare, gifts-of-the-spirit, glossolallia, holy-spirit, pastors, pentecostal, pentecostals, pneuma, pneumablog, pneumablogs, pneumatology, spirit, tongues, viral-blogs, weblog[/tags]
Hi. I’ve performed some major updates to the
Pneumablogs page. I probably have too many personal journal-style blogs represented here, so over time some of the links may be dropping off. See, especially, my comments at the end of the page regarding “cat” blogs and “boss” blogs.
Hi.
Here’s my current list of active Pentecostal, Charismatic and Assembly of God bloggers. I hope you enjoy it. And feel free to add to it with your comments.
PneumaBlogs: Select Pentecostal/Charismatic Bloggers
Rich.
[tags]assemblies-of-god, assembly-of-god, blogger, blogging, BlogRodent, charismatic, church-of-god, foursquare, god-blogger, god-blogging, godblog, godbloggers, godblogs, pentecostal, pneumablog, pneumabloggers, pneumablogging, pneumablogs, spirit-filled[/tags]
Blog Feed Changes
For the approximately baker’s-dozen subscribers to the BlogRodent feed out there, I apologize for the frequent updates to my articles, and the recent change from the full text of the article to just summaries. I personally like receiving the full text feed, but I also worry about constantly resending the full text of articles you’ve already read just because I fixed a typo or uploaded an image. If you want the complete unexpurgated feed back, let me know. (Use the contact link in the navigation bar.)
As soon as I get over the novelty of a new blog and constantly fiddling with it (does it ever happen?), things should settle down to normal. Then you can happily read one or two half-baked posts a month.
Maybe.
Notification by Email
I’ve been working over the past couple of weeks with Scott Merrill, the developer of subscribe2, which provides the ability for
I just created a new category for general site updates, so all you IPTools, ANSIRodent, and ChurchRodent users can keep up-to-date on the latest changes—of which there have not been many of late. Hopefully, that will change. Subscribe directly to the category feed here. — Rich.
[tags]BlogRodent, site-updates[/tags]
Never realized how easy it is to set up a blog with WordPress. This is pretty sharp.
Now, let's see if I can come up with something to write about. Of course, this being the first post of the blog, there's literally nothing to write about except yet further inane drivel about the futility of writing when one has nothing to say.
And isn't that what blogging is all about?
(What I really want to do is podcast. 
)
[tags]blogging, BlogRodent, first-post, Wordpress, writing[/tags]
I apologize for any difficulty you've had recently connecting to the site. This blog is hosted on a shared server at SiteGround.com. Unfortunately, when you're on a shared box you suffer along with hundreds of other providers whenever someone gets spammed, DDOSed, or hit by a runaway process or script. I know — I've been the culprit a few times before, and paid the price for it. But once in a while I'm also the victim, and that seems to be what's happening today.
