Blog Stuff

“Blog Stuff”

That was the subject of the email awaiting when I returned from a weekend “getting away from it all” – including cellphone signal – in the Southern Cape. After the trials and tribulations of the last week – only 1% of which concerned the blog crashing and burning and the other 99% of which was carefully tucked away, hidden from the prying eyes of the readers of this esteemed site – it was manna from heaven.

The email was from the character who I have, in the past, labelled The Guru. As most of you who can read will already know, that man is Jacques Rousseau. While I was still blogging at ballacorkish.net by writing html by hand in notepad, he introduced me to the joys of WordPress. I can still remember what he said:

…you should give it a try, I think you’ll like it.

But that was then and this is now. While I have been throwing words at your screens, Guru Jacques has been honing the interface for your viewing pleasure. And once I had torn out the spine of 6000 miles… and begun crying on Friday, he set to work rehoning what was left. Basically from scratch.

Thanks be to Jacques, because what he has created is the “Slimmer6000” theme:

• The functions.php file is 14.4% smaller
• The style.css file is 59.3% smaller – decreasing load time
• The menu spacing is “improved”
• The coding is more efficient and smells better
• There is an extra 10px width for posts – useful for quota photos
• Robots are unblocked, boosting my ranking potential

Basically, it’s all good. Aside, it seems, from my sidebar text:

I reckon your sidebar text is too small (always has been) – if you want to play with that, go to lines 82 and 83 of style.css

Later, in another email, Jacques described himself as “a genius”, which I was about to agree with until I realised that he had given me free rein to play around with his work.

Pfft.

He obviously enjoys repairing things.