The Tedder P. Schoenhopfer Policy Exchange

I went to upgrade the blog and I don’t feel like going into details, but it was a terrible failure.  I’m now recovering things, and thank goodness the blog wasn’t lost.  But for a while there might be images not there and things not as they were, including the comment order, which is always the one thing I have to do by hand in an upgrade.  But I’m doing the best I can.

I think I solved the problem of the spellchecker,which included some mucking around.  It only works if you have “Use visual editor when writing” checked on your blog user profile.  If you have been using the visual editor (with editing buttons for bold, italic etc. above the box for writing) you should now see the ABC check icon in the comments.  Gramma, Maggie, Suzy and others, I made sure you have it checked, so the spellchecker now should work in both comments and main post page.  I’m not exactly sure how it works but I think if you click the little ABC icon it checks the spelling and underlines suspicious words.

 If you want to check your setting, go to site admin/Users/Your Profile.  On the upper left is the checkbox.  If you want me to do this for you I will, just let me know.

Also, it would also be great if people learned how to insert links into their posts.  Aunt Julie is among those who have learned this.  The key is using the visual editor, and then recognizing the link icon among the editing buttons.  It’s a chain link that’s shaped a little like a sideways number 8.  Once you type in what you want your link to say, like “funny article,” you then select those words and click on the link icon.  Then you paste in he address and hit ok.

if the blog looks weird it’s because I”m trying to fix something else

it should be back to normal soon

Today there was some messup with our web host and the 2 blogs we host (this one and Gramma’s book club) were messed up but they fixed the problem. The message from the help desk is below with funny English. But also, I don’t know why we got that evil netbot. (more…)

Wordpress, the program I used to make this site has had a major new release and I have to upgrade it. The problem is I’ve changed so many things and added things to customize it that this is going to be a big job. But if I don’t upgrade, this version will become obsolete and if it breaks we will lose the whole blog. So be prepared for weirdness while I’m doing it.

For example, the standard wordpress blog does not have the unread comments feature, which every has made clear is indispensable. However the unread comments is a little program someone made on their own and that person might not have upgraded it so it might not work.

another thing that isn’t standard is the comments being sorted by recent comments at the top — that is always a pain to change because I forget how I did it between upgrades.

(1) Does anyone think we should change the name of the blog? I’m sort of embarrassed to check it all the time in public. Even just “Tedder blog” or something. Any suggestions?

(2) I updated the family dates page.

(3) I think we should either make more categories and use them, or get rid of them. Most blogs use like 10-20 categories equally so you can find old posts. Maybe some of our categories should be “cool random stuff,” “politics,” “family news,” “Dad’s wacky photoshopping,” etc. Then again, it sort of seems like no one uses the categories anyway. What does everyone think?

Note to the individual who would use the $1500 to go to a fat farm:

If you have a beautiful Labrador no one will notice that you’re fat.

I hope.

Jenny asked me to comment on the blog so this is a test. My basement is dry. How is yours?

Here’s a problem that majorly affects my enjoyment of the blog: I’ll read all the comments, and there are still comments that claim to be “Unread!” Then, when i hit “Mark all comments as read,” the same comments still claim to be unread!!!!!

Does anyone else have Gramma’s problem, where the sidebar on the right is below the other content? It doesn’t look like that on my computer.

You should be able to make a new poll by clicking on “site admin” on the right, and then “manage” and then on the tab for “democracy.”

Mom,

I think the “unread comments” should be above the “new poll.” Also, how do you turn off the thing where it emails you people’s comments on your post?

I also think it would be nice to be able to add our own categories, even though I think I’m the only one that uses them.

It looks like Susan’s post is featured. Net Coffee

Also there was a link here to our old West Wing posts, which I had to blow away.

the formatting got totally messed up somehow so I had to switch to the regular generic theme. I’ll fix it soon but not tonight