Fallen Into Knowledge

One of the reasons for my not posting was that I have been preparing this site. Look around, there are pictures, videos, and sundry other goodies here. Also, make sure to update your RSS readers to reflect the new RSS feeds. Another reason is that I have started classes: and while the classes themselves are not difficult, I have used this “being in school-ness” to dive into reading some books that I have wanted to for too long: specifically, I have read a bunch of Agamben, a ton of Foucault, and even some Zizek. Stay tuned for posts related to these readings.

I have set up a Unified RSS feed, for those of you who use RSS. The unified feed collects blog posts, del.icio.us posts, Flickr photos, and everything else I post on the web, all in one place.
Go get it

It was supposed to be so simple: update to Wordpress 2.1. I updated a couple of weeks ago - nobody even noticed. That’s a good thing.
This time. Things are broken, badly. It will be some time before they are fixed.
Unfortunately, once started, there is no going back. I was over-confident.
Is there an “undo” key I can push?

{edit, Sunday Night} This has been a nightmare. I have now completely re-installed wordpress, and am working on updating / reinstalling all of the plugins. Then on to the theme: this is only temporary.

I have to say: I will rejoice on the day when I can have blogging software that works well (and wordpress’s blogging software does) and also have a great photo gallery system.

{edit, Monday evening} Okay, framework that holds the sidebar together, and allowed for some of content - Netflix info, Twitter, del.icio.us, etc - is broken and awaiting a fix by the developer. The Gallery program I was using is also being updated, but since it is such a massive program, and not properly a part of Wordpress, I am looking for a Photo Gallery replacement. So far, I have tested a few options, and have been dissatisfied.

School is out, and as a consequence I have more time to continue working on the website: Here is an update.

The Upgrades fall into two categories: Blogging and Photo Galleries. I like having both, but I haven’t really been happy with the solutions I’ve tried in the past - that’s the main reason this site gets worked on so often.

Blogging: I am using a program called Wordpress to run the blogging portion of the new site: its free, popular, and powerful. Using this system I can update my blog (this page) from any computer, or from my phone, quickly and easily. This is something that the previous web site didn’t do well; in fact, any update to the last website took at least a half hour. Most of that time was waiting, but still quite time intensive. This works better, and as a consequence i have been posting more often.

Photo Galleries: Go ahead, click on the “gallery” tab up at the top of the page. Most of the blogging programs don’t do photo galleries well, if at all. The last website’s photo galleries looked great, but like the blogging, any change took forever. Now I am using a program called Gallery2 to run the galleries. Like Wordpress, its free and powerful. Best of all, I can upload pictures directly from the program I use to manage my photos, Aperture - or, if I’m not at my computer, I can upload from any browser. Pretty cool.
The trick has been to integrate these two separate programs into a seamless site. Getting these two programs to work together has taken the most work, but this phase is now done. Now I can turn my attention to the look of the site. These changes will be more obvious, so stay tuned…

Ben Witherington has a great post on his blog about The Christian Calendar. Why should Christian’s care about the Christian Calendar? Well, in addition to the reasons he summons, By orienting ourselves according ot the Christian Calendar instead of a secular one, we are constantly reminded that Christians have been called to live out of step with the world, that we have a different pattern and tempo to life, and that we have (and I mean this politically) a different agenda than is represented by those who are not Christian. Living by the Christian Calendar reminds us that we cannot be both good Christians and good Americans.

Testing the new photo engine:

177

Click on the image to see if it works.

The first portion of this site’s transformation is complete: All of the posts have been migrated to this site. That includes not only all the posts made with iWeb (the previous iteration) but also all the post on the earlier iterations stretching back to March ‘04 when this site started on blogger. Together at last. I have also managed to resurrect many of the comments associated with the old posts, though unhappily not all.

The second portion of this site pertains to that “photo” tab up top. This site has become very photo oriented, and I intend on continuing that. Phase two is starting soon

massive site maintenance re-organization underway!

The site is, and has been undergoing some changes. If you find any broken links, or just have comments, please contact the web admin (me, of course).

Yesterday I gets me an email from one of my profs:
“Please have read the rest of the mystic women writers, or at least up as far as the heretics.”
I tell myself to breathe:  this represents a large amount of reading.  I’m swamped, and its only week two.
And yet I still find time to completely remake my website.  Go figure.
This site was constructed using iWeb, the new app that is a part of iLife ’06.  Except for the photo galleries - those were made using Aperture.
Okay, now: Back to work.