Recently in Website Tweaks Category

I didn't think it would take long to find an error in the system. The permalinks in the Quotes blog are returning the wrong filenames. I've looked at the random-quotes file and all seems to be well. I may have to read over the tutorial again at Learning Movable Type to see where I've gone wrong. Something to do with the database, I presume. Maybe I can dump the sql file and compare the two. I have a backup, and that may be the way to go. Not tonight though, already it's after midnight.

What a day I've had transferring my site to a new server. Thanks to an excellent tutorial from Elise called Moving your MT Blogs to a New Server or Web Host, I've been successfully able to make the move without too much drama. The Gallery integration went smoother than I thought, with all my photos intact.

I'm sure there'll be a couple of hiccups that I hope won't be too bad to handle, and I've yet to change my details at all the places I'm linked to.

I'm having huge problems viewing the start page on my weblog. All the PHP files had to be given CGI permissions after my webserver upgraded their security. I've spent the last two hours trying to solve the problem but with no luck. The random photos aren't viewable either. I created a php.ini file for MT and I hoped that would work, but alas, I'm no php guru. htaccess files had to be changed too and I'm not sure that I've done everything correctly. This is extremely frustrating.

UPDATE
I discovered, silly me, that it was the fact that I hadn't posted anything for over a week and in my weblog is configured to show the last 7 days on the index page. Now there's a tip that might be handy when you think you've got a problem. We're our own worst enemies.

I've been searching the Internet for weeks now trying to solve the problem of my jumping links. Every time I hovered over links displayed using unordered lists, the text would jump to the right. The problem was affecting the navigation tabs as well. I've been looking for a CSS hack and thinking it was the IE hover problem, but normal links were okay.

Tonight I realised the problem only existed in my main weblog, so I've been comparing the style-sheets for the quotes blog and my main blog. All along the problem has been padding. The text was jumping 2 pixels to the left when the mouse went over, but only on the LI. It's fixed now and I can stop fretting. In the meantime I've learned lots about the problems with CSS standards and IE and that hacks will no doubt be necessary for a while longer, but it was my own fault all along.

Remember...
One dog barks at a shadow...
A hundred dogs bark at its sound.
Master Chen Hai Yang

The sidebar has grown considerably tonight since I added a heap of useful favelets, and after updating the Movalog Plugin MTBlogroll. I've spent considerable time getting my sidebar back to normal after using one of the favelets I dragged to my toolbar last night - blogidate xhtml1 transitional - a tool that validates XHTML fragments in textareas. I used it while I had the template editor window open and it wiped out all the PHP includes, and stuffed up some of the MT Tags. I wouldn't recommend that anyone tries to use it on the templates, but for entries it would probably work well. I'm hesitant to try it now, but if anyone wants to use it, just drag it to your bookmarks or favourites toolbar and click on it when you're typing into a textarea. You can do the same for any of the entries in the Favelets list on the sidebar.

Remember...
Two good talkers...
Not worth one good listener.
Master Chen Hai Yang

It seems that every other day I'm discovering new things for my weblog. This time it's Favelets, and the first nifty piece of code I've added is one to allow me to view the source code directly in the browser thanks to Slayer Office. There you will find a list of handy little tools that you can either link directly to or use the code. I just love people who love to share and Slayer seems to know his Javascript. Another site with loads of Favelets is Centricle.com. It's going to take me some time to look through these two sites - these guys have been busy.

I hadn't even heard of a Favelet until just recently and now I'm seeing them everywhere. An Internet search returned nearly 30,000 pages and I'm rubbing my hands together, I can't resist a good tool.

Remember...
Bitter words are good medicine...
Sweet words carry infection.
Master Chen Hai Yang

I've just discovered Blogshares. I'm still not sure how to play with it, but it looks fun. Check out what my site is worth!! If only it were real money!! According to Blogshares, it's a fantasy stock market where weblogs are the companies. Players invest fictional dollars on shares in blogs. Blogs are valued by their incoming links and add value to other blogs by linking to them. Prices can go up or down based on trading and the underlying value of the blog.

It'll be interesting to see my worth go up and down, and how much stock I have, I've never been a stock-market player so here comes another learning curve. Good job. I thought the David Raynes MTBlogShares Plugin looked interesting, then on to Blogshare to sign up and I'm amazed.