Cold Climate Gardening

I just upgraded my version of WordPress. Because I had code in my theme (design) that would no longer work with the new version of WordPress, I needed to edit the theme before I could upgrade the software. I figured while I was at it, I’d expand the width by adding another sidebar, since just about everyone has wider screens. And I tested it out on a local server, and it looked fine.

I have been using a utility in my text editor to compare files, trying to see what file is different between the theme that works on my test machine and the theme that doesn’t on my “real” site. So far I haven’t found it, and I’m beginning to …

Popularity: 12% [?]

Some photos are more interesting when cropped severely

So many people expressed admiration for the header images that I decided to put them in the Cold Climate Gardening Flickr pool. You can view them here. It is a challenge to find images that are still interesting once you cut them down to 780×140 pixels. On the other hand, some photos are more interesting when cropped severely. I think I’m getting better at finding those.

Speaking strictly as a totally biased mother, I think there are some pretty talented photographers in my family. Of course, it doesn’t hurt to have a high-resolution digital camera, and the willingness to go tromping in all sorts of weather. Many thanks to all my …

Popularity: 17% [?]

Boredom isn’t enough to motivate me to redecorate my walls or my website

“Why are you changing your design?” some of my children asked, as I was making preparations for the Big Day. I could have said, for the same reason many people re-paint their walls or buy a new dress: tired of the same old thing. But frankly, that doesn’t motivate me to redecorate my home or update my wardrobe. For me, increasing efficiency and usability was a far tastier “carrot” to compensate for the “stick” of a website overhaul.

My old design (or theme, as it’s called in WordPress circles) looked great, but wasn’t created with the most efficient code even at the time, and being old, couldn’t take advantage of the latest features of the WordPress software. Even worse, with certain operating systems running certain browsers (most notably Windows 2000 running IE), a lot of the type in the old design was so tiny it was illegible. Not good.

So late last fall I went theme shopping.

Popularity: 13% [?]