Category Archives: CTTS News

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CTTS Upgraded, Jetpacked, and Roboted

Posted on 23.03.2011 by Stephanie Booth

[fr]

Mise à jour de WordPress. Installation de Jetpack et de Robots Meta. Comme toujours, faites signe en cas de comportement inhabituel du site!

[en]

Sorry for the neologisms in the title. I’ve upgraded CTTS to WordPress 3.1 (you should do it too if you haven’t done it yet, lest you fall prey to hackers as I did earlier this year). While I was at it, I also installed Jetpack, the plugin that brings to WordPress.org blogs goodness from WordPress.com.

I use WordPress.com for almost all my projects, and all my clients. For most of the people I work with, it’s just not worth the hassle to have to deal with upgrades, technical issues, and potential hackings. For CTTS, however, I do depend on plugins like Basic Bilingual which are not (yet?!) a part of the WordPress.com offering. Also, I admit the geek in me likes having her own installation and code to tinker with.

Finally, I installed the Robots Meta plugin. You know me, I’m always a bit wary of the fancy SEO stuff (specially as many people who write about it seem completely obsessed with it, rather than obsessing on doing and saying interesting things). I’m really unimpressed with all the panic over duplicate content for example, especially as it didn’t seem to sound like a huge issue in blogs when I heard Matt Cutts giving us SEO tips in 2007 — I happily cross-post a lot of my writing “elsewhere” back here and I don’t think I’ve suffered unreasonably from it.

Anyway: lately, I’ve read a few analytics/SEO articles that seemed sensible to me and I’m starting to take a tiny (tiny!) bit of interest in the subject.

I’ve been using the Google Sitemap Generator plugin for some time now, and hanging out in my Google Webmaster Central — particularly since my hacking incident.

Also, it was brought to my attention today that there are old articles lying around on CTTS which are ranked very highly for certain searches even though they are really not that relevant anymore. Though I’m loathe to remove them altogether, I could very well remove them from search engine listings — and the Robots Meta plugin allows me to do just that.

So, I’ve taken the plunge and am now only allowing search engines to index my home page (of course) and single article pages, blocking them from date, category and tag archives as well as comment feeds.

We’ll see what happens — I’m a bit worried I may have gone overboard and I wonder what the consequences of those settings can be to other crawlers like BackType and IceRocket. If you have any intel to give me on that topic, I’m happy to take it. I feel a bit like I’ve been giving orders to my robot blocker without really understanding all the consequences.

Searching For a New Theme For Climb to the Stars

Posted on 19.07.2010 by Stephanie Booth

[fr]

Version courte: je cherche un nouveau thème pour Climb to the Stars.

[en]

These last few days I noticed things were going sour between Matt Mullenweg (WordPress) and Chris Pearson (Thesis) over licensing issues. I don’t write much code, and licensing looks like a big jungle to me, but things heating up did made me recall a few things I’d vaguely seen fly by over the last years about WordPress themes having to be GPL and Thesis not being GPL.

Anyway, I read Twitter streams from both Matt and Chris the other day and decided I was going to stay away from the topic.

I’ve used WordPress for years and know (and appreciate) Matt personally, and I’ve been happy so far with Thesis, which I paid a developper license for way back when during the launch.

I had a small issue early 2009 around the change of terms in the developper license (which went from allowing unlimited use to unlimited use on one’s own sites) but a quick e-mail with Chris cleared things up and he assured me that I could stick with the terms of the license as they were when I signed up. So, no beef. I’ve also regularly recommended Thesis around me.

A bit by chance this morning, I saw Philip Oakley‘s tweet about an interview he’d done with Matt on this topic. In the introduction text, he recommended that we first listen to this debate between Matt and Chris, moderated by Andrew Warner. I loaded it onto my iPhone, turned up the sound, and hopped on my exercise bike for my daily half-hour of sweaty indoor pedaling (TMI? ).

I’d like to state that I started listening to the interview with no preconceived idea of who may be “right” or “wrong” over the issue (knowing, too, that I have in the past disagreed with a stand or two of Matt’s). I was hoping to learn a bit more about the rational arguments on both sides.

Ten minutes in, I felt like leaving the room (I couldn’t, remember, I was stuck pedaling on my indoor bike). At least, if I had been the one talking with Chris, I would have stopped trying to reason with him. Twenty minutes later, I got off my bike, turned off the podcast, and decided I’d had enough.

I like to think I have a pretty good grasp of conversation mechanics, and if this one was going nowhere, it’s pretty clear to me that it was largely Chris’s doing. I was appalled at how emotional (vs. rational) his responses were. At how he systematically didn’t respond to questions asked, falling back on “they’re out to get me” and “it’s my creation so I have a right to control it” arguments. This honestly didn’t give me the impression that Chris fully understood the licensing issue at hand, and that this was mainly about “me, me, me, my stuff, my work, me” (a vibe I had already got and didn’t like from his sites and marketing communication, the hyperbolic “I’m the best“, but I didn’t think it would translate that strongly into actual conversation.)

So, as you can guess — and whether the licensing issue actually stands or not — I’m looking for a new theme for Climb to the Stars. I think the one thing I really like about the Thesis layout is the multimedia box upper right, where I can randomly showcase my photos. I’m sure there are other themes out there doing that, or plugins.

What Are Your Favourite Climb to the Stars Articles?

Posted on 09.07.2010 by Stephanie Booth

[fr]

Dans moins d'une semaine, Climb to the Stars va fêter ses 10 ans. Pas mal, non? Histoire de marquer le coup, j'aimerais vous donner l'occasion de partager avec les autres lecteurs vos articles préférés publiés ici au cours de ces 10 dernières années.

Je publierai une liste de toutes vos recommandations le 13 juillet, date anniversaire.

Parmi les 2339 articles publiés sur Climb to the Stars, quels sont les trois (deux, un) que vous désirez mettre en avant? Ou qui vous ont marqué le plus? Utilisez le formulaire ci-dessous pour me le dire. Vous pouvez aussi ajouter un paragraphe puor expliquer votre choix, et je le publierai aussi, à côté de vos recommandations (n'oubliez pas de laisser l'URL de votre blog pour que je puisse faire un lien vers vous!)

[en]

In less than a week, Climb to the Stars is going to turn 10. That’s quite a ripe old age for a blog! On that occasion, I’d like to give you the occasion to let other readers know what your favourite (and most shareworthy) Climb to the Stars articles are.

I’ll create a post with all your recommendations and publish it on the 13th.

So, amongst the 2339 published posts (including this one) on this blog, which are the three (or two, or one) that you would like to make other people read — or which left the biggest mark for you? Use the form below to tell me. You can also add a paragraph at the end to explain your choice, and I’ll publish it too, alongside your recommendations (and leave your blog URL so I can link back to you!)

Thanks for helping CTTS have a nice blogversary!

WordPress 3.0 Installed

Posted on 20.06.2010 by Stephanie Booth

[fr]

Ce blog tourne maintenant sous WordPress 3.0. Je vais prochainement cesser d'utiliser FeedBurner pour mon flux RSS -- donc si vous me lisez par ce biais, je vous encourage à vous abonner à la place directement à http://climbtothestars.org/feed/.

Si vous recevez ces articles via e-mail, ce sera prochainement via les services de MailChimp (un excellent service de newsletter!) -- mais nulle inquiétude, tout va bien se passer pour vous.

[en]

Painless. That’s how I like my upgrades. This blog now runs WordPress 3.0, and if I were rewriting Basic Bilingual (which I’m not, for the moment: if it ain’t broke…) I would most certainly take advantage of the custom post types or simply custom taxonomies to do so.

I’m looking at moving away from FeedBurner so if you’re subscribed to the feedburner feed, you might want to head over the http://climbtothestars.org/feed/ instead. I’m still looking for a good plugin to give me feed stats (or send them over to Google Analytics, is that possible?) inside WordPress. I’m trying FeedStats right now but it’s too early to say if it does what I want.

I’ll also be seperating out my del.icio.us links from the Climb to the Stars feed (again, is there a plugin that would also me to turn http://delicious.com/steph into a daily feed rather than per item?)

For those of you who receive these articles by e-mail (I know you’re there, yes!), you will shortly be migrated over to MailChimp — but don’t worry, it should be transparent and painless for you.

The Good Idea That’s Not Working

Posted on 21.05.2010 by Stephanie Booth

[fr]

Proposer à mes lecteurs de voter sur les sujets qu'ils aimeraient que je traite ne semble pas fonctionner pour moi. En rendant ma liste d'idées publique, je l'ai en quelque sorte stérilisée -- je m'en suis dépossédée. Et je blogue mieux de façon un peu impulsive qu'en suivant un programme.

[en]

Two months ago I stumbled upon Scott Berkun’s blog and thought his Reader’s Choice series was a really great idea. (I’m reading his book “The Myths of Innovation” right now, by the way, and highly recommend you do so too.)

I decided to give it a try myself, and quickly created a slinkset account for CTTS which I pre-populated with my long list of blogging ideas, which had until then been sitting in a note in Evernote (I’m still in love with it, by the way). The idea was that I would pick the most popular topic twice a month and blog about it, which I have done twice so far.

So obviously, this isn’t really working for me. The fact I mismanaged my commitments for May and June (which means my calendar is bursting at the seams) clearly doesn’t help me keep the schedule, but I’ve noticed another side-effect: moving my “blogging ideas” out of evernote and into slinkset has actually killed that list for me. I think it’s made it scary. How come? I can think of a few reasons:

the list is now in big bold text
it’s not as easy to edit: each idea now feels like a commitment, rather than a quickly-jotted-down note
it’s public, so I self-censor (not much, but I do a little)
ideas are rated, so suddenly I feel that I’m blogging more for others and less for myself (blogging mainly for oneself is, in my opinion, one of the keys to a successful and long-lasting blogging career)
I’m supposed to pick the more popular idea twice a month, so I don’t feel free to explore the other less popular ones in the meantime.

So, all in all, I’m not sure making that list public was a great move for my blogging. Also, I think that pre-populating the slinkset list (an attempted “improvement — hah! — on Scott’s original idea) was the best way to kill community-generated contributions. (Plus, of course, my readership is somewhat more modest than Scott’s.)

Where do I go from now? I like the idea that readers of this blog can suggest ideas and vote on them. On the other hand, I’m aware that CTTS readers form a “following” rather than a “community”, and I think this kind of system is more suited to communities than followings.

I think I need to put my blogging ideas back in Evernote to reclaim them. I’ve always blogged best when I do it on impulse rather than schedule (I get an itch, which then becomes an urge to blog about this or that).

Do you have any thoughts on all this? I’d love to hear them.

Digital Spring Cleaning

Posted on 05.04.2010 by Stephanie Booth

[fr]

Nouveau design pour Digital Crumble, et quelques nettoyages de printemps pour Climb to the Stars (notez l'allègement du menu de navigation et des barres latérales, et l'apparition d'un gros pied de page truffé de liens et d'infos.

[en]

I’ve played about a bit with Climb to the Stars and Digital Crumble. It’s nice to dip one’s hands in a little HTML, CSS and PHP every now and again.

So, what have we got?

Digital Crumble has a brand new design. Whiter than the last one, but with enough pink to make me happy. (I customized it just a little.)

As for Climb to the Stars, the sad state of my sidebars had been bringing me down for months, so I finally decided to do something about it. I found a tutorial for adding a fat footer to Thesis and tried it out. I have to say that one thing I like about the Thesis theme I’m using here is the number of tutorials lying around to make just about any customization you can think of.

So, a lot of stuff that used to clutter up the sidebars is now in the fat footer at the bottom of each page.

While I was at it, I decided to have only one sidebar instead of two, and cleaned up the navigation bar at the top (most of the extra stuff is now in the footer). I also found a tutorial for moving the search form into the site header (and out of the sidebar!)

I had to fiddle around with both tutorials (mainly the CSS) until I got something I liked. I hope you’ll like it too!

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