Archive for the 'About' Category

Happy Blogiversary, Facibus Reviews

History records that I wrote my first post here on 05 April 2007.

My world was a different place then - more certain, more settled, more known. Since then I’ve had a lot of ups and downs, met a lot of good people, shared a lot of myself online, written hundreds of posts on my own blogs and those of others. I’ve moved from unconscious incompetence (not knowing what I didn’t know about blogging) to conscious incompetence (knowing that I need to know more).

All up, it has been fun, and I would blog it all (well most of it) again.

Thanks for reading.

Moved!

Parting can be such sweet sorrow - in this case, leaving my old hosting provider was sweet, and it has caused a little sorrow :)

If you’re reading this and there are still over a hundred categories listed in the side bar, it means that I’m still working on it.

Redirection of those oh-so-important inbound links is going to be a priority, as is getting the word out that http://skonkwerks.net/facibusreviews and http://facibus.com/facibusreviews are now http://facibusreviews.com/blog. I’ll keep at it as time allows (I need to maintain that work/blog/life balance).

facibus.com is moving!

facibus.com is moving! The blogs need more room to grow and a bigger traffic allowance, which is a good thing.

What this means is that until the DNS change propagates around the world, this blog will appear to be off the air. All going well this will only be a day or two - at the most.

Thanks for reading - it is because of your interest that this move is possible.

Update: The move worked - well, sort of, my over-tagging and WordPress import/export means that there are now over 200 categories in the sidebar :) This needs to be adjusted manually which I will do over the next couple of days. I’m completing the move from http://skonkwerks.com/facibusreviews and the aliased http://facibus.com/facibusreviews to the new http://facibusreviews.com/blog/ so there may be a little bit of confusion for a while - my apologies.

Hello Greenthorpe!

According to Google Analytics, I have a reader in Greenthorpe NSW Australia. This is where I spent my first days at school.

Welcome Greenthorpe! :)

Tag cloud for WordPress 101

So how is this blog set up? How do I get the tag cloud working in the sidebar?

The quick answer is:

  1. I downloaded the latest version of WordPress from http://wordpress.org and FTPed it here then ran through the install instructions.
  2. I downloaded and installed the latest version of K2 from http://getk2.com
  3. I downloaded and installed Ultimate Tag Warrior (UTW) from http://neato.co.nz/
  4. After choosing the K2 theme and activating the UTW plugin, I inserted the following code in a K2 PHP sidebar widget:

<br>
<br>
<?php UTW_ShowWeightedTagSetAlphabetical(”coloredsizedtagcloud”); ?>

I then added another Page - Browse by Tag/Category/Date - and added no text (but used the Archives (Do Not Use Manually) template. I didn’t like the template format, so changed it to the following:

<?php /*
Template Name: Archives (Do Not Use Manually)
Modified to reorder components (Andrew Boyd, 2007-03-29)
*/ ?>

<?php /* Counts the posts, comments and categories on your blog */
$numposts = $wpdb->get_var(”SELECT COUNT(1) FROM $wpdb->posts WHERE post_status = ‘publish’ AND post_type != ‘page’”);
if (0 < $numposts) $numposts = number_format($numposts);

$numcomms = $wpdb->get_var(”SELECT COUNT(1) FROM $wpdb->comments WHERE comment_approved = ‘1′”);
if (0 < $numcomms) $numcomms = number_format($numcomms);

$numcats = $wpdb->get_var(”SELECT COUNT(1) FROM $wpdb->categories”);
if (0 < $numcats) $numcats = number_format($numcats);
?>

<?php get_header(); ?>

<div class=”content”>
<div id=”primary”>
<div id=”current-content”>
<div id=”primarycontent” class=”hfeed”>

<?php the_post(); ?>

<div id=”post-<?php the_ID(); ?>” class=”<?php k2_post_class(); ?>”>

<div class=”page-head”>
<h2><a href=”<?php the_permalink(); ?>” rel=”bookmark” title=’<?php printf( __(’Permanent Link to “%s”‘,’k2_domain’), wp_specialchars(strip_tags(the_title(”, ”, false)),1) ); ?>’><?php the_title(); ?></a></h2>
<?php edit_post_link(__(’Edit’,'k2_domain’), ‘<span class=”entry-edit”>’,'</span>’); ?>
</div>

<div class=”entry-content”>

<p><?php printf(__(’This is the front page of the %1$s archives. Currently the archives are spanning %2$s posts and %3$s comments, contained within %4$s categories. Through here, you will be able to move down into the archives by way of time or category/tag. If you are looking for something specific, perhaps you should try the search on the sidebar.’,'k2_domain’), get_bloginfo(’name’), $numposts, $numcomms, $numcats); ?></p>

<h3><?php _e(’Tag Cloud’,'k2_domain’); ?></h3>
<p><?php printf(__(’The following is a list of the tags used at %s, colored and \’weighted\’ in relation to their relative usage. These tags include both the free-text tags that you can assign to a new posting as well as the more formal categories that you can browse by.’,'k2_domain’), get_bloginfo(’name’)); ?></p>

<?php UTW_ShowWeightedTagSetAlphabetical(”coloredsizedtagcloud”); ?>

<?php if (function_exists(’af_ela_super_archive’)) { ?>

<h3><?php _e(’Live Archives’,'k2_domain’); ?></h3>
<p><?php printf(__(’This is a \’live archive\’, which allows you to \’dig\’ into the %s repository in a fast and efficient way without having to reload this page as you explore.’,'k2_domain’), get_bloginfo(’name’)); ?> </p>

<div id=”livearchives”>
<?php af_ela_super_archive(’num_posts_by_cat=50&truncate_title_length=40&hide_pingbacks_and_trackbacks=1&num_entries=1&num_comments=1&number_text=<span>%</span>&comment_text=<span>%</span>&selected_text=’.urlencode(”)); ?>
<div class=”clear”></div>
</div>

<?php } else { ?>

<h3><?php _e(’Browse by Month’,'k2_domain’); ?></h3>
<ul class=”archive-list”>
<?php wp_get_archives(’show_post_count=1′); ?>
</ul>

<br class=”clear” />

<h3><?php _e(’Browse by Category’,'k2_domain’); ?></h3>
<ul class=”archive-list”>
<?php wp_list_cats(’hierarchical=0&optioncount=1′); ?>
</ul>

<br class=”clear” />

<?php } // End ELA Check ?>

<?php if (function_exists(’UTW_ShowWeightedTagSetAlphabetical’)) { ?>

<?php } ?>

</div> <!– .entry-content –>
</div> <!– #post-ID –>

</div> <!– #primarycontent .hfeed –>
</div> <!– #current-content –>

<div id=”dynamic-content”></div>
</div> <!– #primary –>

<?php get_sidebar(); ?>

</div> <!– .content –>

<?php get_footer(); ?>

That is about it - if you try to do this and get stuck, email me (facibus AT gmail DOT com) and I’ll help you through it. I’ll also update the instructions here to make them clearer.

Cheers, Andrew

UPDATE: Thanks to Steve Collins for the tip - I’ve updated the sidebar widget to only display the top 20 tags - the sidebar code is now

<br>
<br>
<?php UTW_ShowWeightedTagSetAlphabetical(”coloredsizedtagcloud”, “”,20); ?>
<hr>

More help can be had at tthe Ultimate Tag Warrior 3 help page.

Hello world!

It’s all Matt’s fault. I’ve seen the enjoyment he gets out of Matt’s Musings and I want some of that fun too :)

It turns out I do have something to say after all - about life, interaction design, and everything (including Shiraz). If self-indulgence is a legitimate excuse then it is OK - I will try to keep it relevant. To what, I cannot say. But it is sure to be relevant! :)