I’ve been having a few web site troubles lately.  It started with discovering that someone had bombarded my photo gallery comment system and had pretty much filled up my database with useless junk.  So after cleaning all that out and spending time straightening out the general mess, I decided it was time to upgrade all my software.

I’m not all that fond of my web-host at the moment, but I don’t have the time to go through the hassle of changing (at least not now).  So, it took a while, but I’ve finally got both my gallery software and my wordpress software running on the latest versions.  The good thing is that the new version of gallery2 now includes support for the askimet plugin which is wonderful for catching and preventing spam comments.

Things aren’t perfect yet — I’m still trying to get a few plugins working with the new versions.  But, hopefully,  I’ll now be able to be a bit more active on the web front.  Look for updates soon!

So, I decide to once again become active on my website only to discover that my current web host has made some changes that make my site a bit buggy. Ugh. And, for you coders out there: Yes, I did check to make sure the problem wasn’t mine. Many people are complaining about this and have been for several months and the provider hasn’t really done anything to solve the issue. Add to that the fact that they won’t give me my error logs make it a reason to start shopping.

So this post is just an alert: If anyone notices any bugs or gets any “Error 500″ messages, I apologize…I can’t really do anything about them. Just try reloading the page and it should go away. In the meantime, I’m looking for a good internet host. If anyone has any suggestions, leave me a comment. I’m not really excited about the transfer process, but it looks like that’s the only sure way to get better service.

One of the benefits of upgrading that I’m excited about is being able to use a lightbox effect for all my images. I’m using a conjunction of the slimbox plugin and the wpg2 plugin to insert the gallery pictures with the least amount of trouble on my part. :)  And the effect is really cool, but you have to have JavaScript enabled in your browser to see it.  (Most current browsers enable JavaScript by default. )

To see the effect in action, click on the random image in the side bar.  Now, isn’t that nice!?

I’ve decided it’s time to do a little house cleaning around here. Over the next few days, I’ll be upgrading both the Wordpress software and the Gallery2 software that I use to power my site. This means that you might see a few gliches here and there while I’m making sure everything is turned on. Don’t worry, this should be a temporary situation and should be fixed in a few days.

Okay, if you read this blog on occasion, your probably thinking: “Wait, didn’t you just change your theme?” And the answer to that question is, “Yes.” But, that was June…and I have a very hard time looking at nice warm summer beach images when the temperature outside is steadily dropping and the first frost is occurring. Now, I’m definitely not complaining about the weather. I love Fall! It’s one of my favorite seasons and I’m extremely excited that the temperatures are finally starting to reflect the time of year.

So, I’m putting the site back to it’s original theme because it looks a little more Autumn-like. In case you missed the summer theme, you can see a preview below. I thought it was cute (even if I did design it myself — ha!). Of course, the only problem with this is, now I’m going to have to start thinking about a Winter theme to put up sometime in January. And then of course a spring theme for later on…Seems like I’ve got my work cut out for me!