I updated two of my 2.1/2.3 themes to 2.5+:

• Twilight Crown (now version 1.1)
• Floral Belle (now version 1.2)

I’ve updated my WordPress themes page to reflect the updates. If I get some time this week, I’ll update the rest.

Ever have one of those moments where you realized you had just done something really stupid?

Yeah, I had one of those moments last night. I was up late playing around on my laptop“>laptop with a SharePoint template and for whatever reason, I decided that it would be a good idea to play around with the MS themes which control the look of the backend (admin) stuff. Really stupid. It overwrote a few things in my template.

Even worse: my backup was a tad bit older than I originally thought. Colossally stupid.

So I am spending today trying to clean up my mess. I knew better than NOT to check my backups before screwing with templates and themes in ANY system, much less SharePoint.

*sigh* Lesson learned.

I saw that WordPress released an update over the weekend. It’s now up to 2.5.1. There’s a ton of fixes, but among the highlighted are:

• Performance improvements for the Dashboard, Write Post, and Edit Comments pages.
• Better performance for those who have many categories
• Media Uploader fixes
• An upgrade to TinyMCE 3.0.7
• Widget Administration fixes
• Various usability improvements
• Layout fixes for IE

I doubt I’ll be upgrading because I hear some users are having trouble receiving their password emails (e.g. when it’s recovered), so I figure it won’t be too long until 2.5.2 will come along. I’ll upgrade then.

Besides, I already have a lengthy “to do” list for each of my sites as it is … don’t these WordPress people know I’m busy?!!?

Seriously though one thing about this release did pique my interest: I was reading about the addition of SECRET_KEY to the wp-config file (edit: this was added in 2.5). From what I understand, it helps secure your WordPress cookies — nice.

More security is always a good thing, right? Like Fenphedra to a speed freak, heh!

And speaking of WordPress…

Have I mentioned that the upcoming South by Deep South conference will have a full-on WordCamp?

They are looking for speakers, so if you’re going to be in the area and are interested, be sure to drop by the WordCamp Birmingham wiki and leave your info!

I’m definitely looking forward to that. Mark your calendars, people!

I have lately taken it upon myself to do some SharePoint branding for one of our SharePoint servers here at work. I swear, I have spent the better part of 3 days just cleaning up HTML code alone! Unfortunately SharePoint uses a lot of attributes that are proprietary to Microsoft, so no chance of it ever validating any time soon.

Here are a few of the things I’ve learned recently:

• Link bars are pretty unforgiving if you screw with their code, better use the GUI in SharePoint Designer to make any changes.
• If the site might need to be updated regularly, the Content Editor Web Part is your friend! (i.e. pass it off to someone else to maintain!)
• It’s always a good idea to test out a template first for bugs first before letting anyone else know you’re almost done — or where it’s located.
• The command line is your friend! (Actually, I knew this already, but in-dept documentation for SP commands were a little scarce until I found this reference)
• If custom controls and/or code is just not possible within the SharePoint realm, the Page Viewer Web Part is your friend! (As much as I despise using frames of any kind, this wp has saved my tail a time or two!)
• Your site’s content could be the best thing since sliced bread or a splog’s “cheap hotel Las Vegas” surf cache. It doesn’t mean squat if your site design looks like ass. (In other words, never EVER use the default SharePoint templates!)

Hopefully I’ll have more to add to this list later. For now, my head is killing me but my bosses are very happy with what I’ve gotten done so far. I think I’m going to ask for permission to cut out a little early today … it is Valentine’s Day after all!