Archive for ‘Blog’
644 items.
I’m going back through the archives and tagging all of the comics and blog posts. This effort is part of the comic transcription effort some volunteers helped me out with a month or two ago. It’s slow going, but I think I’m starting to see the benefit. I think traffic is starting to increase again as the interwoven tag links are drawing traffic from search engines.
At any rate, I’m thinking about putting a tag cloud beneath the blog posts, so you guys can see what tags are showing up most often.
Any interest in this? Let me know in the comments field below!
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While I have everyone’s attention, I need a little help with a problem I’m having with the coding of the Theater Hopper RSS feed.
I tried posting the code into this blog post, but WordPress tried to make the code functional. So I had to take these screencaps instead.
This is code inside the WordPress functions.php file. It’s what helps control the RSS plus other aspects of the site. This is the RSS comic display code as it currently appears:
Here is the code as I have attempted to update it:
In both cases, you want to look at the code that comes after “//foo” because that’s where I’ve made my changes.
Basically what I’m trying to do is take the code that displays the WHOLE comic in the RSS feed and place it inside a “DIV” tag as a background image. The “DIV” is sized to 265px tall – roughly half the height of the finished comic. Below it is another “DIV” with copy and a link instructing people to visit the main site if they want to see the rest of the comic.
I know I’m overlooking something small. A misplaced apostrophe, a comma or something. But I’m not familiar enough with PHP coding to troubleshoot it effectively.
Is there anyone out there that can help me with this, look over my code and provide suggestions? I would appreciate it!
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I was so wrapped up talking about, well, Up, that I completely forgot to remind you guys to check out The Triple Feature tonight.
In case you’re unfamiliar, it’s a podcast I host along with Joe Dunn from Joe Loves Crappy Movies and Gordon McAlpin from Multiplex.
We record every Monday night at 9:00 PM and you can listen to us record the show LIVE!
Not only that, but the show has a chat room where you can interact with other listeners or maybe even Joe or myself (when Gordon gets to ranting too much.)
Be sure to check us out this evening. We’ll be discussing Up and Drag Me To Hell!
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I just wanted to collect some feedback on something site-related I’m toying with.
Under the comic, there is a link to the ShareThis! application that, on rollover, reveals dozens of links to different social bookmarking sites.
The other day I stumbled onto the Sociable plugin and really liked the way that it displayed the icons of the social bookmarking sites I choose.
My main problem with their plugin is the coding. Specifically the CSS. I want to put text around it to kind of explain what all these little images are doing there (“Bookmark this comic!”) but the way the code is written, it won’t let me.
At this point, I’m afraid I’m overthinking it.
So let me as you this: Does there need to be any text on the page explaining what those icons are for? Twitter, StumbleUpon, Reddit and the like? Or is it safe to assume that if people see those icons and the like the comic enough to bookmark it, they will?
I’m trying to get a sense of how you guys use these social bookmarking plugins (if it all) because I want to make it as easy for you as possible to help share Theater Hopper with others.
Right now I have a sneaking suspicion that the ShareThis! plugin I’m currently using is forcing you to jump through hoops by clicking on the link, then hunting for the social bookmarking service you want versus seeing the icon for that service front and center, clicking on it and getting it done.
What do you think? I could really use your perspective.
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Hey, guys.
Having a bit of a problem with the site today. I was moving around the social bookmarking stuff along with the ranking and site page bookmarker and as a result, the ranking for the homepage image is showing up on all the comics in the archive. Also, the comic navigation seems to be broken.
Of course, like an idiot, I didn’t save a backup of the page I was editing. So I’m talking to my webhost guy to see if they can roll back the page to a previous version.
Hang tight and hopefully we’ll get this fixed soon.
EDIT: Okay, I was able to troubleshoot the problem. I guess the site doesn’t like the little comic bookmarking thing above the navigation. Not the social bookmarking, but the little buttons that let you save your place when you’re reading through the archives.
Does anyone have any idea why that might be? It’s a widget, I guess. But it’s PHP and I have no idea what to do with that.
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Hey, guys. I was wondering if everyone who reads this could do me a quick favor.
My good friend (an Theater Hopper site administrator) Brian Arnold is running a tiny experiment gathering stats on different internet time sinks. You know what I’m talking about – Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.
Anyway, Brian’s experiment is very easy to participate in. Just fill out a tiny form and you’re set! Please trust that he’s not gathering any personal information. Like I said, it’s only an experiment.
If you’d like to participate, please click here.
It would mean a lot to me if you helped Brian out. Brian has been a behind-the-scenes champion for Theater Hopper, operating without recognition for years. Anything I can do to return his friendship, I’m more than happy to do.
Thanks, everyone!
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I’m thinking about pulling the top 300 x 250 ad that’s to the right of the comic and replacing it with a 300 x 250 spot from Project Wonderful.
I sell advertising on the site, but I get the impression that people aren’t interested in peer-to-peer- ad sales anymore and I should leave an option for those who prefer the Project Wonderful interface.
Considering the financial situation I’m in now that I’m currently unemployed, I’m trying to diversify my offerings a little bit. I think by making available a Project Wonderful spot, people can more directly manage how they choose to advertise with me. Plus, I can promote it easier in the blog and (hopefully) see a more direct result from that promotion. This, versus the peer-to-peer arrangement that requires a few e-mails back and forth.
I’m kind of talking out loud with this, but I was curious if there are any of you who would advertise with Theater Hopper if there was a Project Wonderful spot available at the top of the page?
Let me know in the comments, won’t you?
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Hey, guys.
I wanted to let you know that I pulled what I was told was malicious code from the site and (with any luck) you guys should stop seeing malware errors.
Except… I don’t think that’s happening.
I let people know about the code change yesterday through my Twitter account and asked people to let me know if they were still seeing the error. Some people said the error messages stopped, others said they were still getting them.
My suspicion is that people using Safari and Chrome were the ones getting the error messages in the first place. After I made the code change, things look clear for Safari users, but not Chrome.
My guess is because, like an elephant, Google never seems to forget and I’m wondering if I have to send a letter to them to have the site reindexed.
Are there any readers who use both Safari and Chrome? Or, can I ask everyone to reply to this blog post and let me know 1.) If they see the error and 2.) What browser they’re using?
We need to narrow this down and I think we’re getting closer, but we need your help!
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I’m continuing to fight the good fight in terms of the malware errors the site was generating. I pulled a second line of (presumably malicious) code from the site yesterday and wanted to collect another round of feedback from you guys to make sure the site is clean.
Last time I checked, Google Chrome was the only holdout still returning errors. I’m thinking we might have done the job for good this time. Again, please let me know what browser you’re running and if you’re getting any errors.
Second bit of feedback I need is in regard to WordPress itself. I don’t know if this has anything to do with the code I removed yesterday, but it now appears I can’t add tags to my blog posts. Does anyone have any idea what might be causing this or know where I should start looking so I can fix it?
Your help is appreciated.
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Okay, so I guess ranking is working on the site again? That’s weird, because I certainly didn’t do anything.
Oh, well. If you wanted to rank the last few days of comics, feel free. If you need a place to start, there’s always our rankings page, which lists the Top 25, Bottom 10 and Most Ranked comics on the site.
Have fun!
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