Converting TheHCorner.com to WordPress

In my spare time I run a fan site called The H Corner for the Chicago Illinois based band “Local H“. Not to long ago I got the itch to upgrade the site from it’s static HTML pages to use WordPress as it’s back end.

Until recently I used to maintain all of The H Corner’s updates and maintenance with the text editor, Textmate. I personally enjoy building websites with a text editor. I fell like I have a higher level of control when building the a website like that. However maintaining a website (especially one like The H Corner that should be updated frequently with new content) with a text editor I learned is not the best idea ever unless it is your only job in life.

Installing wordpress was easy using the wordpress.org install guide. It gave me step by step instructions to setup a SQL database and get everything running. Less then a year ago I switched my personal website to wordpress and have not looked back. I have been very happy with it’s performance.

Once I got wordpress setup and running I started with the task of importing all the content of the old site to the new one.

The whole process took less then a week. The hardest part might have been creating a theme that resembled more of the old h corner website. Themes are how you can quickly and easily change the look and feel of your website. You can find tons of themes on line with a simple Google search.

Check out the new H Corner at thehcorner.com and let me know what you think.

Floating Image Change For WordPress 2.6

I run or administer several WordPress based websites including this one. For the the last week I slowly began upgrading these sites from WordPress 2.5 to 2.6. The upgrade for me and these sites have been very easy. None the less, you should always do a backup before doing an upgrade.

I am writing this post because I noticed a change in how WordPress handles floating your images from version 2.5 to 2.6. If your using a custom WordPress theme and floating your image to the left, right, or center, you may notice that your text dose not wrap around your image like it used to. This is due to new class elements that are required in your CSS. You wont notice any of these image floating issues if your using the default WordPress theme. But many people are using custom themes. After plenty of troubleshooting and reading online about this I finally discovered the solution and thought I would share it. Just add the following code below anywhere to your CSS file for your WordPress Theme.

img.alignleft, div.alignleft {
float:left;
margin:0 0.5em 0.5em 0;
}
img.alignright, div.alignright {
float:right;
margin:0 0 0.5em 0.5em;
}
img.aligncentered, div.aligncentered {
text-align:center;
margin:0 auto;
}

Presto, that should resolve all your image flowing issues with the new wordpress 2.6.

Shortly after drafting this post up I discored I had been beaten to the buch by HackWordpress.com and WordPressrocks.com.

UPDATE: How to display the CAPTIONS for the image properly

.wp-caption {
border: 1px solid #ddd;
text-align: center;
background-color: #f3f3f3;
padding-top: 4px;
margin: 10px;
/* optional rounded corners for browsers that support it */
-moz-border-radius: 3px;
-khtml-border-radius: 3px;
-webkit-border-radius: 3px;
border-radius: 3px;
}
.wp-caption img {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
border: 0 none;
}
.wp-caption p.wp-caption-text {
font-size: 11px;
line-height: 17px;
padding: 0 4px 5px;
margin: 0;
}

Add this to the end of your themes CSS.

A Cloudy Outing

The weekend has come and gone with little change in the weather. This however did not keep Hannah and myself inside the whole weekend. We went outside anyway to try and make the best of things regardless of the fact that mother nature clearly has a vendetta against Juneau right now.

We took ourselves out to Mendenhall Glacier in hopes to see some of the Sockeye salmon making their run up stream. When we got there we were lucky to find a decent parking spot because the park was packed with tourists from the cruise ships docked in town. We manage to see a few of salmon and take some pictures of them, but over all the rivers where pretty bare of fish compared to other times we have gone to see them run.

Looking out into the glacier bay we saw kayakers paddling in front of the glacier. It was quite the site to see. These people in their little boats with the glacier towering over them.

Just another day in Juneau with people making the best of bad weather.

Rain Rain Go Away

It's Gon' Rain!
It's Gon' Rain!

Has Juneau Alaska became the rain capital of the world? Ever since Hannah and I got back from our vacatin in Washington it has just been either overcast, or rainy. It was really starting to get to me for a minute, but then I just started taking some viteman D and all is better.

I really am starting to miss the sun though. Last summer was kind of like this too. The first summer we spent here was great, but that was 3 years ago. Seattle Washington really has been unfairly called the rainiest place on earth thanks to a little movie called “Sleepless In Seattle“. I have lived in Washington for several years and it’s true it is rainy. But Seattle has nothing on Juneau for rain right now.

I do hope this is not a trend. Maybe it can be blamed on El Niño, or the butterfly affect.

Dear Michael Bay

Dear Michael Bay,

I would like to invite you to see Batman: The Dark Night which opened in theaters this last weekend. It will give you the chance to see what a good movie adaptation of a comic book looks like. I am hopping that if you can see this picture before it leaves theaters you might be able to save movie audiences from the cinematic abortion that will be Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen and maybe make a good movie instead. You know, one that is not an embarrassment to Transformers fans.

Respectfully,
Youseph Tanha