The long overdue “dot com” side of my website has hit another snag. Initially I was very happy with the final design and layout thanks to some assistance in design from @staceyjenkins (a local designer) however two things have troubled me.

The current ‘proposed site’ has zero blogging facility, and while I don’t need a blog, the component can be used to provide news and updates in other ways.

It also has no category function, every post is a picture an that’s that, no “drill down” gallery for things like events, special features, and again, this isn’t major as it is meant to be a portfolio, but the problem with no categories is the fact that you need categories to implement a store function, something I’m keen to do.

Short of a complete code rewrite, I’m now on the hunt for a better CMS solution that will allow it, and a theme to rip apart / create from.

It’s a real blow and another huge setback but I am confident that when I finalise and release the design, it will be worth it. The only trouble is working out how long it’s going to take!

The server experienced a catastrophic failure which was caused by a bad command in the system scripts. The system has now been restored with the help of the folks at linode.com and the server is performing normally. I apologise for any inconvenience anyone experienced

I am overwhelmed.

Indeed such is the intensity of my predicament that I have become consumed with the projects I have set for myself. This website for instance is getting almost no attention from me, when really it should. It’s my outlet, my fun, my … expression? . Yet lately I have set myself the task of rebuilding the website or indeed, creating a brand new one for thelongmile.COM. And as if that wasn’t tough or time consuming enough, I’ve also got a rebuilt, admittedly forced, social life because of CardiffTweetups.co.uk which is no bad thing, but it’s still reducing my time and money at an alarming rate.

Couple that with the fact I am now, or at least appear to be, second in command at apptacious.com and having rebuilt it, I’ve now got to manage it. I’m getting involved with a local project called The Sprout, and I am continually deprived and depressed about my ‘real life’ job. Frankly it’s a little worrying.

I am consumed….

I’ve been sucked in by all this, and the fact that Cardiff has exciting times ahead of it thanks to the new St Davids centre opening, the winter wonderland, and the rest and I’m actually getting pretty bogged down with just… living! None of which is a bad thing, but it does explain where my time is going at the moment.

The angst however comes from apprehension at how you’ll receive this blog post, since these are all so few and far between these days. I have not even told you about all of the photography I’ve been doing, nor have I uploaded it to NextGen gallery.

I am hopeful….

Hopeful of the fact that my efforts will pay off, my workload will reduce, and I’ll get a decent job. Of course I’m also hopeful that someone out there will read this and perhaps offer a little encouragement. I of course expect my social life to continue, however I just need to sit down for an hour a day or so and pay attention to this site, and plus once I develop my photography site, then maybe, JUST maybe, I’ll be able to have a pop at getting the rest of the things done.

I am determined…..

I am, really, determined to make sure that I as a person get this done, because not only am I rebuilding the site, but I am also rebuilding myself. I’ve changed as a person, for the better I hope, but I’ve also changed for the right reasons, at least I hope I have. I should imagine I have developed as a person.

I am happy, however, that my entire life is in chaos but in a great way. theres so much going on, but it’s so worth it right now, and let’s also not forget that the moment this post goes live, I know that at least 45 people are looking at it, and that makes me happy.

So interesting times with me, with Cardiff, and you know what? I know I said that my job is getting on top of me but hey, It’s the money I’m interested in, and everything else is going reasonably ok, so, everything, for once, is not bad.

Not bad at all.

So I’be made the decision that since I work in IT I should start focusing some of my blogs toward that. Confessions from a computer geek or something similar. This isn’t for any commercial reason at all, I stress that now, and I absolutley assure you that it is not about that, it’s just I want to give you all something to keep you coming back to.

Some things will be personal reviews about products, services and things I’ve seen that are interesting. So you might see some things posted with the title “About” where I talk about services and things that I use, you might see a technical paper that I publish or a review, or a good old fasioned rant and observations like the ones I made about online dating. These are the things most people seem to want to read about.

So don’t worry, you’re not going to loose any of my personality or any of my humour, just I’m going to cut out the REALLY personal blogs and leave that to something like live video.

A few changes are a foot really. I’m getting the photography onto it’s own site, I’m redoing the blog and I’m re-opening old ones… Finding the fit and feel is hard, this sites been through two transformations already, the move to wordpress and the move to another theme, I AM KEEPING THIS THEME! I PROMISE! I SWEAR! I just need to refocus. I know it’s an inconveniance and I could carry on with the site as it is, but the whole thing is getting neglected.

So I’m making a commitment that once every two weeks I’m going to sit and write a blog post in starbucks or similar to at least give you some content.

That’s all for now folks

When I redesigned this site, I wanted it to be a combination of my blog, and my photography portfolio, but I find I am taking so many pictures now that I need to refocus those efforts. Not only that but people are now muttering about asking me to do photography for them or requesting certain jobs to be done, and since this is a personal site, I now need to look at having the more commercial nature of my photography, somewhere else.

As a result, thelongmile will remain my “personal” site for my blog, ranting and musings, and will keep the same design, although the image at the top might be resized or reduced. My photography on the other hand will move to another site that I will be spending a great deal of time working on.

I know that I’ve been quiet on here lately, but i’ve needed to re-evaluate the site a little, and sit down and think about what I really want from this. Plus walking up to people saying it’s “thelongmile” photography, kinda doesn’t work. So, I’m not sure how I’m going to work this, but I will.. I need templates and styles now…

I’m in the process of building the server now, and will eventually have to move the site. It’s coming soon, for a faster more powerful server and better site.

Stay tuned

As a result, on both thelongmile and CardiffTweetups a donate button from Paypal has been implanted, unobtrusively into the sidebar.

I’ve also placed a Google Adsense widget into the sidebar of CardiffTweetups and into the footer of thelongmile.

These ads are design to be unobtrusive, whilst helping to generate revenue to keep this site and my other sites going. Donations are used for me to keep the site going, and for building onto projects like CardiffTweetups which has more than exceeded initial expectations. Expansion is not only “a good idea” it’s also now a requirement.

This is all the adverts will ever be for the foreseeable future, and I will NEVER EVER put a pop-up or pop-under advert on the site. I hate them enough as it is.

So please, I ask if you are feeling generous, to donate a small amount to help support thelongmile Group, and if you have time, just click on the ad’s

Next update, is the fact that, thelongmile.net is now just “thelongmile”. You knew about this in the last site update post, but I’ve finally updated the logo to include the .com and .net domains to reflect the new site structure.

August also saw the creation of another site Cardiff Tweetups.
Cardiff Tweetups follows on from a twitter meet that happened last Saturday at Y Fwch Goch in Cardiff. I’ve simply created the website so people can post meet ideas. I’m not arranging them all the time, but I’ll post ideas that people have.

This is of course the very first additional site I have made, and now am the proud owner and administrator of two websites, and of course with that, “thelongmile” has now become a part of what I’m calling “thelongmile group”.

Any website that I set up and administer myself, will be part of “thelongmile group” until such time as I choose ether a more appropriate name, or create a parent site. So say hi to “thelongmile group”.

The final update for you all is of course the sites backend and core. The stuff you don’t see.

As of August the 2nd we are now running on the latest version of WordPress 2.8.3 allowing greater security and hopefully improved speed. I’m already seeing reports of increased user performance and the overall statistics appear to be good, and certainly improved.

Similarly the security updates that come with 2.8.3 plus the additional security software installed on the site and recoded, allow for a more secure, and far more reliable system.

The site is now largely being limited by it’s own popularity and growth. In fact a large percentage of the sites loading time is coming from BuyHTTP’s servers simply trying to respond to an incoming query and load the databases. Whilst BuyHTTP have given me excellent service over the past few years, I am now actively looking to expand and that means a move.

That’s it for now everyone. I felt it best to keep you up to date with the website itself and make sure you’re checking out the new features and new sites. Also don’t forget that I’m also on Flickr and will be adding a flickr sidebar link in the coming days.

At the moment this is simply a redirect but it’s a big thing for me since I’ve been waiting for almost five years! So, there will be a minor rebrand on the premise that this is no longer thelongmile.net but simply, thelongmile.

The next big change will be to hosting. Despite the excellent customer service I have received from BuyHTTP the market has changed somewhat since I took out my original hosting plan with them. Unfortunately BuyHTTP are not able to get even remotely close to other plans that are on offer from the likes of BlueHost or Linode, and so I am now investigating the plans available, and will being making preparations to move this site over to the new host.

This will bring a few great thing’s for you guys. It gives me a huge amount of space in comparison to what I already have. It will improve the site performance and responsiveness dramatically, and pave the way for more expansions and user communities. Yes that’s right I said user communities.

We need to start building up this, and giving you newsletters. So thats it for now! Your comments are always appreciated! So for now, toodles!

Just another note – the twitter widget is broken – i cant seem to change it’s colour so its transparent for some reason, so it’s been disabled, and the gallerys still rely on flash, as I’m still working on getting Flickr integrated.

Hope you all enjoy the new template!

I can also confirm the web template code IS done, there is no more to do, everything has been covered.

I’m pleased to announce that in the next update to the web template you’ll get a new share button, so you can post to twitted or digg or even email a post. It’s also much much easier to read compared to the site layout you see right now, although wordpress has a few of it’s own quirks that I can’t seem to get around.

There’s also the addition of a tag cloud. I’ve never really likes having a tag cloud but it does help break up the site somewhat, else it would feel overly drab and bland.

Right now all I am waiting for is yahoo to get back to me about getting my account setup, and then me deciding how to implement flickr, as well as link it in with a mobile gallery ( that might be broken for some time once the change happens, it’s very limited) but anyway, I’ve found a flickr plugin that’s also going to let me keep piclens! Hurrah!

It’s not going to be long now, I promise, it’s more down to yahoo than it is to me at this stage.

My Gnatt charts now tell me I am at 81% completion. In fact the entire site is 100% ready to be moved over to this one, however I want to fill out the other 19% which is of course looking at integrating flickr.

So thats on my task list for the next few days, but the time is coming very shortly for the rebranding and the brand new look site. It’s taken long enough, and the bugfixes are all done (I’m sure I’ll find more though) but brace yourselves, this could go up tomorrow night if I make enough progress!

Special shoutout to sean or @spoofscript as he’s known on twitter for keeping me sane and giving me the one last bit of code I needed to finish the site itself. Thanks man!

I wanted to update everyone on the progress of the new site layout. I will also say, I am really glad I made the decision to develop this, as everytime I look at the current site, It just, feels like a letdown. Appropriate for a teenager, or a kid that wants things to be flashy, but it just isn’t appropriate for me.

The new theme is based on Modularity Lite by GraphPaperPress. I chose this template originally out of compromise, but now I’ve been working with it over on the testing server, I’m really pleased I chose to go for it, you guys I hope will be very pleased to also know it is not as dark as it seems in that screenshot… at least not after all the edits.

The template is licenced under the General Public Licence (GPL) which means in short, I’m allowed to make changes to it providing I note what I’ve changed and give credit to the authors, so if any of you have the misfortune to look at my sloppy code, you’ll likley see a great many changes indeed.

An example of the things we’ve changed so far, range from text colours, to sizes, to bug fixes, to implementing new features, removing others etc..

Right now there are only a few things left on the list for the template itself

Create a navigation menu
Fix a bug on the full page view that causes it to go black
Fix a bug where the read more link shows on every post rather than just the excerpts

Thats seriously all there is, so I’m very very pleased to be getting this close to changing things over. There are two reamining things that are not on the template edit list.

One of which is Flickr.

I still know, NOTHING about Flickr and the way it integrates into wordpress. So my tasks over the next few days will be to gather as much information I can about it, and decide how to do it. I would greatly appriciate anything you have for me in that respect, be it advice or links to plugins etc

Thats my first favour.

The second, is one of a more serious nature.

My last post said about doing something, that I did not originally expect to do, and that was have a logo designed for the site.

Now, I can create logos for other people. I am more than happy and capable of creating logos for other people. But when it comes to my own site, I need a little help. In fact I need so much help that I am asking you, the reader, not neccesarily to come up with a logo, but ideas for the logo itself, so that I, or a colleague can develop it.

I don’t normally reach out to my readers like this. Sure I’ve asked favours before, and I’ve asked you all for your opinion on the website to help orchestrate changes, but I have never asked for advice of this level, so I really don’t know what to expect, but I look forward to it.

The final thing I am going to be adding, if I can work out how, will be a share button. I realise not everyone wants to comment but might want to .digg or del.ico.us or stumbleupon the links or blogs I have. So I will do my very best to introduce a simple, clean button system so that you can do that.

I hope to hear from all of you soon… we’re getting so close!

It’s gotten to the stage where we’re able to give you a, brief look at the actual site, so, I give you a small screenshot, so here it is. Now, granted, the text colours are not quite.. there, nor is the design anywhere near close to finish but it’s a good representation of what we’re aiming for.

Currently we are working on getting the comments template formatted correctly, which is proving to be a right pain. Followed by adjusting the sidebar colours and finalising that.

Needless to say it doesent end there. I’m trialing a menu bar from another site template which may or may not be staying, so there is also that to code. I’m not 100% certain at this stage.

The next stage however, is the most complicated and slightly… daunting. Flickr. I just don’t know enough about Flickr at this stage to make an informed decision about how I would integrate it into this site, let alone whether I actually want to. So If you have any information, and examples, please let me know.

Once thats covered, there is also the restructure to ensure this website actually reaches the right focus.

However, despite all that, there is one task I am truley daunting.

I have decided that the restructure and rebranding and image, should also include the logo. I will not be dropping the name, I’ve used and have been thelongmile for far too long now, and the title itself  has taken quite well, and seems to have some meaning with the followers, a way to describe the long journey we are all on as we learn and develop.

But the logo itself does need to be designed, or relaunched. And Believe me, I do not know how, at all, or even where to begin. Perhaps someone could make some suggestions. I can happily design other peoples logos, but when it comes to my own, I need an external influence. This is why I use Sean and Andy as my design consultants. otherwise I get so caught up in the initial design of the main website.

So I would appriciate a little influence and some suggestions.

Please note, I have written this after drinking about two glasses of wine, so I apologise if I appear to have rambled or made very little sense. Hopefully you will get the gist. (and yes, i’ve decided to be a little less formal with this site, since it is my ‘personal’ project and not a business, despite offering some services.

Lets start with template idea number one

This is Carrington, (click the image to go to the page) Now, I like it, because it shares similar things that the pixeled template has. It’s clean, it’s wide, but also has two columns on the right, which means I get to make the most of the real estate. Best of all the logo at the top and banner, are images, that can be customised, redone, or completley removed to fid the template style I’m trying to go for. As with this template, I need to do some major code editng, so that the three catagories for the blogs, appear on seperate pages (we will be renaming Site Updates to News by the way as It’s a little more accuratte)

I really do like this, and it seems to make the most of the screen real estate thats available, and put an emphasis on the text, rather than the images and background. Plus displaying pictures from a Flicr gallery, will work much better in a preview format (more on that later)

This is the second, called Inove.

Visually I think this is really quite similar to the one above, it’s a little darker but it’s still white, clean and crisp, again devoting more space to the screen real estate, rather than the actual images or background, but it does look like a “page” rather than a website, thanks to the contrasting background, so it’s something Im keen to play with. The sidebar also has some really nice things about it, first off it’s two column, just like my current one, and just like the one above, but it is a little wider, it does slightly concern me that it’s coloured, making edits, and adding in custom imagery, might be a little difficult.

Above all else though it puts a real strength to the text on the page, and clearly seperates it. It’s one of my favorites at the moment, and I hope you will like it as well.

The third, is Arclite. Now, although it isn’t black, nor white, it’s still a light template, with an earthy feel. It’s still clear and makes the most of the screen real estate. Im drawn to it’s unsual background colour, and the way the designer has used blue and pink in images and links rather than greens and browns.

My main fear is the background image, weather the site itself is made up of a background image, or weather it’s a set colour, that can easily be edited. Then theres the ‘button bubble’ at the top. Which might not work well, and be less appealing over time.

I’ve noticed as well the text on here, whilst clear, seems to be much smaller. So I worry about getting some of the comments I’ve had before about the clarity of the site (no doubt a few of you are reading this now wishing the text was slightly bigger) and finally, the sidebar is only a single column. So it doesn’t bode well with me, but I don’t strictly need a double column layout.

The fourth and final design is this, Extend. Now, this to me, looks more like an upgrade from the current site template, rather than a complete redesign, so it has major plus points there, as it’s less inclined to shock and appall new users that come visiting. But I am principally worried about the real estate. It’s about the same size as the current site template, so the text is also around the same size.  There is no real sidebar, so it would take a lot of customising and hard coding to actually get it to work, plus, it’s still very dark, and I get the feeling it’s not targeted toward the type of site I am trying to build. Couple that with the fact the preview isn’t loading at all and the developers website is frustratingly slow leads me to believe that either there wasn’t much thought put into this template, or it was designed for someone else, and then just released into the public domain. I also worry about what kind of support I would receive should I go for it and attempt to recode it to my needs, nevertheless, I have considered it because of it’s similaritys to the current template, and I would be willing to persue it shoudl the demand be high enough.

I did find a bigger preview, but I am not… overwhelmed by it, you can view it here http://ooyes.net/leisure-west but be warned, the site is terribly slow.

So thats the four I’ve picked out that I feel would be most appropriate and I would really appriciate your comments about the site.

Speaking of comments, let’s talk about flickr. As you’ll see in my last update, I commented that I was unhappy with the layout of my gallerys, saying a cleanup really needed to be done, something that was echoed by Arlene Radasky (Click here for the comment)

Arlene commented that ” I would like to see your explanation of why you took certain pictures and why you chose the digital pictures you did” she also commented that the white on black look, wasnt good, soemthing echoed by myself, and KingTarquin. Couple this with Shamins comments (Click here) he mentions about “pictures on your front page, as in a small thumbnail beside the title” and people on twitter have also mentioned about adding Flickr.

I’ve been keen to stay away from Flickr in fear of image theft, however because all images have now been converted to have watermarks im not, as concerned about it as I was. Still, many of my images, have the exif data on it, plus, I am lead to believe that Flickr can also provide “Artists Comments” and the ability for others to comment it.

I need more information, so I reach out and ask you, all once again for your input. Thank you

I did a terrible thing. I spent over a month solidly working hard on the redesign of this website, comparing different things, and looking at things I can add in. I consulted and worked closley with Andrew Kennett and Sean Nicholls, the two consultants I had with me when redesigning the site structure. Even now, I have made little tweaks here and there to the sites backgrounds and images, partly for updating the system to make it faster for those that visit, and partly because certain elements didnt quite look right.
As you’ve seen from my previous news postings, I’m not fantastically happy with the overall site design & as I have said before, Pixeled did a wonderfull job of designing this template. Yet it still doesen’t ‘do it’ for me.
The terrible thing of course, was that I let users know that the website was changing, I even ran a survey, but I didn’t give anyone the opportunity to look at the prospective plans for the sites overall design.

Of course I took on board a great many comments, and indeed many of them have been acted upon. Yet everytime I look at this website, I feel slightly, underwhelmed. Photography content just isn’t there,
considering this website started as a ‘Photography’ site, and the overall layout, simply looks too much like a personal site.

I know that a great many people do like it, and find it has a good impact, yet even now I can see that the novelty of having a ‘Black on black’ template has worn off. I’m even tweeting this right now, to get a “Live” feedback of users impressions as they click and visit.
As a result, I have made a decision. One that I should have made before implementing this website. I’ve also come to a realisation. The website didn’t need a redesign as much as it needed a restructure.

The galleries are poor in comparison to other personal art sites, and I now have to wrestle with a decision to either simply ditch the blog or move it away, and keep the main site as a pure art gallery, something I
don’t want to do. Or restructure the focus of this site. It IS a personal site. Let me make that clear. True I offer services, but it is still my personal site. Yet there are things that have changed in my life.

Photography, although I still love it, and do it whenever I can, is not something I get to do often. As a result the site has been let down, and infrequently updated. Admittedly part of that is due to my poor choice of software for the old site. But even though the new site is 100% better and easier to update with new pictures. It just doesent sit at the forefront of my life. I work full time in IT. Not as a photographer
(although I would like to, despite having much to learn). Because of that I don’t get much time other than weekends to go and do some photography. Even on the weekends, I find I have a whole lot more to do than I normally plan. So I don’t get much time.
Blogging however, has become a new favorite of mine. I’ve tried it before with limited success, but as I’ve grown over the years and gotten older and wiser, I feel that I’ve matured a lot in what I have to say.
I’m enjoying writing a long blog, and sitting on the stats page watching the people flood in and read it. It’s nice to know that even though people do not comment as much as I would like them to (to quote one
example, 47 people were on a post for 35 mins before leaving, and not one commented) I get enormous satisfaction from knowing that someone is actually reading it, and maybe talking about it.

My focuses are changing a little, and right now I push the site as a photography art site. Which it hardly is. So I have made two decisions.

1: The site needs a better design. It’s black, yes, it’s smart in a sense yes. But it isn’t what I want. It looks ‘too’ personal, and not professional and clean enough. Or certainly not as I would have liked it. Yes, it is a personal site. But I don’t want something THAT personal, that looks like I threw it together. Especially when I start competing for jobs and people go and look at it.

2: A Restructure and cut down. The gallery is nice, but certain pictures have got to go. I’ve grown, and my photography has gotten better. I don’t feel the need to display poor pictures, and I feel that quality over quantity is what really counts. If I want to market my abilities, to work as a prospective designer or photographer, I need to show the good pictures, and focus mainly on those. But I also need to refocus this site as my personal world rather than just a photography site.
So this time, I really do need your comments more than ever. Ideas, structures, plans, suggestions. You name it. It’s going to help.
This post is being tweeted out automatically. So I ask if anyone did look at this from twitter. Please comment, or tweet back. A few words will help make those decisions. And It’s going to make this site better, rather than make me look foolish.

I apologise for the long post, but this time, I need you. I am sticking with wordpress, as it’s serving me very well. But This time. I want your input. Link me to things, comment on ideas, make ideas suggestions,
even bad points. It’s all going to help.
Remember if you don’t like using your email address in comments, just put admin@thelongmile.net instead.

Thanks

In the meantime, someone I know has managed to find something I did not even know this site had. Apparently the gallery has an RSS feed that I had no idea about, you can subscribe to it and get updates whenever pictures are added by clicking here

In addition to this, I have counteracted some of this site’s slow loading times by reoptimising many of the images including the background banner. Remember this is a personal site, and so the idea is to be a little more flamboyant than I would be for a professional site, hence the graphics, images etc.

Stay Tuned for more information as and when it comes

If you don’t like the mobile view, you can flick back to the normal site by clicking the button at the bottom of the page.

The site is available from your iPhone, Android or Blackberry mobile device as well as most other web enabled handhelds with access to the internet. So keep up on the move, and leave your comments. The only limitation is at the moment you can’t look at the gallery, but, that will be changing soon.

Turns out the stats system is not correctly counting visits, but is correctly counting page views. Wassup was detecting browsers scanning for RSS links which were indicating another hit which was not correct, similarly statpress was counting the correct number of pageviews, but not the correct number of visits if your IP hasn’t changed. So I’ve resorted to using statpress. I’ve removed the backup system as it was failing and am still working on finding a suitable backup replacment, and have ensure google analytics is correctly implemented. I am pleased therefore to announce that new pictures are being added to the gallery tonight.

I am aware that the tweetback feature is not working, no-one seems to know how to fix it, so I will be delving into the code later tonight with Sean, my PHP consultant.

Thanks

thelongmile activley encourages people to leave comments. If you don’t want to use your email address, use admin@thelongmile.net instead. Remember, if you like this, TWEET IT!