Media Nation is built with the endlessly customizable WordPress.org. Yet I find that the more limited WordPress.com makes certain key tools more readily available.
A few days ago I posted an item about the New Haven Independent’s fifth-birthday party that included an audio clip of founder and editor Paul Bass. When you click, it takes you away from the post and to a blank page. Yucko.
In WordPress.com, there is a simple command that embeds an audio player on your page. For instance, take a look at the Sermons page of our church’s website, which I maintain using WordPress.com. All it takes is a simple line of code that looks like this: [audio URL]. For URL, of course, you substitute the actual URL of the MP3 file.
I’m thinking that if I could just find the right plug-in, I’d have the same capability in WordPress.org. Anyone know what it is?
This afternoon I added a WordPress plug-in that automatically displays a mobile edition of Media Nation when you visit the site with a smartphone. I’ve tried it on my BlackBerry and can report that it looks OK with the default browser (though the font is too big) and quite nice using Opera Mini.
I also figured out a way to tweak the comments template. You’ll now find a much wider and deeper comments box as well as some helpful introductory text.
Back when Media Nation was hosted by Blogger.com, many commenters used icons — avatars — with their posts. That seems to have all but disappeared now that I’m using WordPress.
So I just want to point out that avatars are ridiculously simple with Gravatar. Just sign up, do it and your avatar will automatically appear.
It took me a while because I was using two different e-mail addresses. What’s your excuse?
When I moved Media Nation from Blogger to WordPress in August, I quickly found that one feature actually got worse — posting comments became more difficult.
I just installed one feature you should find useful. Now, next to the “post” button, you’ll find a “preview” button, which will allow you to see what your comment will look like before you upload it.
This is especially useful if you’re entering hyperlink code by hand and want to make sure you’ve got it right — that is, if you’re typing:
<A HREF=”http://www.thephoenix.com”>Boston Phoenix</a>
Hit “preview” and you’ll see it as Boston Phoenix.
I’ve just finished bringing the Published Work page up to date. And, with that, I’m happy to say that the new Media Nation site has moved out of beta. I’ve still got some improvements in mind, and suggestions are always welcome.
I ended up moving more quickly than I had intended. But as of today, this is the new permanent home of Media Nation. After four years on Blogger.com, I decided I wanted a better-looking blog with the greater functionality offered by WordPress. Over time, I plan to consolidate my various other Web presences here.
Thank you to everyone for your comments and advice on the new look and feel. I agree with those who say the photo — taken in the booth at WBZ-TV (Channel 4) while political analyst Jon Keller was interviewing U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch — is distracting. No offense to Keller and Lynch; the fault is entirely the photographer’s. At some point I will come up with a better image.
Please adjust your bookmarks and your RSS subscriptions.
Many thanks to my former student John Guilfoil, the founder and editor of Blast Magazine, who helped me with the set-up process and is now assisting with tweaks to the design.
Tweaking away: What I know about CSS would not fill a tiny thimble. But I’ve managed to boost the body-type size by 5 percent and improve the contrast a bit.
Shhhh … no one is supposed to know. But would you mind taking a peek at an early version of what may wind up as the new Media Nation? It’s built with WordPress, and you’ll find it here. Don’t bother clicking around — I’ve got a long way to go. I am strictly asking for your first impression. Better than the current look and feel? Worse? Or no different?
I’m seriously thinking of switching to WordPress.org so that I can bring my various Web sites under one roof — Media Nation, “Little People” and DanKennedy.net.
Pros:
- WordPress has nicer templates than Blogger, so I should easily be able to come up with a better look than I’ve got now.
- I’ll be able to use my own domain name.
- I can set up static pages so that each of my different online projects will be in one spot.
Cons:
- I’ll have to pay $6 to $10 a month for Web hosting. Not bad, but free is free. (I can’t use the free WordPress.com service because it forbids advertising.)
- I can use dankennedy.net or media-nation.org as my main domain name, but the one I really want — medianation.org — is already taken.
- I’ll need to put in some time getting up to speed technologically, and I really could put that time to better use.
So I don’t know. If you were me, what would you do?
A reader pointed out an odd quirk with the new design — if you narrow the window too much, the right-hand column slides off and disappears to the bottom. My correspondent said the problem appeared to be with Firefox for Windows 2.0.0.16, and he didn’t mention the window width. But I’ve been able to reproduce the problem with the Mac version of Firefox and Safari.
Ideally, the window would hold steady as you narrow it, as it does with the site I recently put together for our church using WordPress.com. If you narrow the window there, you’ll see that the page holds steady.
I don’t know what to do about this; it must be inherent in the template, and not amenable to a quick CSS tweak. All the more reason to think that, someday, Media Nation will move to WordPress.com.
It’s been an interesting day — Blogger’s been more up than down, and both my Gmail and Northeastern e-mail accounts have been acting up. So there you have it.
Fixed. Again, thanks to Steve. By the time we’re done, he ought to be able to sell a modified version of this template.
For the moment, at least, I’ve decided to revert to the old design. The problem is that Blogger provides very few templates, and they’re all two-column.
The three-column template I tried last night was of uncertain provenance, and there were some things that just didn’t work properly. In addition, Mrs. Media Nation informed me that though it allowed me to try some new ideas, it was pretty much unreadable. I knew she was right, but tried to tell myself otherwise.
So I tried a different three-column template tonight, and it was pretty clear that I’d chosen something with even more problems.
I’m sick of this design, but it’s relatively easy on the eyes. So, for now at least, it stays.
If WordPress.com didn’t ban advertising, I’d switch. It has many more options and, in general, is a more robust blogging platform than Blogger. It even works as a pretty decent content-management system. Check out the site I put together for our church.
Technology | Dan Kennedy | 
September 20, 2010 12:00 pm | 
Comments (5) 
