Wish List II

Came across a WordPress plugin called GeoPress today.  With it, I could attach cool little maps to my posts.  You know – kind of put the Where in Wherewithal (all appropriate puns intended).

Looking around, it appears that WordPress.com doesn’t offer any upgrades that would allow me to pack in non-WP-approved plugins (they do, however, give user a place to suggest plugins they’d like to see made available – I’m on my way as soon as I finish this post).  This would include Roy Tanck’s WP-Cumulus mentioned previously.  So it looks like my only option here would be to pay for hosting elsewhere.

Hmmm.

Wish List

First thing on my list of crap I want to be able to do here – edit CSS.  I know I can do it (for cheap) already, but I think I need to keep a running list so I can add it all up in the final analysis.  It’s also not because I’m the kind of guy who chews code for breakfast.  It’s just that I’m not happy with the default width of this theme (it doesn’t even fill the width of the laptop, which is enslaved to 1024 x 768).

Why yes – now that you mention it, I could just change the theme.  And you’re right – I could.  But that’s beside the point.  I like this theme (far better than any of the others I’ve seen) except for a couple of minor tweaks I’d like to make.  I mean, really – changing the code just to increase the width of the document body is a ridiculously minor tweak.  I don’t think it’s too much to ask.

Now, the other reason I want access to the guts of this thing is because I’d really like to add Roy Tanck’s WP-Cumulus – easily the coolest tag cloud I’ve seen.

So this makes the tally so far:  $15/year (I’m pretty sure everything in this category will be a yearly cost).

First

This is one-half of my latest Grand Experiment.  I’ve decided to check out this WordPress thing and, as usual, I’m going a little overboard with it.  As I said – this is only one-half of it.  The other half is a virtually identical blog, using the full WordPress engine (available here), on my home server.

Of course, my ‘home server’ was only marginally so up ’til now.  Before this experiment, it was just an old computer, connected to our network and with the printers and scanner plugged into it.  Now, though, it’s a real server, complete with the full Apache, MySQL and PHP package.  I’m already leaning toward this latter setup, as the power and flexibility of it far outshine this one (I’m already loving the additional HTML and CSS capabilities, and I’m looking forward to packing my own personal Wiki into the deal).  However, the low overhead of this space is hard to argue with.  Especially since this place offers much of what I like about my other installation, at very reasonable prices.

So we’ll just kick back and see where this goes.  Along the way, I’ll try to find the time for posts about the technical aspects of my home installation.  So far, it’s been just plain fun.