Guy Stuff at Guys Clubhouse

Well, it’s been a couple of weeks now, and I must say I’m very happy with our second blog page. There are a couple of things to be worked out. If I was worried about these things, I’d work on it quicker. But I’m not, so if someone wants to, give it shot. I’m sure it’s quite easy, and I’ll get to it myself soon.

• Sticky post doesn’t stick on 2nd blog page
• The “more” tag does not work on 2nd blog page

I know, this is tragic!!

For a “how to” on making a second blog on your WordPress visit Zero Atoms. If ya have troubles just ask. Everone’s helpful.

After hearing what sounded like world war 3 going on in the basement, I rushed downstairs to find a chipmunk playing a game of cat and mouse with our cat. So I joined in and managed to grab the speeding cat ( or Satan as I like to call her ) after a couple of minutes. The next job was to catch the stupid chipmunk.  Unbelievably, when we moved in here someone had left behind a squirrel trap, which I kept never knowing why. I almost sold it at our yard sale last year. It didn’t take long to do it’s job. I’m happy to report I had the little guy on his way, safe and sound the next day, Which Satan wasn’t to pleased about.

It’s always amazing to watch someone that is in complete control their craft. There are many forms of art, and I believe some forms people are just born into. Here’s 4 minutes of what I thought was quite incredible.

Alright, you there, step away from the plugin activation link. Whatever you were going to activate,  just let it go. Let’s get you some help. Just take up gambling or drinking instead K. Can’t you see how your hurting a living breathing website!

Really, how many plugins do we need? I allow myself 8 and right now I have 4. Why you ask. Because I want to be in control of things, and with plugins your not. If you are using a bunch of plugins, It is just a matter of time before WordPress updates again and 1 or 2, maybe more,  screw up your site.

Here’s what I use:

• Akismet -  We all use it, it’s great and a must have

• WP-Optmize – Work’s well getting rid of our post revisions which I believe important. A must have.

• All in One SEO – I don’t use it. I did try it and really, it didn’t do a whole lot for me. However, all the pro’s recommend it, so go ahead.

Here’s my fun ones:

• WP Photo album – Works very good. Simple and easy to use.

• WP Wall – Just a fun thing. You’ll see it in my side bar over there. Uh, if only someone would use it! That’s the Men’s room Wall guys. See it?

• Post Avatar – Works nicely,  but not needed. Thought I’d try it out just for fun. Update — It just does what I always do except I need to upload pics to a different file, so, gone.

What started me on this post was a plugin to embed your Youtube stuff. Why in gods name would this be needed. Look at my side bar. There’s one! No plugin. Just a copy and past thing. People need to lean about their own websites. You made it, I know from a template, but explore it. If you do, then if things go bad, you’ll be able to fix it. So let’s do a couple of things on our own and be proud.

Not being a programmer, here’s a situation I found myself and others having.

We’ve made a custom page. We’ve told our new page to get categories 4, 5 and 6. We’ve told our Home page to get categories 1,2,3. Everything looks sweet. Now you want a “sticky post” on the main page introducing your new page. Well the sticky post shows up, but won’t stick. It just behaves like any other post. I spent days messing with this. Lets take a look at the “Query” I used just above our loop. Just look at the numbers after “cat=. 

Main Page

<?php $paged = (get_query_var(‘paged’)) ? get_query_var(‘paged’) : 1;
query_posts(“cat=17,21,24&paged=$paged”);  ?>

<?php if ( have_posts() ) : while ( have_posts() ) : the_post(); ?>

2nd Page

<?php $paged = (get_query_var(‘paged’)) ? get_query_var(‘paged’) : 1;
query_posts(“cat=1,3,6,7&paged=$paged”); ?>

<?php if ( have_posts() ) : while ( have_posts() ) : the_post(); ?>

Why it wouldn’t stick didn’t make sense to me. And still doesn’t. It did occur to me that life would be easier just excluding categories on the Main page. That way, I’m only opening my templates if I add a new cat to the second page. The main page will just gab any category not listed. So I changed my Query in the Main page template:

query_posts(“cat=17,21,24&paged=$paged”);  ?>

to

query_posts(“cat=-1,-3,-6,-7&paged=$paged”);  ?>

So as you see, everything I listed on the 2nd page, I excluded on the main page with a simple – before the cat#. Guess what happened. For some reason only god knows, the “sticky” stuck!!  So a tip from the average guy that knows little. If your having trouble getting the “sticky” to stick, try making sure you’re only excluding categories in your Main page Query. It might just work.

Well I’ve gotten rid of a bunch of old crappy content here and am working on better things  for GCH.  So hang in there everyone. Lots of new crappy content coming soon! YAY!