“(…) Pallo jalkaan | Pitäjänuutiset

15.05.2012 09:26

Meillä on ilo kuskata lapsia harrastuksiin ja katsella leppoisasti, kuinka peli sujuu.

Olemme vähän odotelleet, että nuoremmallekin pojalle alkaisi sähly tai jalkapallo. Hän olisi jo valmis omiin juttuihin, ettei tarvitse kuokkia isoveljen peleissä.

Mutta, mutta… Eihän täällä niin vain ”ala” uusia harrastuksia. Ne pitää aloittaa.

Paikkakunnan mahtava urheilutarjonta perustuu täysin vapaaehtoistyöhön, jota pyörittävät äidit ja isät. Uskomatonta, kuinka moni on jaksanut kouluttautua ohjaajaksi monilajiseen tai muihin kerhoihin.

Näin pienessä kylässä on suuri ihme, että vapaaehtoisia riittää ohjaamaan kaikkea aina tanssista judoon.

Nyt on sitten meidän vuoro siirtyä katsomosta areenalle. Ensin haasteen ottaa vastaan aviomies, jolle on tarjolla jalkapallovalmentajan rooli.

Onneksi hän on armoton jalkapallofani, kuten kaikki hollantilaiset. Valmentajan rooli on miellyttävä ja silmissä vilisee kunniakkaiden edeltäjien nimiä: Johan Cruijff, Marco van Basten ja Ruud van Nistelrooy.

Ura käynnistynee nyt aluksi Mäntyharjun Jäntevässä, 4- ja 5-vuotiaiden jalkapallokerhossa. Jalkapalloa hän onkin katsellut sujuvasti jo pitkään, eli pallo on hallussa.

Syksyllä edessä on suurempi haaste, jos täytyy ottaa vastuu myös sählyjoukkueesta. Onko siinä jotain sääntöjäkin?

Ei muuta kuin opiskelemaan.

Tai sitten haasteen ottaa vastaan äiti, joka on sentään pelannut sählyä yliopistoaikana hupijoukkueessa. Ei sielläkään sääntöjä käytetty, mutta pallon perässä juokseminen on sentään tuttua.

minna.ojamies@pitajanuutiset.fi (…)”

via Pallo jalkaan.

"Hello, I'm from Tampere. May I use your wifi?"

Apparently, WordPress 3.3.2 offers an improved ‘Drag-and-Drop Media Uploader’. You can upload several images simultaneously and they will be collected in a gallery that can be easily inserted into a blog post. That’s nice.

When creating a blog post and clicking the Upload/Insert icon, after uploading an image using the uploader or after selecting one from behind  your Media Gallery tab you can select one of several sizes before you click ‘Insert into Post’: Thumbnail, Medium, Large or Full Size. If the original image is smaller than one or more of the the standard Thumbnail, Medium or Large sizes, those options will be greyed out.

What I’m hoping to find out is: if at this point I select a size that is smaller than the Full Size, e.g. if I select Thumbnail, will WordPress insert the thumbnail into the blog post such that when clicking the image, the Full Size will be presented?

[Two minutes later:] Answer: yes, apparently that’s how it works.

Next: What is a gallery? How to create one? How to insert a gallery into a blog post such that each image is presented as a thumbnail but doesn’t load the full size file (which takes ages on a post with multiple images) into the thumbnail space – and still links the thumbnail to the Full Size?

I’ll be back when I’ve found out. In the meantime, don’t hesitate to spoil it in the comments.

[5 minutes later:] OK, this works for me: I uploaded a couple of large images using the uploader. After the upload I clicked ‘Show’ for each image to select the size ‘Thumbnail’. Then I inserted the gallery into the blog post. The result is a blog post with light-weight thumbnails that link to their respective Full Size originals.

[A lunch meal later:] Now, can you also compose galleries from the Media Library and then insert them into blog posts? (no time to test now, will later)

Today I upgraded to WordPress 3.3.2 and worked a bit on this site’s design.

The backup documentation seemed a bit intimidating at first, but it turns out that my hosting provider offers an option to automate backups via FTP to a server in a different location. We’re doing that once a day now.

So I just pushed the upgrade button and that was it.

Then I created a Child Theme which I dubbed ‘Twenty Eleven Schuurmudgeon’. I simply created a new directory via FTP next to the directory ‘twentyeleven’ and called it ‘twentyeleven-schuurmudgeon’. Populated it with the following files: ‘footer.php’, ‘functions.php’ and ‘style.css’.

• ‘footer.php’ mentions Creative Commons Attribution and the name of the child theme;
• ‘functions.php’ links the new favicon image to the site;
• ‘style.css’ defines exceptions and additions to the parent theme’s styles.

I then dropped the ‘favicon.ico’ file to the root directory.

After activating the child theme in the WordPress admin dashboard, the system reverted to some of the default settings of the parent theme, so I had to set them again manually:

• Background color;
• Upload background image and set the tiling;
• Not show the header text.

I have installed a plugin, ‘Twenty Eleven Theme Extensions’ by MozTools that makes it easy to improve a few specific design issues. It let me reduce the height of the header image to 160 pixels. So I then uploaded a new header image, size 1000×160 pixels.

The child theme’s style.css definitions includes, among other things, a 1-pixel border to the left of the page div, and a drop shadow to the right and bottom.

When I recently added Joe Blogger as an additional author to this site, WordPress started inserting a “author-info” div  beteween the entry and the comment section of each post, which I found a bit disturbing. I guess that happens automagically when the site has more than one user who has published something – there was another user, Admin, who hadn’t published anything.

Now I made the  “author-info” div disappear by adding the following style definition in the child theme’s ‘style.css’ file:

#author-info {
    display: none;
}

That’s about it for now.

Now, I could submit those various questions to the WordPress support forums, and I’m sure the nice people over there would be very helpful. But it’s also time consuming and when posting these questions to the forums separately, it might be challenging to keep them coherent and in context. That’s why I’d rather post this entry first and see if someone can offer a holistic response.

It all started with this message on my Admin Dashboard:

WordPress 3.3.2 is available! Please update now.

So I went to the Codex to find out what I need to back up and how:

“(…) You need to back up the entire site, and you need to back up your WordPress database. (…)

Your WordPress site consists of the following:

1. WordPress Core Installation
2. WordPress Plugins
3. WordPress Themes
4. Images and Files
5. Javascript scripts, PHP scripts, and other code files
6. Additional Files and Static Web Pages (…)

Your WordPress database contains every post, every comment and every link you have on your blog. (…)

Now, does it matter which one I back up first: the site or the database?

If, technically, it doesn’t matter, then perhaps I’d choose to back up the database first, as it is more valuable. After all, much more (unreproducable) effort has gone into creating the content than in developing the functionality and design of the website. Does that make sense?

Apparently there is quite a number of different ways to make database backups:

• 1 Backup using cPanel X
• 2 Using phpMyAdmin
  • 2.1 Backup Process with phpMyAdmin
• 3 Using Straight MySQL Commands
• 4 Using MySQL Workbench
  • 4.1 Backing Up the Database
  • 4.2 Restoring From a Backup
• 5 MySQL GUI Tools
• 6 Using WordPress Database Backup Plugin
  • 6.1 Installation
  • 6.2 Backing up
  • 6.3 Restoring the Data
• 7 Resources and Backup Plugins

phpMyAdmin…

“(…) is a PHP script meant for giving users the ability to interact with their MySQL databases. (…)

The phpMyAdmin program is handy for performing mantainance operations on tables, backing up information, and editing things directly in the event that WordPress is not working. (…) Although many of the same tasks can be performed on the MySQL command line, doing so is not an option for many people. (…)

Often host control panels, such as cPanel and Plesk, have phpMyAdmin pre-installed, so there is nothing special you have to do to use it. It is usually linked from the database page. Ask your host if this is available. (…)”

Automatic Backups

“(…) Various plugins exist to take automatic scheduled backups of your WordPress database. (…) You can find automatic backup plugins in the Plugin Browser. (…)”

List of Backup Plugins

Manual Backup Resources

• FTP Backups – How to automate backing up to a FTP server
• Cron Job Backups – How to schedule nightly SQL backups which can be emailed
• Backing Up Your Database
• Backing Up Your WordPress Files
• Restoring Your Database From Backup
• Using phpMyAdmin with WordPress
• A Shell Script for a Complete WordPress Backup

So the question at this point is: shall I (1) start looking for the control panels that use phpMyAdmin, (2) use the MySQL command line, (3) MySQL Workbench, (4) a MySQL GUI tool, or (5) a Backup Plugin?

Also, is it recommendable to perform a manual rather than an automated backup the first time? Just to learn to understand the process and what to do in case something goes wrong?

Any insights greatly appreciated in the comment section

Today I jogged 7.0 km of last year’s 10.6 km Mäntyharju Pyhävesi-juoksu route. +6°C, overcast, very little snow on the ground left, Asics Gel Nimbus 13, 93.0 kg. I continued my breathing experiment.

Less pain in my right foot than last time. I was trying to take it easy, slowly, very conscious about how I place my foot to avoid overstretching. I think the extensor tendinitis explains some of the pain I’ve had, but in addition I feel some pain around the ankle.

“(…) Tendonitis may develop in any of the four quadrants of the ankle. Runners commonly develop pain in the posterior (back) quadrant – Achilles tendonitis. Distance runners (especially ultramarathoners) may develop tendonitis in the anterior (front) compartment. This is the location of the tendons which lift the foot and toes; a shuffling gait may cause the tendons to become swollen and inflamed. Tendinitis may develop in the inner (medial) compartment of the ankle, especially in an overpronator. The least common site for tendonitis in runners is the outer (lateral) compartment.

Overtraining is the most common cause of ankle tendonitis; gait abnormalities are another common cause. Decreasing mileage, ice, anti-inflammatory medications, and occasionally, the use of arch supports or heel lifts are used to treat this problem. Stretching and strengthening the muscles of the ankle assists in the recovery process and play an important role in prevention. (…)

You can also crosstrain; pool running is an excellent way to maintain or even increase fitness without beating up your ankles. (…)”

From: Ask the Coaches: Ankle Tendonitis and Marathon | Running Times Magazine

Wikipedia:

Tendinitis (informally also tendonitis), meaning inflammation of a tendon

It’s hard to tell in which quadrant I feel it most; it’s kinda spread around.

I’m collecting my jogging stats on this page.

(Image: Creative Commons Attribution: Joi)

Clay Shirky was recently quoted as saying that publishing is not a job anymore but a button and that all it takes to publish these days is a WordPress install.

Well, I’ve been learning to install WordPress instances on a hosted Apache server via the Ubuntu terminal. I was actually merely following written instructions tho, but learning nontheless.

Lots of passwords involved, which prompted me to start using a handy password manager called KeePass.

On the topic of “on the job” learning, Joi Ito remarked in a recent post:

“(…) My sister calls me an “interest driven learner.” I think that’s code for “short attention span” or “not a good long term planner” or something like that. (…)

Although reading the dictionary and the encyclopedia from cover to cover may seem a bit extreme, it often feels like that’s what we’re asking kids to do who go through formal education. (…)

I wonder whether we should be structuring the future of learning as online universities where you are asked to do the equivalent of reading the encyclopedia from cover to cover online. Shouldn’t we be looking at the Internet as an amazing network enabling “The Power of Pull” and be empowering kids to learn through building things together rather than assessing their ability to complete courses and produce the right “answers”? (…)”

I must agree; I’ve been learning a good deal of WordPress configuration and CSS design lately by looking up what I need to know as I go about the project.

With codecademy, on the other hand, I got stuck learning javascript because the exercises were not driven by my immediate practical needs. And those emails trying to lure me into “building my own blackjack game” don’t really…

Or then it just means that, like Joi, I’m a just an “interest driven learner”.