If any of you are wondering why the theme has changed completely and several of the plugins etc., have vanished… Well I just taught myself a nice little lesson about the dangers of using the following:
rm -r -f *
I successfully cleaned up my blog by killing it 🙂
Oh well! It was about time I cleaned up, as there were plugins and God only knows what else dating back about 3 years.
The main page now has a mere 26 queries, instead of the massive 109 it had previously.
I’ll be playing around with the layout a bit as I need to put some things back in, but I will make a BIG effort to keep it simple this time. (That probably won’t work, but at least I can start out trying!)
Michele Neylon :: Pensieri
Technology, Marketing, Domains, Thoughts
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A vast improvement 🙂
Just get rid of those damned ads [or put them somewhere where they don’t appear as part of the post] and you’ll be grand.
Richard
When they stop making me money I’ll consider it 🙂
Michele
I have to agree. Please get rid of the adds! If using a screen reader these are unavoidable and add an unnecessary amount of clutter to each post. See my example at the end.
Screen readers for anyone who doesn’t know are software applications used to convert relevant text into synthesized speech so that the Blind can use a computer. Take a look at http://www.freedomscientific.com as a good example.
If you’d like to keep these in but your interested in an alternative, what about just placing a small skip link at the start of the add frame to jump the focus to the next block of text.
Here is what I hear when reading your post. This is basically pasted from my screen readers virtual buffer
If any of you are wondering why the theme has changed completely and several of the plugins etc., have vanished… Well I just taught myself a nice little
lesson about the dangers of using the following:
rm -r -f *
I successfully cleaned up my blog by killing it
🙂
google_ads_frame frame
Ads by Google
Spinnakerpro
Supporting Sir Robin Knox-Johnston Velux 5 oceans campaign
http://www.spinnakerpro.com
google_ads_frame frame end
Oh well! It was about time I cleaned up, as there were plugins and God only knows what else dating back about 3 years.
The main page now has a mere 26 queries, instead of the massive 109 it had previously.
I’ll be playing around with the layout a bit as I need to put some things back in, but I will make a BIG effort to keep it simple this time. (That probably
won’t work, but at least I can start out trying!)
Thanks.
Darragh
Is there anyway that I can hide the ads from you completely?
Is there some kind of comment tag that your screenreader knows to ignore?
Michele
I concur. I’m not anyway sight impaired and I find it difficult to navigate and read Michele’s blog. He should really do something about those awfull ads.
To be brutally honest, it looks like money making is a higher priority than informing.
I prefer to read your posts through Google Reader which filters out the ads altogether [which kinda defeats the purpose?].
Is there not some kind of compromise?
Hello Michele, Screen readers are unfortunately stupid when it comes to tags. The only time they ignore something is when it’s set to hidden.
Another alternative for screen reader users. Use the configuration option to ignore inline frames and associate the configuration file to the relevant domain. Only recent versions of Screen readers have this option and not everyone would be aware of it. Upgrades generally cost about fifteen hundred Euro so it’s not unfortunately like expecting people to update to the latest “free” browser.
I don’t agree with the comment that Michele would rather make money than make his site usable. Just take the example of the CAPTCHA on the Irish web design forum. He looked at that and came up with an interesting alternative that should be usable by all. I think it’s important to be careful who we critisize without giving them the benefit of the doubt. There are a lot of developers and designers in Ireland and indeed the world who even though are presented with the chalanges that users of their creations encounter don’t do anything about them. I’m talking generally here and not just in situations that directly effect people like my self who are Blind or visually impaired. I’m happy to say that in my experience, Michele is not one of these.
Darragh
Thanks for your positive comments 🙂
In any case I’ve removed the plugin that I was using and placed the ads into static points in the template.
Regards
Michele
Just a note to add – haha – that I’ve never understood the ads on this blog either. You run a hosting company Michele, use spare capacity to pay for the blog transfer for feck’s sake! 🙂
Adam
I don’t follow?
Michele (who may need more coffee)
You’re just being obtuse now Michele. Figure it out fella.
26 queries is still just silly for a blog. People seem to be terribly wasteful with them when doing website-y stuff.
The new version of my reverse lyrics search website thingy will use on average a little over one query per page for a logged-in user (worst case: 6). And it isn’t even really hard to do; just involves a bit of caching and writing sensible queries.
alias rm=’echo rm $*’
then run /bin/rm when you mean it.
The only downside to this is that it will piss you off and you’ll end up typing in /bin/rm everywhere anyway.
Yay! I love it! Finally! I don’t mind the ads, it’s a vast improvement. Fantastic stuff + apologies for harsh ‘i can’t read your site’ comments in the past.
Danger
Glad you approve 🙂
I may add the “latest comments” into the sidebar, as it helps me find them! Though I’m going to try and avoid clutter this time round
Lesson learnt – cleaning up your wordpress install once a year is a good idea!