My favorite WordPress Theme left me in the dust with its 2.0 release – time to put in some real effort to stay current!
Well this site is screwed for a time because of an old theme which I can update, fortunately, when I find the time. All lead photos and thumbnails are gone until I do.
WordPress, I’m guessing, is the most popular blogging platform in existence today, and it is free – completely free if you don’t mind hosting it on the wordpress.com site as millions do.
However if one wants a personalized domain (like carbonboy.us and composites-by-design.com) one has to pay for both domain registration and web hosting. Combined, the average yearly cost seems about $130 per site – more if you want added security, traffic, and space – less if you are looking for a bargain.
On top of that, the WordPress platform does not run by itself – it requires a theme. There are thousands of themes from freebees to those costing around $25-50 for a single site use. The theme determines the look and feel of the site and there are some pretty cool ones out there.
Finally there are plugins. They add bells & whistles to the site – from super-cool effects, spam-catching and site monitoring. Like themes and apps – there seems to be a gazillion WordPress Plugins.
When I transferred this blog to WordPress from an antiquated Microsoft FrontPage, I chose Thesis Themes as my WordPress Theme – as it was billed with built-in SEO (search engine optimization), got great reviews, and was easy enough for a non-coder like me to use.
WordPress is improving and updating its free software all the time – not only to improve its functionality, but to deal with security issues – just like web browsers and about any other software and apps out there.
With WordPress 4.0 automatic updates seemed to have kicked in for this site and that’s fine with me. I’m sure there’s a way to turn it off, but updates are ALWAYS recommended.
But herein lies the problem (or my problem anyway). I run Thesis Themes 1.8. It is old. I took the plunge to the 2.0 version and was totally lost – everything had to be recreated. I had no time or patience for it.
I’m evaluating a new Modern Theme call simply called X – which adapts nicely to computer monitors, tablets and smartphones. I did manage to get rudimentary site operational, but still struggle to get the content and look to something contemporary.
It’s mostly me as I just can’t find the time or energy to master it. And I got mixed results when viewing the site from a client’s computer (see below). It since fixed itself – which makes using it even more troublesome.
When re-launching a business or brand – this is not what you want your clients to see – fortunately Theme X fixed itself, making it even more troublesome!
So I was hoping the old Thesis Themes would keep itself going for a time. Yet with WordPress 4.0 (which installed itself), that is not the case. But as I said, I lost all my lead photos for each post, as well as the thumbnails that are supposed to accompany previous posts.
To my surprise Thesis did release an upgrade to the 1.X version which should fix the problem. I will upload it with weekend, and hope for one last Band-Aid. If it works (and I assume it will) I got a slight reprieve before I have to take the time and frustration of learning X or Thesis 2.X.
