The Rabapab Blog

Been working on some site upgrades over the past few days.  Mostly just cosmetic updates, stuff to make the site look better, but I am liking how it going so far.  New theme and some new plug-ins really helps to give the site a better feel.  I am going to be working on getting the site more connected thru social networks like Twitter, Facebook and digg.  I have really been getting into the different social networks that are out there here recently, definitely got hooked on Twitter.  I am not crazy with it like some people, but I do make use of it from time to time, doesn’t even matter at this point if they listen.  If I find something I would like to share then I share it, that is what Twitter is for me, a way to share certain things with.  Anyway, there will be changes taking place to the look and feel of the site over the coming days and perhaps even weeks, as I work on getting the site the way I would like it to be. 

I am looking to add some additional types of content such as images and video, mostly to compliment the articles, but they will certainly help with the looks as well.  I have already removed the existing gallery from the site, it will be replaced with a plug-in that should provide similar features, and go better with the site look and feel. 

More to come as changes are made.

Well before I call it a night, I decided I would go ahead and add a new entry to the blog.  I am not 100% sure if this is how a blog is supposed to work, but then again it is mine, so I guess I can post to it however I want to.  The blog is most certainly still under construction, but it is starting to come together.  I wanted to have a photo gallery, and the ability to be able to easily integrate images into the blog.  So I decided to go with an installation of Gallery2.  Much like WordPress I am in no way shape or form familiar with how Gallery2 works, so please bear with me if it does not work exactly how it is supposed to. 

The installations seemed to go rather well, most of these web apps come with very detailed installation routines that make setup a snap.  Once it was all installed I had to grab a few modules which are required to integrate G2 into WordPress, and those installed without a hitch either.  From what I can tell I have now gotten G2 integrated into the main WordPress site. 

Currently there is only 1 album within the Gallery and it is basically there to test.  Once I have a chance this weekend to work some more on the site I will try to get a few more albums added.  The Gallery allows for user and group level permissions, so once I get everything the way I want it the gallery will allow me to share personal photos with my family and friends.  Much like my previous sites www.rabapab.com will primarily be for my family and friends to be able to stay up to date with what is happening in my neck of the woods.  My sites have always been focused on giving them ways to access my photo albums and keep each others contact information updated.

I must say that working on this blog so far today has certainly given me something to do.  Normally I would have been sitting here all night playing World of Warcraft, but tonight I was able to take a break from that addiction and begin laying the ground work for this site.  I do hope that once everything falls into place and is working the way I feel it should be that I can steer this blog down a definate path.  As I said in my previous post, I do not currently have a direction in terms of the types of posts and topics that will be available on this blog, although I am working on a few ideas. 

As for me I do believe I am going to call it a night.  I do want to wish everyone out there a very Happy & Safe New Year. 

Thanks again for visiting

Scott

There are a lot of options out there for a “personal” website, I have tried several of them including a short lived albeit well intentioned effort to code one myself and a few CMS’s (Content Management Sites).  My previous attempts have been both Windows based and in the case of this site Unix/Linux based.  I have tinkered with ASP.NET and PHP, but I certainly do not claim to be proficient at either.  For my needs I am just looking for a site that I can share my experiences and stories with others, and not have to do a lot of technical work to make that possible.  With that in mind I have always tried to stick with something that has already been built for me, so that all I have to do is upload it and get it configured. 

This time around I figured I would give the whole blogging thing a try, if anything it will give me something to do instead of playing video games all the time.  At the present moment I have not really decided what the main focus of this blog will be, or if it will even have a main focus, but I am sure I will figure something out as it all starts to come together.  Right now I am still in the process of getting everything laid out the way that I think it should look, which of course takes a little bit of time.  So to get things moving I will most likely be documenting the process of how everything is going with the site setup.

If you have not already been there feel free to check out the About page to learn a little more about me.  It will certainly not be a tell-all type page, but it should certainly give you the reader enough information about me to know where I am coming from.

I hope you enjoy the content that you find in my blog, and I invite you to return as much as you like.  In order to be able to comment on the articles and posts that I make you will need to have an account on the blog, as long as I have done everything correctly you should simply be able to register for your own account.  I welcome your comments and will try my best to respond where needed.

Again Thanks for visiting and I hope you find something of interest.

Scott