Is this about me?

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Is this column in our local news paper about me? Am I supposed to do something? :-)

“(…) 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.

How to create image-heavy blog posts in WordPress Twenty Eleven

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In a train from Helsinki to Turku, on a WLAN connection that is slower than tar, trying to figure out what’s the most economical way to create an image-heavy blog post.

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)

Upgrade and design tweaks

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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’. Continue reading →

How to backup your WordPress content database and WordPress website files

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I need to learn how to make my own WordPress backups on a hosted server. So I’m trying to read up and figure it out. While digging through the WordPress Codex, it just feels as if every single answer I find raises at least two new questions.

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: Continue reading →

Extensor and ankle tendinitis combined?

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(Image: Creative Commons Attribution: Glen Bowman)

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.

Continue reading →

Learning to run WordPress “on the job”

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(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”.