Blog Updates and Changelog December 2014

Posted in Hosting, My Journey, Project Changelog(s), Webdesign, Coding & DTP

Alright after I’ve decided to bring back my blog from the dead (read here why) at the 7th of December 2014. I’ve largely focused on creating content. And with all other projects I’m involved in, haven’t had a lot of time to focus on the software and ‘infrastructure’ of it all.

Changelog / Updates

But a few changes are …

Design

changed title and tagline of the blog
removed all video content in sidebar
sidebar is now content focused
switched the default menu bars for a cool banner (hardcoded in source)
added a new menubar with the highlights of this blog

WebTech

of course upgraded to WP 4.1
replaced RSS opt-in with Google Feedburner instead of GetResponse (for the time being)
enabled (agressive) CloudFlare (CF) CDN caching to cope with load and decrease loading times
removed like buttons at the bottom of each posts to speed-up loadtimes and anonimity
embedded mydigitalrolodex.com onto this blog (instead of separate Google sheet)
embedded Empire Avenue ticker on both tell-a-few.com as my widget in blogsidebar

New Plugins

Added a bunch of new plugins (in alphabetical order):

CDNJS | the best CDN for jQuery libraries (better than Google as recommend by CF)
Header & Footer | to embed Addthis code and few other useful things
iThemes Security | just the best security plugin there is!
MailChimp| soon to replace Google FeedBurner
Q2W3 Fixed Widget | to have certain widgets always at the right
ScanCircle | to embed the Windows Free online scan in the bottom right area
Social Author Bio | depricated plugin (no longer supported) but still works great!
WordPress Pinger Optimizer | not sure if this is still accurately maintained.

Like to know what else I might be using? Checkout: MyDigitalRolodex.com

Removed / deactivated Plugins

To lower noise, I’ve removed (for the time being):

Ad Block Detector … no more banners, thus no need
MaxBannerAds … CTR was only 3% anyway
MaxBlogPress Subscribers Magnet … powerful! But not a lot of time to write compelling messages ATM
optincrusher … useful, but I wouldn’t opt-in myself either
WPimageBorders … just like clean / no borders for the time being