www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsnA0ix9hZU

For those of you tuning in, I just recently moved this blog to tsotd.com. It was hosted on wordpress.com but wordpress.com restricts many many things. e.g. there are no Google Analytics, no cool custom built apps, you pay out the nose for certain plugins, and forget about installing most of the cool wordpress plugins out there. You are also severely limited on your themes and CSS customizations.

For those of you about to embark on your own port from wordpress.com to a hosted wordpress installation, I found these resources the most helpful, in addition to the documentation provided by my host provider, lunarpages.com:

A project plan for the migration from wordpress.com:
techiteasy.org: Migrating from WordPress.com to your own

A good read for anyone naive enough to think it will be easy and smooth:
attackr.com: Migrating from wordpress.com to wordpress.org or self-hosting

Handy tips for finding and replacing bits of text in all content:
This is especially handy for updating links. But back up your database first. You may need it!
lorelle.wordpress.com: Search and Replace in WordPress MySQL Database

Excellent reference for wordpress performance optimization:
http://storecrowd.com/blog/wordpress-optimisation/

You may have also noticed I now have some advertisements. Yes… I have sold out to "The Man". I don't really like it but thanks to my health care going up $700 to $1400 next year while my income is likely to drop and inflation carries on, I really need to increase my income any way I can. Adding a couple advertisements just seemed too easy even if I do feel dirty about it.

*hangs head*
*shrugs*
*cries a little bit*
*rocks in corner muttering "REDRUM… REDRUM"*
*cries a little more*
*picks self up off of floor*

In theory the advertisements will mostly be for music and that allows me to sleep at night. Advertisements should really only be for the Arts. Marketing tends to try to sell you things you don't actually need, and given you do not "need" art, including music, it only makes sense that if advertising should be allowed, then music is a valid use. (Yes, I am convincing myself it is "ok".)

On the plus side it was super easy to set up Google AdSense and it is essentially money for nothing on my part. I was going to post a song a day regardless of whether it made me 2 cents or not.

PS: Note that even after setting up Google AdSense, your chicks will not be free.

PPS: Finally! I have disabled the smart quotes (those curved quotation marks and apostrophes… yeah those annoying things)! Can't we all just agree that smart quotes have no real purpose other than looking pretty. I work in information technology and smart quotes mess up software and data all the time. I see smart quotes all over the place and I generally cringe because someone is going to copy and paste that text somewhere and something is going to break. If you see a smart quote on my blog anywhere, please let me know so I can squish it like a bug! Oh and the WordPress plugin you want to install to disable smart quotes is "wpuntexturize" at coffee2code.com. Thank you Scott Reilly. You are my hero.

PPPS: If you remember watching this video over and over on MTV, then you are part of the MTV generation, and I am with you! Oh my god! Look at those computer graphics! So cool man. So cool. Or so we all thought.

Song Recommendations

If you like this song, I also suggest:

• A-ha
• Genesis
• Talking Heads

I also suggest the music genre:

• Rock and Roll

Click here for more info on Dire Straits – Brothers in Arms – "Money for Nothing".

The MP3 may be purchased here…

Dire Straits - Brothers in Arms