WordPress Theme Aggravation

[raymac46]

I have self hosted my personal blog for close to 9 years now, on a shared server from a Web host provider. You can look at it here if you are interested.

Self hosting means getting a domain name, installing WordPress software, and activating a WordPress theme. It helps if you know Linux because then you can understand how the server does its thing.

When I started out I used a generic WordPress theme, but I soon started looking for something cooler. I might add that my blog is strictly personal, to keep family and friends up to date. There is no brand building, advertising or product sales on my site.

You can buy a decent looking theme for about the cost of a Burger King meal so it's not a big expense to get a better one than WordPress generic. I started out with Bayse - minimalistic, one column, just a Blogroll.

After about 4 years, Bayse was not supported or sold any more. Not a good thing for security reasons. So I switched to Ganesa - a bit more sophisticated with two columns. Still pretty minimal but functional.

I just found out recently that Ganesa isn't supported any longer and I cannot update some necessary plug-ins for my site. So I was off on another quest for a theme.

I have settled on Nord - very minimal, one column again - quite similar to the original Bayse. Nord seems to be well documented and supported and it is compatible with the latest version of WordPress - always a good thing.

It's easy enough to do this when you have a simple personal blog - it's not like I am General Motors or IBM - but every time you do there's the aggravation of getting the blog site working 100%. That always takes a day or two.

I think if I were starting out today I'd just use Squarespace.

 

[V.T. Eric Layton]

I blog the easy way... using Wordpress.com's free site.

 

https://noctslackv2.wordpress.com/

 

I can choose from 100s of free themes. For my three blogs, though, I've pretty much settled on what I like and haven't tweaked any of the themes in years. I've gotten lazy (lazier) in my dotage, it seems.

 

Oh, and my "home page" is also a free Wordpress.com blog: https://vtel57.wordpress.com/

[raymac46]

Wordpress.com is a great way to go. I didn't know much about it when I started and chose Blogger instead. At the time you could use Blogger software and save the results to your own website. After Google bought Blogger you couldn't do this any longer and you had to save at blogspot.com. My blogposts got horribly mixed up and I lost some content.

Finally I decided to self host and I got the additional benefit of having a place to store and serve up my online picture collection. It also gives me another way to satisfy my inner geek.

I am sure your site themes would be well supported and secure.

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Yeah... I remember Blogger from pre-Google times. I almost started using it back then. If I remember correctly, Ron Schenone (an old member here) talked me into blogging on Chris Pirillo's old Lockergnome site. At the time that Lockergnome went the way of the Do-do, Pirillo let all the bloggers have a download of their previously published materials. My blog at Lockergnome was called Nocturnal Slacker. I still have the archive of that original provided by Pirillo on Wordpress.com, actually. WOW! I just looked at that archive... 13 years ago. Time flies. Anyway, I started Nocturnal Slacker v1.0 (techie stuff) and v2.0 (general topics) after Lockergnome was gone. I've never been an "active" blogger. NS v2.0 gets the occasional book review post. My poor Tuppence Times at Tumblr has been slumbering (coma, maybe) for years.

 

Hmm... where'd that 13 years go to?

[raymac46]

My original website was on GeoCities - remember that? A casualty of the dot-com crash. I learned a lot about HTML by building that site. Another skillset that doesn't apply anymore.

 

[V.T. Eric Layton]

HAHA! Yes, Myspace, GeoCiites... etc. I remember all those oldie-goldies; even "ICQ".

[raymac46]

I've been fooling around with the new theme and I think I have it set up in a satisfactory manner.

Edited August 23, 2023 by raymac46

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Basic, clean, uncluttered.... I like it.

[raymac46]

Hopefully I'll be OK for a while. There's always a tension with a paid theme of getting one rare enough that you aren't one of thousands using it but also has enough sales to keep the developer interested in maintaining it. My past themes were not big sellers but this one has about 500 sales over the years. It is also simple enough that it shouldn't be a pain to keep up with changes in WordPress. It also looks good on mobile devices.