What's Going On With AVC?
As Jason Wright said in the comments to yesterday’s post:
This blog is rendering like it’s 1998 in Safari and Chrome at the moment.
The theme that renders AVC in WordPress got messed up somehow and we are having a hard time getting it back to normal.
I am planning on relaunching AVC with a entirely new theme and design in the New Year and so I’m not particularly motivated to address this issue right now.
I’m open to feedback on why I should or should not bother, but my feeling is we can live with this bare bones design for the next ten days.
Comments (Archived):
I actually think the spartan design is refreshing.
Indifferent to comfort or luxury. Me too, but i am uncomfortable with the idea that we are building a world on top of technology that we can have a hard time understanding when it does things that we might not have intended and find the results of which less than desirable. Are we in control? Personal human agency (and also as a species) requires us to have a measure of control over our lives. Once we lose it (climate change?) what then are we?
as a matter of fact, there’s a correlation between the downward spiral of world civilization and the move from the web beyond simple text.let’s keep it and see if it helps turn the tide.
The more successful you are, the less you need care. http://berkshirehathaway.com
^this
.It’s always something compatibility based.Clear all caches, including any CDN.Save site to remote site.Wholesale disable all plug-ins, widgets.See if that solves problem.Re-load plug-ins, widgets one-by-one to find the bad apple. Update each one as you go. Sometimes the latest version of one of these is the problem. If it is, re-load the older version.If that doesn’t work, update version of WP. If already current, may have to go backwards.Check to see if theme is compatible with new WP version, if so reload updated theme. If not compatible, use prior theme version. I am betting this is the problem.Then, re-load updated versions of plug-ins, widgets one-by-one — updated version, checking site each time. When you find the rotter, re-load the prior version.I have had this problem every time there is a WP or theme update. This has worked to fix it every time.Once done on the saved site, swap it or redo it on the live site.Good luck. Happy New Year all.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…
THIS is exactly why WordPress is a nightmare. Currently, it’s the most unwieldy platform available and causes many costly problems, especially for businesses with more complex implementations. For a blog, it’s pretty straightforward but for other applications, it’s not worth the maintenance costs for many businesses.
I thought you would have said the opposite- for a simple blog, wordpress is overkill and other competing platforms do a good job and are simpler to setup, but for more complex content sites, that’s where WordPress shines despite being peculiar sometimes throughout upgrades and compatibilities.
The long-term maintenance costs for WP are ridiculously high. The initial cost to setup is low which is why so many sites are on WP, but many companies find out really fast that the long term costs quickly outweigh the short term implementation costs. What I tell my clients is: “You can pay more now (for a better system like Drupal) or you can pay a lot more later (for a flaky, breaky system like WP).” I get a lot of clients who seek me out after horrific experiences with WP.
I’d like to move my blog to a non-Wordpress option: http://startupmanagement.or… Key criteria is a smooth migration process, ease of set-up + quick posting.What do you recommend? [[email protected]]
There really is no such thing as a “smooth migration.”I just took a look at your site. If I were the consultant bidding on your site, I’d get your price point first then have an initial strategy consultation (if your price point was high enough). Creating a strategy first is what dictates the form of your website (and all other marketing assets and activities). Often the strategy session completely dismantles what you think you need. The strategy session starts with defining short and long term goals. Then the marketing plan is built around that. Once there is a marketing plan in place, then a website structure plan is created — which is often much different than the structure in the current website. Then the most suitable platform is selected, based on the structure and on long term goals.
It sounds complicated 🙂 I’m just running a simple blog, not unlike AVC or Feld.com. But thank you for your thoughts.
Agreed…I find wix and squarespace easier to work with but I realize, migration is not easy.
Have you tried Duda? It’s got a lot more flexibility than Wix or SquareSpace – https://www.duda.co/
WordPress comes in two forms. WordPress.com, which they host, is like falling off a log. Self-hosted WordPress.org can be endlessly complex, depending on the number of plugins added. For fun, look at View Source on one of those sites.
If he’s on the same host and didn’t see my warning (probably not) that the host is part of a scam to “infect” websites – and then upsell a 3rd party product called SiteLock for $xxx+ initial fee + an annual fee to keep the shakedown at bay – is the host he was on, probably still is on; he’s with Bluehost I believe – acquired by Endurance International Group (EIG).Here’s a list of many of the hosts acquired by EIG to then extort their customers:https://researchasahobby.co…Search “sitelock scam” and “endurance international group scam” and variations that include “review” etc and you’ll dig up thousands of negative testimonials of people outlining this same experience.
Selecting your host is a key issue. Same for your domain registrar.
If I remember correctly, the last time this happened you had either a blank line after a closing ?> or the ?> was missing.I do like simpler designs, so I agree with existing comments there.
Suggest you leave it like this for the next ten days. Then decide what you would like to do after that, its your blog.
I look forward to reading your blog daily. I read it because I can count on it to introduce a new idea or make me look at something from a new angle. As long as the design allows me to access and search your content, I’m a happy and appreciative reader. Thank you for all the work you put into this blog. I really appreciate it.
You need something like the “fail whale” image!!
‘Dead head’.
Oh, it’s not me, it’s you ;-pI don’t care at all, especially for 10 days. Your posts I don’t comment on I only see though my rssreader’s heayy reformatting anyway.
Keep it as is until your new site is live. Not worth the investment to fix it now.
AVC Retro before AVC 2020. Looking back, as we look forward.
This is fully responsive btw. haha!
I think yesterday’s video is causing it (sorry, I couldn’t resist, for obvious reasons).
🙂 I was tempted to say that. (I did remove the videos from a local copy and that didn’t fix it.)
‘Gone Skiing. Sue me.’
I fired up my my old Thinkpad to embrace the full visual effect!
Just leave it as is. It’s old school/retro. No one comes to your site for the design ;-). They come for the content. I’d rather you spend your time on writing posts and doing what you do then worrying about site design.But we do need a way to search…
I love it. Makes me feel that we’re back in the late 90s.But, would it hurt to add maybe a cheesy marquee banner element scrolling across the screen 🙂
yeessssss. A vibrant marquee! I almost forgot about those.
Switch to a self hosted Ghost option with a minimal theme while you’re at it 😉
I like the throwback design temporarily… Also, I haven’t commented on a whole and it seems my disqus account was hacked??
For those like me who consume via email, it makes no difference.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication – Leonardo Da Vinci
Your blog actually motivated me to get back to blogging. I just refreshed mine to something dead simple (not as simple as your epic throwback!). But thanks. I plan to blog every day in 2020. Hell of a challenge, but cathartic, right? Thanks! https://joshbenson.com
I thought it was supposed to emulate upgrading to a new iOS version
Talking Heads “Once in a Lifetime” speaks to the pointlessness of not being happy with what we have. This community, this blog, this very special place of thinkers, makers, students, teachers, mentors, protégées, participants and observers is what is here. An incredible foundation and architecture that provides an “Alexandria” access to knowledge and inspiration. Much else is paint. And every so often a new coat is needed. Like Byrne, Eno and company waxed poetically…Same as it ever was. Thanks for the past decades,all. Happy New Year everyone.
Very refreshing. Just 2 adjustments:- Sans serif instead of Times Roman- Limit the line width, narrower columns are easier to read on today’s huge screens.In short: Paul Graham style: http://www.paulgraham.com/m…
while we’re on this subject, what happened to the old archived posts comments? it seems now that the posts are locked it doesn’t show any of the comments (which a lot of times where where interesting discussion was happening..)
Feels like Craigslist….I want my money back…..
as a heads up in case you were not aware, you may see a decline in traffic from search due to the broken theme. (title and meta tags are gone, html is invalid)