The Construct

Just last week, I decided to click on that link on my WordPress dashboard that tells me there’s a new version out and I can upgrade it if I want to.

Upgrading WordPress has been seamless ever since they integrated that auto-updater function so I just decided to click it and upgrade my installation to WP 2.9.

After a few days, I realized that I was not receiving any of the automated backups that I configured to be sent to my e-mail everyday.

First, I thought it was a conflict with one of the plug-ins. Noticed that my XML-Sitemap plug-in was in perpertual re-build mode. Rebuilt my sitemap and still the cron job wasn’t working. Then I eventually reverted to the modern day Ernie Baron – Google – for some answers. Found out it was really a bug with 2.9 among others.

Here’s how to fix them.

I really don’t schedule posts but if you happen to use the scheduler, and running on 2.9, you better apply the bug fix or your post won’t get posted as they should.

I hear 2.9.1′s already in beta so I think we can all expect that upgrade to come out.

I’ve been working on this blog for the past few days and I got to browse some blog posts from three or so years ago when I blogged using Filipino (or Taglish). Just check this sort-of fictional piece I wrote from my days of being a corporate monkey. Those were the days. When I can still write with hot-knife-through-butter ease in my native tongue.

Makes me want to shift all of a sudden…

Talagang nakapangungulila din naman kung bakit laging Inggles na lang ang gamit kong wika upang magsulat sa aking blog. Hindi naman pawang mga banyaga lamang ang mambabasa nitong blog ko na ito. Karamihan pa rin naman ng mga bumibisita dito ay mga mga kaibgan at mga dating kamag-aral na makiintindi ng aking pagsusulat.

Piff. Maybe that sounded like I was trying too hard. Amazingly, I didn’t struggle but I’m sure folks from the Filipino department would frown at that bit. Just like riding a bike, I guess. Rusty but you never unlearn it. Maybe I should try it out again one of these days when I finally step into that mood.

This blog has over five hundred posts already – a collection of my more than five years in the blogosphere. I’ve grown quite content with its low-profile as it’s not really my intention to publicize nor monetize this.

Ever since I applied the premium WPUnlimited theme, however, my blog suddenly got some pretty good traffic from search engines mostly because of the out of the box search engine optimization that it provided.

I never really minded that until I swapped out the theme to Compositio. I like the design way better than WPUnlimited. Even though WPUnlimited is customizable, I just don’t have enough talent to make it look this awesome. Because of the swap, I lost all SEO functionalities and to what horror. My blog traffic from search engines has been quartered!

Just as an experiment, I toyed with SEO on this blog. Since Composition doesn’t have WPUnlimited’s superb SEO, I opted to slap on SEO Title Tag and Platinum SEO plug-ins. Combined, they pretty much cover the functionalities I needed.

I just finished customizing titles and slugs of various posts. I know I’m sacrificing the already-indexed pages by changing these details but what the heck. Let’s see how this changes things.

For the longest time, this blog has gone for that minimalist look. Even with the all-powerful WPUnlimited theme, I managed to strip it down to a plain white structure with orange accents. Maybe it’s about time I try to add a bit of dynamism in this blog’s spartan feel.

There are quite a lot of stunning themes out there but I’d say that this is the first time when a blog theme’s looks convinced me to switch themes. This lovely blue and white theme is called Compositio crafted by none other than blog design savant, Design Disease.

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It’s so easy to make judgments when your in the outside looking in. Going by Bentham’s Panopticon, positioning oneself in a location where you can view people inside a confined space without them seeing you gives you a sense of omniscience. There is sense in stepping back and trying to look not only at the bigger picture but also from different perspectives and through different lenses.

However, it’s really quite hard to be objective and shift points of view when things are rather personal. Emotion and attachment does affect objectivity. But then again, who’s capable of objectivity anyway? Heck. Not even the half-Vulcan Spock was able to maintain his stoicism.

Just wondering how cautious are we when we express our opinions? Do we bask in the same omniscience (and perhaps, omnipotence) when we get to see issues and phenomena in which we really don’t have any personal stakes? And if we don’t, do we even consider the possible impact of what we express to those who do have stakes?

At least in my case, I find myself struggling to tread by both intellectual and moral high grounds.

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