If you look at my archives, you can see that I just recently started blogging (and reading blogs). So I missed this post on Acetylene.net. Zeno’s comment mentions listening to podcasts with an I-pod Shuffle. I’ve tried this before, and it didn’t work very well, for the following reasons:
- With the Shuffle, you can’t “bookmark” a podcast. If you’re only listening to a 5-minute podcast, that’s not a big deal. But I was trying to listen to (for example) The O’Franken Factor, which is several hours long. I usually don’t have a chance to listen to the whole show at one sitting, and hitting “Pause” (and not using my I-pod for several hours) isn’t always an option.
- There’s no way to make notes on a podcast with the Shuffle. I’m listening to podcasts, and hearing cool stuff that I would like to be able to re-visit and/or blog. Unless you hit your stopwatch when you start listening to a podcast, and have pencil and paper handy, there’s no way to make notes on what you’re listening to.
- And finally, Zeno’s complaint: there’s no way to change ratings on the Shuffle.
Don’t misunderstand me–I love my Shuffle! It’s great for listening to tunes on the bike trail, or working in the yard, etc. But for non-fluff podcasts, Zeno had the right idea: do yourself a favor and spring for a higher-end I-pod.
Just thinking about what still needs to be done to get tags support in my other themes…
Steam will need to have 4 files modified:
- archive.php
- index.php
- sidebar.php
- and single.php
I’ve already modified at least one of these files for other reasons, but I have saved original copies of all the files that have been/need to be modified.
I need to clean up my earlier work on Borderline Chaos, and then add tags support to it. I’ve got the original theme files in another directory, still need to see which files I’ve already changed. Files to be modified for tags support:
- 404.php
- archives.php
- index.php
- links.php
- search.php
- sidebar.php
- single.php
Sigh…
Elvgren looks like only index.php needs to be modified. I don’t remember if I have already modified this theme, so I’ll need to download a fresh copy.
Journalized-Blue and Sharepoint Like are already finished. The WordPress Default and the pirate theme (”Yaaarr, ’tis me blog!”) will probably remain tag-less, and may even be deprecated. The WordPress Classic theme will certainly be removed.
I added a 404 page to Mike Little’s journalized theme. It’s nothing fancy, just ripped the content area out of index.php and put some semi-helpful text in its place. This page should work for all of the Journalized themes, and should be site-independent.
The WordPress Codex has an excellent article on 404 pages, including instructions for making your 404 page show up instead of the browser’s default (useless) information. It’s al got suggestions for 404 page content and links to other helpful sites.
Instructions: right-click on this link and save it to a local file. Add any custom text or links as appropriate for your site. Then upload it to your Journalized theme directory, e.g. wordpress/wp-content/themes/journalized-blue.
Enjoy!
