Things are finally getting to a point of slowdown…somewhat anyway. Still very busy at work and at my personal business, but finally getting unburied to the point that I actually had time to write this. I do miss it, and there have been so many things happen and change. So many new blog start-ups, a lot of people struggling like me to find the time or post as often. I’ve done my best to still read here and there but I’ve really in the end have had to just read a few of the *favorites*.

So how do you unthaw a dormant blog, especially one this dormant? I’m not really sure to be honest. Hopefully I still have some of my good readers here and there.

Things to say or things I have not commented on yet:
No more Nice4Rice!!! Yeah, I know, its really old news by now, but I have not been blogging. That is definitely a blog I miss. I definitely understand Spud’s reasonings, but that type of article writing and his absolutely great reviews, I will sorely miss.

I do still plan on creating more PHP Hero cards. I am still a very active PHP programmer, although I have not been able to touch the notes in forever. I mentioned the next upcoming card being one to honor Ed, but then to go without creating one, what kind of a** am I? Just a busy one, I apologize. That will still be the very next card I create, and then, after that, you will see the very first PHP Hero card for a lucky lady…I can say no more…

I still struggle with keeping a blog that is a WordPress blog. It really makes no sense for a php developer to do so, I guess in the end it is just a convenience factor. A matter of convenience in regards to making it easy to post as well as just my pure laziness of not wanting to migrate to something else. Perhaps if I had more time I would look into the other options out there. WordPress really has the ability to be something so much greater, I really wish they would take in all the advice and ideas in a non-hostile manner. I definitely understand why WordPress is number 1 - I just wish the responsibility they have as being the most popular would lead them towards some very needed improvements.

My family is doing quite well. I have the greatest times with my Wife and kids. Really, every free minute has been going towards spending time with them. And it has definitely been the most valued moments in my life.

I hope all of you out there are doing great and if you are reading this, thank you very much for hanging out there, keeping subscribed, or just stopping by. I appreciate all of you probably more than you know.

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So, first off, a big sorry to the masses that read this blog. Especially you 118,207 readers out there that have figured out a way to subscribe without it being tracked by feedburner and somehow bypass google analytics when you visit, but I still know you are out there. I have taken a great deal of time off from blogging so I can devote every free moment I have with my family and its new addition. Things are great at home and just catching up on everything at work after my leaves and such.

So, turns out, I’m a nice guy, after all, Polli of Polliwog’s Pond seems to think so. She even gave me a fancy shmancy “Nice Matters” award. You can read about it here: Crash … Aaa-ah!. So some link-love back to you in return - Thank You Polli for the award and the mention on your blog!

Back Story:
Polli contacted my via my contact page asking for some PHP help. Her needs were very minor that I would feel guilty charging her for any of the help I offered. However, I did agree to a price first, and just ended up not charging her in the end. That way, it gives her “fun money”. You know, that money that was budgeted for something else, so you don’t really expect to be able to use it, but then you get to use it on whatever you want. Polli is a mom of 6, so I told her to take that money and go have a fun day with her kids instead. I hope she took that chance after such a hard time recovering her wiped computer. I’m anxious to see if the edits I helped her with work out and see them in action on her site.

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Natron tagged me in his 8 facts post. Thank you very much Natron for tagging me! On a side note, I really enjoyed the Dragdown tracks. I hope Dragdown’s July 7th show rocks! Get in contact with Natron for more info about his band…

So lets dive into my little world and find out some more about me…

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So we all know that Wordpress had a recent update that was also required to fix some security issues. One of the issues that caught my eye was the fact that the default theme had a security vulnerability. After reading that I decided that although I did update Wordpress and the problem default theme files, I wanted to get off a theme that potentially could have other security issues if they are just now catching this one. My theme was not strictly the “default” theme, I had done a few appearance changes here and there that made it my own, however, all that back-end code was still the default theme.

So, me still never having any time to design my own theme, I decided to work with a theme of a designer that I have a lot of respect for. I decided to work with the GlossyBlue theme designed by Nick La, located on his N.Design Studio website. It gave me a great “template” to start off of to make it my own. He has such a great set of icons (small gifs) within his themes that just make your page look great.

Making it My Own:

So as you can see by that example picture above, the left side is what this theme looks like by default and after all the image and css changes, what I have made it look like. All and all it was about 45 minutes worth of work to “Reformat” it to my liking. For such a drastic color change there were quite a lot of image adjustments and edits that I had to perform as well as quite a bit of standard css edits. Really not a big deal though. Even though it was already a great design to start from, I do like it much better now! One of the things I just had to do right away was clean up that HUGE HEADER!

So after all the image and css edits, I plugged in all the plugin coding where needed for all the plugins I use. Bob’s Simplistic Navigation suited this theme quite well since there were no single navigation page links coded into it. So always remember, if there is a theme that you come across that you really like but aspects of it do not fit you, well if you know some basic coding you can really dig in and “make it yours” like I have done here.

If you have not already been to Nick’s N.Design Studio website, you are really missing out. This guy is an amazing graphic artist and to top it all off, takes the time to show you some things you can do. Check out his tutorials that he offers and browse other parts of his site. With his more recent iTheme Wordpress Theme becoming so popular (you can see it on Saman’s site), he had troubles keeping his site up after all the Diggs.

So you tell me, what do you think about the new ReformatThis look…thumbs up?…thumbs down?…comments?…compliments?…original better?…free money? I will take either or all…

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I requested my plugin to be added to the Wordpress Repository back in April when I created it. I heard back yesterday that this request was approved. Upon hearing that, I decided to upload my plugin to the official repository and now “Bob’s Simplistic Navigation” is available straight out of Wordpress Repository! I am hoping that this will very likely up its exposure and usage. Its so great that such a simple plugin can be so useful to many people.

Or you can go view the Wordpress pages for it by clicking this image below. So go on and check out the Wordpress plugin page, if you look real hard, you may notice I mentioned a few people in the plugin documentation:

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