ka1kjz

Welcome to the new and vastly improved ka1kjz website.  This was certainly a learning experience and I wanted to share how we got here.

Sometime when I wasn’t looking my webhost, Sitelutions, added a ton more features, mainly popular and open-source web services like GeekLog, Xoops, and of course WordPress.

I wasn’t very happy with the default themes from WordPress, and I didn’t want to plug in a freebie theme, I wanted complete control.  “But you have complete control” you may say, but reverse engineering someone else’s work, not completely familiar with the language, is very difficult.  The most I could hope for was tweaks, I wanted more.  I wanted everything!

So, I found an excellent tutorial on the web and set about following it faithfully.  I was able to write my own theme, however ugly, in one night.  But I found the change, upload, test, change, upload, test cycle very tedious.  The author had the answer, run a webserver and PHP locally and see your changes in real time!

So, armed with this information, I set about installing XAMPP for Windows by Apache Friends.   Apart from two minor problems with my particular installation (I had to stop my existing mySQL database, and tell Xampp it had a password) it ran without a hitch and I was locally creating the tutorial theme.  We will be seeing more of Xampp in these pages, as I plan to use on a private intranet, and at work.

I then found a nice looking page from Open Source Web Directory and set about applying my newfound knowledge on WordPress themes to it.  The result is what you see here.  Some tweaks are still necessary, but, its close enough to release.  Welcome to the new KA1KJZ blog and website.

Lastly, while reading the responses to “Installing WordPress Locally Under Windows XP” I discovered Webserver On a Stick, a method of running Apache, WordPress, PHP, et-al on a USB flash drive.  The only problem with installation, Microsoft IIS was installed on my work machine, and Windows assumed I wanted to run that the first time I surfed to localhost.  Removing IIS through Windows Control Panel solved that and I was able to build this current theme on the USB stick.

So the USB stick will go into my bag-o-tricks, to use as a demonstrator and a tool to alleviate boredom with my laptop.  In the coming days, I will tweak these pages more and add more content as I become inspired.

For now, enjoy, play around, and naturally, report any bugs to me.