Before the update, IE users viewing a blog with the Add to Any plugin as well as AdSense would see a blank spot instead of the ad.  FireFox users were unaffected.

However once the updated version of Add to Any is installed, all is well with the world.  AdSense ads are visible once again.

Well, have I got the perfect small gift idea for you!

It’s a book—inexpensive, easy to wrap, is never the wrong size, won’t break, won’t spoil, and can be used over and over.

THE TITLE:  The Amazing Adventures of Working Girl: Real-Life Career Advice You Can Actually Use

WHY IT’S GREAT:  Funny job stories, fantastic job advice, fast and easy to read.  (Plus: I am quoted in it.  Really!   I contributed one of the 28 Job Survival Tips.)

WHERE TO GET IT:  At any bookstore but please note it’s only ten bucks on Amazon.

Dare I mention that this book is also ideal for all your employed girlfriends and relatives?  In fact, Marie Claire magazine just selected it as one of their “Gifts for the Working Girl”-  And, natch, it’s most appropriate for anyone who’s looking for a job, or unhappy with her job.

It’s funny, wise, entertaining, and practical, with a good message for everyone.  Honestly, it would be a great book even I weren’t in it.

I love it so much that I’ve used it as the basis for about half a dozen customer sites.  I can easily turn this already-fabulous theme into a custom theme.  That’s what I was doing last Thursday when I discovered a problem with Jillij and WordPress 2.8.5.

I wanted to use the text widget to add some information to the sidebar of my customer’s site.  But instead of this:

I saw a text widget with no entry fields.  There was a message that said, “There are no options for this widget”.  I was too stunned to take a screen shot.  A text widget that won’t accept text is utterly useless.

To verify that the problem was an incompatibility with the theme, I changed to another theme.  The text widget worked fine.  I entered text, saved it and switched back to Jillij.  While the text in the widget was visible when I viewed the site, I couldn’t edit it.  The text widget was back to the “there are no options” business.

After playing around with things, I was able to make the text widget operable by editing a file in the theme.

What This Means for My Customers

I recommend that I do the next WordPress upgrade for you.  I’ll simultaneously put in the Jillij text widget fix. The system will be backed up and you’ll have editable text widgets.  It will be lovely and it will only take half an hour to do.

The Work Around

For those of you dealing with this issue, I did find a fix.  However it’s one that only people used to working with PHP should attempt.  I edited the functions.php file that came with the Jillij theme.   I removed all the code relating to “function widget_text_jillij”.

A word of caution, remember to keep a backup of the original functions.php file.  I’m not sure that this will work for every installation. You should be able to revert back in case there are unintended consequences because of this fix.

I’ve also written the theme author and asked for assistance.  I’ll do another post if I hear anything.

Here’s an example of what it does.  Last month I wrote a post that compared bread flour and all purpose flour.  (Trust me.  This is huge in the bread baking world.)  Take a look a the lovely URL generated by WordPress:
http://www.breadmachinediva.com/2009/09/bread-flour-versus-all-purpose-flour/

Do you see all the words in the URL?  Search engines love that.  They’ll key in on those terms and it will help my page do well in the rankings for this term.

But what if I want to change the URL?  Maybe I want to add the word “gluten.”  (That’s the big difference between the two types of flour.  It’s all about gluten.)  To change the URL after the post has been saved, just click on the “Edit” button below the post title.

Then you’ll be able to tweak the URL of your post.  Be sure to use dashes in between your words.

The reason for this substandard performance is, believe it or not, lack of exercise.  Laptop batteries like to be used.  When I first got my laptop, I let it sit for a number of months.  When I finally switched to my laptop, I didn’t use the battery. I plugged it into the wall outlet.   Sure the battery was fully charged, but it never had to pull its weight.  It just sat around all day.  By the time I needed to take the poor thing out and about, the battery was shot.

Now I use my laptop every day.  I also have a note on my to-do list to unplug the laptop every Monday.  I unplug it.  Go about my business.  After a blissfully normal two hours, the battery is almost drained and I plug it back in.

So  remember to exercise your laptop battery.  If that exercise needs to take place at a Starbucks while you enjoy a peppermint mocha, then so be it.  You’re just doing your laptop a favor!

I bought the book that you wrote with Skip McGrath about how to make money blogging and it is GREAT! I now have my own blog and I was hoping you could answer a question for me. (I have been using your blog for reference and it is very good even if I don’t have a bread maker!)

How do you get the “subscribe by email” widget/thingy that you have at the top of your page?? I have the RSS feed thingy but I don’t know how to get the subscribe by email one. if you can help, THANKS!

In the book I co-authored on working with WordPress, I use my Bread Machine Diva blog as an example.  (Yes, I’m a website developer who bakes her own bread.)  As you can see by the following image, I’ve got some swanky icons in the top of Bread Machine Diva.

The one that caught my reader’s attention is the subscribe to the blog via email. The icon itself came with the Atahualpa Theme that I use for the site.  The ability to send out blog posts via email comes from FeedBurner.  Just sign up for an account with them.  In the “Publicize” tab of the FeedBurner  page you’ll see the area that allows you to sign up to send out posts via email.

Right now there is a worm making its way around old, unpatched versions of WordPress. This particular worm, like many before it, is clever: it registers a user, uses a security bug (fixed earlier in the year) to allow evaluated code to be executed through the permalink structure, makes itself an admin, then uses JavaScript to hide itself when you look at users page, attempts to clean up after itself, then goes quiet so you never notice while it inserts hidden spam and malware into your old posts.

Until recently I was hopeful that my worry was unfounded.

One of my customers called me last Friday.  She reported that business email disappeared from her account.  Hosting.com couldn’t offer any explanation as to what happened.  They also didn’t seem concerned about it.  That’s not what I expect from a hosting company.

Glitches do happen.  Not all technical support people have great people skills.  So maybe this was just one of those things, but maybe not.  If you’re one of my customers and you’re having problems with the new Hosting.com, please let me know.  If their service level is declining, I can move you to another website host.

However last week I called technical support and I was put on hold for fifteen minutes. Fifteen long and painful minutes!

I was steaming when the support person finally answered the phone. What happened to maintaining the same level of service? What happened to no waiting on hold? Just what did he have to say for himself? (As you can see, waiting on hold makes me cranky.)

He said that I’d dialed the wrong number.It seems that there are two technical support teams. One is for the former Hosting.com customers and the other is for new customers as well as former HostMySite customers. If I would have dialed the other number, the correct number for my situation,  I wouldn’t have had to wait. He also said that while there aren’t as many people in his group that they can do everything the other group can do. Within a few minutes he’d taken care of my problem.

All in all, I’m pleased with the way the acquisition is progressing. I just need to be careful of dialing the right number on their contact page. I may also want to try deep, calming breaths the next time I’m on hold.