I haven’t taught any classes that cover WordPress installation, either.

Why would I leave out something so obviously needed?

Well, partly (only partly!) because you can pay me $99 for a basic WordPress installation package (quick note: That $99 price isn’t changing, but the prices for the Bonus and Bonanza packages are going up quite a bit next week, and if you were on my Invitation List you’d already know that).

One of the other big reasons I haven’t covered how to install WordPress is that most good web hosting companies have installer scripts — they’re usually called things like “one-click install,” “quick WP install,” or something similar. And these installers can vary quite a bit from host to host.

So if someone asked me to teach them to install WordPress, I’d just tell them “go ask your web host for information on their WP installer script.”

Until now.

See, two things happened that made me realize that I needed to write at least one decent WordPress-installation tutorial.

Stuck in the middle

The first thing was that Pamela Wilson and I created a free e-course called Love Your Website to explain how to set up a domain name and a web hosting account, and at the same time we released a paid product called Site Setup Kit to teach people how to use WordPress to create and maintain a unique website.

I’ve been tremendously gratified at how well both offerings have been received. People around the world have told us that the e-course explains technical terms for Regular People, and our Site Setup Kit owners have already gotten to work creating beautiful sites.

But we had left a gap between the two! Love Your Website walks you through getting a domain and a web host and leaves off right before WordPress installation, and Site Setup Kit starts out assuming that you’ve installed WordPress and are ready to learn how to use it.

So I shouldn’t have been at all surprised to find that our readers were asking us how, exactly, to install WordPress.

It’s as if we handed out toolboxes that were each missing a hammer. D’oh.

You deserve better

The second thing was that I struck out in search of a friendly WP installation tutorial on the Knowledge Base of a large and fairly decent web host. I found a video tutorial for using their quick-install script, and I’m sorry to say that it was just terrible. It was full of jargon, not very explain-y, and assumed a higher level of tech knowledge than “beginner.”

There was no way I could send my Site Setup Kit owners a link to that tutorial! I knew I could do better. And I also knew that you deserve better than a confusing jargon-y guide.

If you ask for a hammer, you want a hammer, not a 328-piece ratchet-and-screwdriver set that requires an engineering degree to decipher.

So I wrote not one, but two tutorials explaining how to install WordPress, on two different web hosting systems. They don’t have video, but each step is illustrated. Here you go:

1. Installing WordPress on a DreamHost web hosting account is specific to my very favorite web host, which I use myself for all my websites. They created their own one-click installer (which actually takes more than one click but is still pretty easy to use).
2. Installing WordPress on any web hosting account that uses cPanel will work for quite a few decent web hosts, since cPanel is the industry standard in web-hosting control panel software.

If you haven’t been inside your WordPress dashboard for awhile, you may be confronted with multiple update notices when you log in. You probably have a handful of plugins that need updating, and perhaps your theme has come out with a new version (yep, that’s an affiliate link, since I use and recommend that theme), and WordPress itself might need updating.

WordPress is famous for its easy one-click updates, so even if all three of these things need attention, you can probably do them pretty quickly, probably within minutes.

So which part should you update first? The plugins, WordPress software, or your theme? What’s the first step?

Backup backup backup

The best answer is actually “none of the above.”

Before you update, especially if you have multiple updates, you should back up your site.

The backup step is so important, it should come before the first step. It’s the zeroth step (hat tip to Asimov’s Laws of Robotics here).

Which means that backing up needs to be easy and quick. So easy and quick that you can do it in one or two clicks and know you have the ability to restore your site just as easily. “Drat, I have to make a backup first” should not be a barrier to updating.

BackupBuddy to the rescue

My favorite backup method is a premium WordPress plugin called BackupBuddy. It’s not free, but the support forum and documentation are extensive and helpful, and I now use this plugin for all my own sites, all my new client sites, and all my Website Tune-Up and Peace of Mind Program clients.

I’ve used it to migrate (move) WordPress sites from one host to another, and from testing sites to launch. Once it’s installed, it really is one-click easy to run a backup (zero clicks if you set up automatic scheduling, which I highly recommend).

The makers of BackupBuddy have created a free 28-page PDF guide to using the plugin, available for download without even giving them your email address. Take a look if you’re thinking of buying the plugin, then if you do decide to purchase, use the special promo code RESCUE30 to save 30% during the month of March 2012 only.

What about that update order?

Once you’ve got your backups created and safely stored in case you need to roll back your site, you are cleared for updating. If you need to update multiple parts of your site, think about it in order from large to small.

When you update multiple pieces of your site, be sure to do it in this order:

1. WordPress (the biggest most important piece, because it runs your whole site)
2. Your theme (gives your entire site its look and feel)
3. Plugins (smaller pieces that affect particular site functions)

If you update a plugin before update WordPress, and that plugin requires a later version of WordPress, you could end up breaking your site (or at the very least, losing the plugin’s functionality). Same with themes.

I’ve seen both things happen, and fortunately with BackupBuddy and FTP access, I’ve been able to fix things up pretty quickly, but it’s easier to just avoid breaking them in the first place.

So make a backup first, and stick to a safe update order. And may you never need your backups!

I thought that post was completely non-business related. Hahaha.

Because it turns out that pancakes are a nice metaphor for websites. And I didn’t even realize that until a blog reader pointed it out to me.

Four ways to get yourself some pancakes

Let’s say you have a craving for pancakes. Haven’t we all, at one time or another? There are multiple ways to satisfy this craving, each with its pros and cons. Here, I’ll list a few:

Pancake acquisition method 1: Hire a personal chef

Pros: You will likely get pancakes that are Very Very Good, if not Divinely Perfect. You can describe how you want your pancakes to taste and look, as well as any special requirements you have (organic, gluten-free, whole-grain, special fruit compote on top, etc.) and the chef takes care of all the ingredients and labor. All you have to do is eat!

Cons: Your pancakes will likely be Very Very Expensive. You’ll also have to wait a long time to satisfy your craving, because you have to interview and hire your chef, and you may even have to install special kitchen equipment (did I mention expensive?). If you want to change the recipe, you’ll need to consult with the chef, which takes time and more expense.

Method 1 is like hiring a company to create a unique website for you. If you can afford the time and the expense (including the ongoing expense of having that company on call for changes and updates), you will get a unique and quality result, but chances are that description doesn’t fit you if you’re reading this DIY-focused blog.

Pancake acquisition method 2: Go out to eat

Pros: At a restaurant, you don’t have to do any of the prep, cooking, or cleanup. Just sit back and wait for delicious pancakes to be brought to your table. Far less expensive than Method 1, and quicker, too. Lots of restaurants are out there, so you have lots of choices.

Cons: First you have to get to the restaurant, which takes time and costs money. Restaurant food is usually much more expensive than home-cooked meals because you’re paying for the cooks, dishwashers, waitstaff, etc. Once you choose a restaurant, you’re limited to what’s on the menu, and even the most detailed menus don’t list every single ingredient, so you might end up eating too much sugar or something else you don’t want.

Method 2 is like hiring someone to build a site for you using templates or packages. My WordPress installation packages, for instance, are a bit like items on a restaurant menu — some substitution allowed, but very different from, and much less expensive than, full custom design. Also more expensive than DIY.

Pancake acquisition method 3: Buy a mix

Pros: Very inexpensive, and usually very easy — some mixes are just-add-water. With a mix, you can have pancakes anytime you want, at a moment’s notice.

Cons: You have no control over the ingredients, because they’re already prepackaged into the mix. And that means you have very little control over the flavor as well.

Method 3 is like setting up a blog on Blogger or WordPress.com. It’s cheap (or free), simple, and doesn’t take much time or effort to get started. But your website address, design, and even content are at the mercy of their rules and terms of service, which is not trivial if you want to use your website for business.

Pancake acquisition method 4: Find a recipe and learn to make it work for you

Pros: You have total control over the ingredients and cooking methods, and with practice, making from-scratch pancakes can be just as quick and easy as making them from a mix. You can be proud of cooking pancakes yourself, making conscious choices about all your ingredients, and meeting all your dietary requirements and desires.

Cons: You do have to put some effort into trying recipes, learning what different ingredients do to the final result, and of course you have to spend time doing the actual cooking. A failed batch (or even an okay-tasting batch that wasn’t everything you hoped for) can be frustrating.

Method 4 is like taking your website-building into your own hands. That may sound daunting, but the truth is that it’s never been so easy, or so affordable, to do it yourself. In fact, I have a tool that makes the whole process much easier: A complete guide to building your own website, called Site Setup Kit.

Site Setup Kit is much more than a prefab mix. It’s more like…a grocery bag filled with all the ingredients you’ll need (including some kitchen gadgets), plus multiple illustrated step-by-step recipes for the different types of pancakes you could create with those ingredients.

check out Site Setup Kit now

If you follow the tutorials, you will end up with a unique website. But more importantly, you will end up with the knowledge and skills to manage and tweak that website by yourself.

I partnered with Pamela Wilson of BigBrandSystem.com on this kit, which means that in addition to my tech-to-English translation and tips, the kit includes design advice and tutorials that will save you thousands of dollars while giving you the means to create a completely unique website.

So if this kit looks like what you’ve been waiting for, please check out Site Setup Kit now. We back this product with a cheerful, unconditional, 100% money-back guarantee for 30 days after your purchase, so there’s no risk to you.

check out Site Setup Kit now

Globally Recognized Avatar = Gravatar. Get it?

This post was sparked by a question I received from a client who is working his way through Site Setup Kit, my complete guide to building a unique website. Check out Site Setup Kit today.

Have you ever wondered why some blog comments show up with pictures of their authors, while others have generic “mystery mannequin” icons or geometric shapes?

If you’d like a picture of your choosing to show up when you comment on a blog, you need a Gravatar.

Gravatar, which sounds like a Soviet-era science-fiction robot but is really short for Globally Recognized Avatar, is a free service provided by the same people who created WordPress.

In fact, if you have a WordPress.com account for any reason (such as using the Akismet spam-protection plugin), that same username and password will log you into Gravatar.com.

How to sign up for your own Gravatar

If you don’t have a Gravatar.com or WordPress.com account, signing up is incredibly easy. On the Gravatar sign-up page, just enter your email address.

You’ll get a confirmation email with a link to activate your account. Once your account is active, you can upload a photo of your choice, which will then be associated with that email address.

Every time you use that email address to comment on a blog that’s Gravatar-enabled, your chosen image will automagically appear next to your comment. And you can change that image any time you want by logging into your Gravatar account and changing your profile picture.

If you use more than one email address, the service allows you to add multiple email addresses and associate a different image with each one.

You can optionally add more information to your profile, such as a brief bio statement, geographic location, and links to your website and social media profiles like Twitter and Facebook accounts.

Other built-in uses for Gravatars

Those handy little icons are used for more than just blog comments.

Gravatar in the WordPress Admin Bar

For instance, all WordPress sites use Gravatars for their internal User profiles. If you have a profile picture associated with the email address you use to administer your own WordPress site, you’ll see a tiny version of that image on the right side of your admin bar (right next to where WordPress greets you with “Howdy, [display name]“), and next to your username on the Users –> All Users screen.

Another nice use of Gravatars is in the Genesis User Profile widget, which is available to you in the Appearance –> Widgets screen if your WordPress site uses the Genesis Framework or any Genesis child theme (my site, for instance, is running on Prose, the only Genesis child theme with design controls — did I mention that Site Setup Kit teaches you exactly how to use those controls to create a site that’s 100% unique?).

This widget allows you to create and customize an About Me box in your sidebar, and the profile picture it uses comes straight from Gravatar.

Turbo-charge your Gravatars

If you use the Jetpack plugin, you can enable a function called Gravatar Hovercards. With that function turned on, hovering your cursor over the profile picture of one of your blog commenters will display that person’s public Gravatar profile.

My site is using this feature right now, so if you get yourself a Gravatar, come leave a comment and try out the Hovercard function for yourself!

Blueberry pancakes with powdered sugar, yum!

I have a head cold, so my brain is spacing out on anything useful today. Forget web tips, you’re getting a pancake photo essay!

Saturday is Pancake Day here at Casa Cholbi. We’ve had this tradition for several years, ever since my daughter was young enough to giggle as we read Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs aloud to her.

At the beginning of that book, the tall tale starts on Saturday, which is Pancake Day (we still haven’t seen the movie, even though now they’re making a Part 2 in 3D, so I still think of the illustrations in the book as The Official Version).

So we started having Pancake Day every Saturday (in related breakfast news, Sunday has become Egg Day, but that’s another post for another day).

Silver dollar pancakes in the pan

Pancakes: A Lifelong Journey

Making perfect pancakes used to be a pipe dream for me. I’m pretty handy in the kitchen, and even for things I’m not an expert in, I can follow a recipe just fine. But for years, I was never happy with my homemade pancakes — they were too thin, or too flabby, or just kind of tasted weird, so I stuck to store-bought mixes.

Pawprint pancakes! Perfect for kids who like Blue's Clues.

Krusteaz had a couple of varieties that were tasty. Both varieties of Trader Joe’s pancake mix (Buttermilk and Multi-Grain) were also pretty good. I became particularly fond of Bob’s Red Mill buttermilk pancake mix after I fell in love with whole grains.

Then I started combining mixes — my favorite combo was Trader Joe’s buttermilk mix for flavor, mixed half-and-half with Bob’s Red Mill for heartiness and whole grains.

It's easy to create a pancake version of this particular copyright-protected character.

The evolution of a recipe

After awhile, I started to get annoyed. Why couldn’t I make my own pancake mix, dammit?

Alton Brown, the Good Eats guy, gave me the idea. And his pancake mix worked pretty well. It just didn’t have whole grains, and I already knew that trying to make pancakes with 100% whole wheat flour made them taste not-very-pancake-y.

Is this a flower? A star? A spaceship? No matter what you call it, it's breakfast.

So I looked at the ingredients on the Bob’s Red Mill package. In addition to wheat flour, it had oat flour and millet flour.

I always have whole oats around, in the form of oatmeal. And I’m fond of millet as a basic eating grain, so I had that too. And I already knew it was easy to grind up whole grains in the old coffee grinder (the one we don’t use for coffee anymore, just spices and grains). So making “oat flour” and “millet flour” was easy.

Proper technique for blueberry pancakes, part 1: Pour a big circle of batter (but not from the center so you have even thickness).

Millet maven strikes again

Millet flour turned out to be the key, actually. Because millet is a very mild grain, things made with whole millet flour don’t scream THIS IS WHOLE-GRAIN DAMMIT the way (some) whole-wheat things do. It also has a beautiful yellow color in the mixing bowl (which doesn’t affect the final color of the pancakes — that’s all about the high heat of the pan browning the butter in the batter).

Proper technique for blueberry pancakes, part 2: Sprinkle fresh or frozen blueberries straight onto the batter.

So I ended up with a pancake mix made with equal parts millet flour, oat flour, whole wheat flour, and unbleached all-purpose (wheat) flour. Three-quarters whole grain is pretty good for a fluffy breakfast treat, in my opinion.

Plus, this is the only way the Professor will eat millet (what I call “mild” my husband scorns as “bland and flavorless”). It’s kind of like sneaking finely-chopped veggies into kids’ food, except that he’s perfectly aware it’s there and puts up with my occasional taunts of “ha ha, you ate millet!” with good humor. As long as he has his coffee. Which is another post entirely. The pancake breakfast is simply incomplete without a good strong cup of coffee, am I right? You know I’m right.

Blueberry pancake, flipped (you can sometimes get neat designs depending on how fancy and artistic your original pour was).

Custom pancakes, please

By now, my recipe has fully evolved, and I can tweak according to personal whims or the availability of various grains (in case anyone is wondering, grinding up steel-cut oats into flour works just fine when the big cardboard cylinder of rolled oats is mysteriously empty and no one put oatmeal on the shopping list…).

For instance, if I’m in the mood for a slightly sweeter, more diner-ish pancake, I’ll ad an extra tablespoon or so of sugar and a dash of vanilla extract. Or I’ll substitute fine-ground cornmeal for one of the flours for a different kind of earthy sweetness. Or if we’re out of buttermilk, regular milk mixed with an equal amount of plain full-fat yogurt works pretty well even if  it’s not an exact match.

Also, I can make blueberry pancakes specifically for the Professor, and silver dollar pancakes for my seven-year old for maximum finger-food usability, and regular-sized pancakes for my daughter and myself, and one or two chocolate-chip pancakes for Breakfast Dessert, all from the same batch of batter.

Blueberry pancakes, consumption stage. Too bad the Internet doesn't have smell-o-vision, right?

As for toppings? I’m a traditionalist: 100% grade B (that’s the darker variety) maple syrup, and plenty of unsalted butter. When summer fruits are in season, I will occasionally go the Fruit Supreme route (berries or fruit compote topped with a mountain of whipped cream, or rolled up cannoli-style). And a good, high-quality breakfast sausage makes an excellent pig-in-the-blanket.

The Professor used to sprinkle powdered sugar on his blueberry flapjacks, but recently has become a fan of drizzling them with warmed honey.

To paraphrase Homer Simpson on donuts: “Pancakes. Is there anything they can’t do?”

(I mean, we haven’t even gotten into the baked German apple pancake, or the savory varieties of pancake, or thinning out the batter dramatically to make crepes…the variations are endless!)

So tell me, on this fine Saturday: What’s your favorite kind of pancake, and what do you put on it?

And sometimes I forget that not everyone is a WordPress wonk like me. That plugins and widgets are not, shall we say, everyday ordinary topics of conversation.

Especially if you don’t have a website at all, and you’re thinking you need one, and you’re not sure where to start.

Sound familiar?

This post is for you.

Step by step

See, there are two steps you need to take before you can even start to build a website. They’re technical steps, but they are well within the reach of anybody reading this blog post (whether you’re reading it on my website, in your email, or in your RSS reader).

Before you can build a website, you need a domain name, and you need web hosting.

If you don’t know exactly what those terms mean, or you (mostly, or sort-of) know what they mean but don’t know how to make decisions about them or how much they cost, I’ve got a gift for you.

Pamela Wilson (of BigBrandSystem.com fame) and I put together this nine-part no-cost series called Setting Up Your Website the Easy and Smart Way. Click to sign up here and you’ll get the first lesson right away!

Click to get the free course

Here’s what you’ll learn in the course:

• What to look for in a web host, including a short checklist that will tell you if your budget web host is worth the money
• The #1 web hosting mistake: don’t fall for this trap!
• The elements of a successful domain name and how to pick a winner
• Where to sign up for your domain name: we share our favorite resource
• The industry-standard website creation tools used by some of the most powerful sites on the web today: they’re accessible to you, too, and we’ll show you where to find them
• The two simple design decisions that will make your website look polished and professional

You’ll receive two exclusive special reports with in-depth information on setting up your website the easy way.

And you’ll get access to our no-cost on-demand class called Love Your Website. It’s a fast-paced, graphic-rich presentation that will walk you through how to get your site up and running, step-by-step.

I can’t wait to share these new resources with you. There’s no cost to you at all, so sign up now and you’ll get the first lesson today.

Click to get the free course

Free Motivational Posters

Here’s another cool gift for you — and a reason I’m thrilled to be working with someone with advanced ninja-level design skills!

To inspire and encourage you to start your step-by-step journey to an effective website, Pamela created this series of mini posters. Click here to download them. Find the one you like the best, print it out and put it on display where it will motivate you to take the steps needed to LOVE your website.

Stepping stones image by Nigel Davies on Wikimedia Commons, used under a Creative Commons ShareAlike License

In this post, I’ll show you how to get this plugin working again.

Fair warning: This fix involves directly editing the plugin’s source code. I’ve provided all the necessary code so you can just copy and paste. This has worked on all the sites I’ve tried it on, but it’s possible that it won’t work for you — you might have a different hosting setup or a plugin conflict that I haven’t run across.

But even if this fix doesn’t take, really, the worst that can happen is that your copy of the WPAudio plugin still won’t work. What I mean is, a copy-paste mistake isn’t going to break your entire site or erase your database or anything disastrous like that.

Why you might not want to fix this plugin at all

I chose to research the fix because I like to know how things work, I’ve got a hardcore DIY streak, and I’m stubborn — I like the way WPAudio looks and works and I just don’t want to switch, doggone it.

However, I fully realize that I might be in a tiny minority here and that you might decide that it’s just easier and simpler to switch to a different audio player on your WordPress site. And that is totally OK (I’m actually researching some WPAudio alternatives and will post about those later this week).

One big reason to switch to a different plugin is that WPAudio’s author is no longer supporting it or releasing new versions. WordPress will continue to change and improve, and it’s very possible that future versions of WordPress will break this plugin again. So this code fix is a bit like wrapping a frayed wire with electrical tape — a temporary measure that’s fine for now but not built to last.

Still here? On with the tinkering!

Step 1: Download these two text files. You’ll need to copy and paste their contents later in these instructions. Right-click (on a PC) or CTRL-click (on a Mac) the filename, and choose “Save Link As” or the closest equivalent.

1. wpaudio.js.txt
2. wpaudio.min_.js.txt

Step 2. Open the files in a text editor (Notepad, TextEdit, or the like). Because they have the .txt suffix, they may automatically open with the right application if you simply double-click them.

Step 3. In your WordPress dashboard, go to Plugins –> Editor. 

Step 4. Choose “WPaudio” in the drop-down list at the top right corner of your Plugin Editor screen. When you first arrive at this screen, it will show the first plugin in alphabetical order (often Akismet). After you select WPaudio, click the “Select” button next to the drop-down menu and you will then see a list of that plugin’s source files.

Step 5. In this list, click the link labeled “wpaudio-mp3-player/wpaudio.js” to display the contents of that file in the editing pane. It should begin with these lines:

/*
 * WPaudio v3.1 (http://wpaudio.com)
 * by Todd Iceton (todd@wpaudio.com)
 *
 * Converts an mp3 link to a simple player styled by HTML & CSS, powered by
HTML5 with SoundManager2 Flash fallback

Step 6. Copy the entire contents of the first text file you downloaded — the one called wpaudio.js.txt — and replace the entire contents of the wpaudio.js file onscreen with your copied text. You want to completely overwrite the file contents, so in the WordPress Editor screen you can either Select All and Paste, or Select All and Delete before Pasting.

Step 7. Click the blue “Update File” button at the bottom of your screen. You should see a success message appear at the top of your screen that reads “File updated successfully.”

Step 8. Repeat steps 5, 6, and 7 with the file named wpaudio.min.js. You’ve just replaced the entire contents of two of the plugin’s source files, and saved your changes. Your site is still there, right? No smoke coming out of your hard drive? Good! On to the final step:

Step 9. Go to Settings –> WPaudio, and click the blue “Save Changes” button at the bottom of the screen. It’s a good idea to check the settings to make sure they’re correct, but go ahead and click the blue button even if you don’t make any changes. This is similar to refreshing a web page to get the latest version — you want your copy of the plugin to read the new code you added.

Now go test one of your audio files on your site. Fingers crossed that it plays the way it is supposed to! And if not, stay tuned for my upcoming post on audio player alternatives (you can subscribe to get updates in your inbox or grab the RSS feed to get it in your reader). And feel free to leave a comment if you have a favorite WordPress audio plugin, too!

It’s important to note that I didn’t do this coding work on my own. All the code fixes came from helpful users on the WordPress.org support forum; I’m merely trying to let more people know about these fixes, and maybe make them a bit less scary to implement. Here are the original posts describing the code changes:

• WordPress.org support forum post with code fixes from forum user rahul286
• WordPress.org support forum post with code fixes from forum user waffl
• WordPress.org support forum post with code fixes from forum user Ursula (aka WP Gal)

Frayed cord image by blmurch on Flickr, used under a Creative Commons ShareAlike License

And then I tweeted and Facebooked to ask people to sign up for my upcoming WordPress Swimming Lessons group coaching class (deadline to sign up is Friday, January 20, and I’m not accepting any new client work in February, so this is definitely a case of Legitimate Urgency).

A Facebook friend gently chided me for making it harder for people to sign up for my class.

She’s right. I did make it harder. Not on purpose; not to force people away from my site. There was, after all, a “continue to site” link right on the splash page (though I can see how it was easy to miss), and the splash page only showed up once for each visitor (and I know full well that “just once” may have turned people away).

But I didn’t shut down my business or my website. I continued to work, plan, and hang out online at the same time that I was protesting. And I responded, in part, “I know it might not seem sensible, but… neither does SOPA/PIPA.”

And I’ll do it again on Monday, January 23. Because as Allison Boyer noted over on BlogWorld’s blog, SOPA and PIPA matter more today than they did yesterday. It’s not just about defeating one or two particularly badly written bills; it’s about crafting laws that uphold everyone’s rights (and I say that as a business owner as well as a citizen).

Is moderating blog comments online censorship?

Anyway, I got to thinking about the phrases that get thrown around about “stopping censorship.” And I wondered if anyone (other than my Internal Voices Committee, which always has something to complain about) could legitimately accuse me of censorship because I moderate my blog’s comments.

According to my pals at Merriam-Webster, the transitive verb “censor” means “to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable.”

By that definition, yes, I am engaging in censorship merely by moderating comments, even if I approve all of them, simply because I am examining them in order to make a decision! Interesting, eh?

Now, the definition of “censorship” contains this, among other definitions: “censorial control exercised repressively.” Here I could go down the rabbit hole of looking up the definitions of “repress” and “control” and so on, but I’ll simply say this: Even if I exercise my censorial control repressively here on this one website (which I don’t believe is true in the first place), the Internet is far bigger than me and my one-person business site. There are so many other venues for online expression that to claim that I could be acting repressively is honestly kind of funny.

Further, I believe that every website owner has the same right — to delete content that doesn’t meet their standards. Whatever those standards might be. And I think this view is consistent with wanting to stop the government from stepping in and making those content-removal decisions without the benefit of due process.

I stand by my decision to moderate, and I’ll state for the record that yep, I will absolutely delete anything I consider objectionable. This is my blog, my website, and my online home. No one gets to enter without my permission. I am the sole and final judge of what counts as objectionable here.

That said, I can count on one hand (with a few fingers left over) the number of times I’ve manually deleted comments. Evidence shows that 99.6% of my real, human commenters are just fine, simply because they are real and human. And my moderation process reflects that — if a given user’s first-ever comment is approved, my site will automatically approve and post additional comments by that user.

(Manually deleting comments doesn’t include spam or robots, which are automagically filtered quite well by a combination of two plugins (Akismet and WP-Hashcash) and a comment blacklist that screens for certain non-Roman characters.)

What about you? Do you have a comment policy? Why or why not? How is it working out for you? Want to see how fast I approve comments?

Even though the sun is currently shining into my window, it feels pretty dark. In all kinds of ways.

I’m behind on everything.

I’m drowning in email.

I’m cold (currently typing in fingerless gloves).

I’m sleepy at all the wrong times. Which also means I’m also awake at all the wrong times.

“Closing out the year” seems like an impossible task. So does starting a new year.

But…

According to TimeandDate.com, at my latitude, tomorrow’s daylight will last three seconds longer than today’s.

Three more seconds of sunlight may not seem like much. Even day after day after day.

The long warm twilights of July seem impossibly far away.

But they’ll get here. Three seconds at a time.

And I’ll get there too.

Three seconds at a time.

How about you?

Candle image by Bangin on Wikimedia Commons, used under a Creative Commons ShareAlike License

I’m sitting in a fairly comfy chair, I’ve plugged in my laptop, and there’s actually a decent wireless connection. I’ve worked in worse places, so I’m pretty happy at the moment.

Normally I’d be reading a book at a time like this, but the internet connection at my house isn’t working, so I’m grabbing all the online time I can.

See, we had a super-apocalyptic version of one of our normal fall Santa Ana windstorms on Wednesday night, and at 4:30am the power went out for thousands of people in our area. After a 15-hour outage, power blinked back on at about 7:30pm on Thursday. Hallelujah! We could cook! Bathe in hot water! Watch television!

I secretly was hoping we’d have to have a completely candlelit evening, though. I love candles.

Except that the router wasn’t picking up an internet connection. So after trying the various reset-restart-reboot operations, and spending 45 minutes on the phone with Verizon tech support, I learned that we’d need a new router. Which Verizon was happy to ship to us at no charge.

So I’m without internet until Monday.

(I did try to arrange to pick up a new router from a local Verizon store, but that turned into a scavenger hunt game of chase-down-the-right-phone-number and then take-a-number-and-wait-in-line-in-the-store-where-they’re showing-Secretariat-on-TV (I haven’t seen the movie yet! Spoiler alert: HE WON THE TRIPLE CROWN!! Then I got to see what I think was the first 10 minutes of the Karate Kid remake, featuring Jackie Chan eating noodles with chopsticks) and then leave-before-my-number-got-called-because-I-can’t-miss-my-brake-appointment…)

This is an interesting situation.

I had to reschedule a client call, and of course all my client work is being delayed, because working on live websites requires being connected to the internet.

There is non-online work I can be doing, of course — planning, writing, filing, organizing, etc. But the actual work, the part where I run backups and install plugins and publish blog posts and tweak sales pages? Can’t be done without an internet connection.

So it is fascinating to notice that part of my reaction is logical and sensible because the majority of what I do requires being online. And that another part is the jittery, twitchy, impending delirium tremens of internet withdrawal.

Of course I never considered myself addicted until I couldn’t get my fix.

And then it was a surprisingly short time until I caught myself thinking ridiculous nonsensical things like I can’t learn anything! and then doing weird things like booting up my laptop in the brake shop. Kinda like your alcoholic uncle rifling through the fridge and downing a jar of maraschino cherries with a chaser of vanilla extract.

This “unplugging” thing people talk of? I don’t really do it. I work at home and my computer is always on, always connected.

That advice to batch email checking and only do it once or twice a day? Never thought it applied to me.

I never thought I suffered from Internet hangovers because I’m never offline long enough to get the shakes.

So this weekend will be an interesting experiment.

Remaining conscious and noticing what’s going on will be key.

I don’t know how I’ll feel about it — I’ll have to experience it first. Right now I’m OK, but of course I’m still online, and that’s about to change.

Have you ever tried an experiment with batching email, limiting internet access, or intentionally unplugging? How did it go for you? What did you notice? I’d love to hear about it in the comments (but I may not reply until Monday!!).