Tag: site

New Theme for my Blog Pages is an Old Theme!

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Over the last few months I had been using Rebalance from Jetpack as the theme for my blog site, but more and more of its features seemed to conflict with my blog content:

  • Sections of code using uniform fonts in pre-formatted paragraphs were coloured white, so I’d been forced to recolour them black using CSS.
  • The links in the Forum Tag List were orange, as were the links in the list of selected forum topics. However, hovering over these links changed these and other links to white on white, or orange on orange, due to a conflict with bbPress, my forum plug-in.
  • Finally, the top menu in Rebalance was shown as a “hamburger” icon on smaller screens, but not on the desktop, so I’d been forced to style this menu using CSS to match the smaller screen version.

I searched the catalogue of WordPress themes to find one that worked on the desktop and smaller screens and could only find the theme I am now using, Twenty Fifteen from WordPress. It also doesn’t require any restyling!

So why did I call it an old theme?

I used this theme when I first created this blog site in 2016. It has just taken me 5 years to realise how good it is!!

My internet service provider has changed and normal blog service has resumed!

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My company’s internet service provider has now been changed from Plusnet to XLN, and I did get the expected disruption, but not quite in the ways I expected:

  • On 03Dec2020 Plusnet switched off the static IP address at 0416 on 03Dec2020, so the blog server could not be reached until XLN supplied a new static IP address at 1520 the same day.
  • However, the router XLN sent was faulty, so the Plusnet router continued to be used until a replacement router arrived on 05Dec2020.
  • Unfortunately I was a little too eager to replace the router, and forgot to update the network gateway in the server for that new router. I did not realise why no-one could access the server from the internet until 06Dec2020, and corrected the network gateway address.

So, as promised, after several days of head scratching, discussions with network engineers, network testing and updates, the blog server is open for normal business again!

I’m now looking forward to writing some SAS-related blog posts.

Thank you for your patience…………Phil

My internet service provider is changing on 03Dec2020, so I’m expecting some disruption

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Our internet service provider is scheduled to change on 03Dec2020 (from Plusnet to XLN), so we’re expecting some disruption. We may be very lucky and the outage during the changeover is very short, but, as we can’t say when during the day it will be, it would be foolish to predict anything in advance. All we can say is that the site will be back after the changeover.

Thank you in advance for your patience…………Phil

I hope I’ve updated the site theme to make your reading and navigation easier

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The previously installed theme was called “Twenty Sixteen”, which I published on the site in May 2016, so I thought it was time to change to a new theme, which is called “LeftSide”.

What do you think of it? I do like the navigation panel, which doesn’t get in the way and requires no scrolling to start reading the text, but I’m not so enthusiastic about the pink links, so you may find they change colour in the future, if I can work out how to update them to a more standard blue.

I’ve added an explanation of what each membership level can do

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The most up-to-date version of the following table can be found here, but with extra links there to help you register for the correct membership level on this site. Each membership level builds on the previous level, so for each successive level the blue boxes highlight the new areas and access added:

Membership level Blog & Forums Access
Not logged in Blog posts Read
SAS Skills Discussion Forum Read linked topics only
SAS Job Listings Read
Free membership Blog posts Read & Comment
SAS Skills Discussion Forum Read and Write Topics & Reply
SAS Job Listings Read
Programmer membership (includes Free membership) Blog posts Read & Comment
SAS Skills Discussion Forum Read and Write Topics & Reply
SAS Programming Forum Read and Write Topics & Reply
SAS course Read Topics & Reply
SAS Job Listings Read
Recruiter membership (includes Programmer membership) Blog posts Read & Comment
SAS Skills Discussion Forum Read and Write Topics & Reply
SAS Programming Forum Read and Write Topics & Reply
SAS course Read Topics & Reply
SAS Job Listings Read & Post New Jobs