Peoria Pundit

Bumping up

Yes, I know I said I was going to limit request for site donations to the beginning of the month, but circumstances have changed.

The billing schedule for my new host — the wonderful Idaho Web Company — is a tad different than the last server space provider,* who took payment at the end of the month, My new host bills in the middle of the month, and I find myself financially embarrassed for the next week or two. Since the owner has done a HUGE amount of work on my behalf, I’d rather not keep him waiting.

Also, the original Peoria Pundit site is down, and I’d like to renew it for another until I can get all the posts migrated to the Blog Peoria version, after which I will permanently redirect the domain to pundit.blogpeoria.com.

I know it’s a lousy economy in which to bleg, but it must be done.

The owner and the aforementioned Idaho Web Company spent a few hours on the phone talking about ways to use the Web to make money in support of citizen journalism. He had some good ideas, and confirmed for me what I have suspected, some some of the things I’ve been trying are bad ideas.

But until we get some of these ideas off the4 ground, I would appreciate some financial support. So, if you are so inclined, please clock the PayPal button to the left. Credit card donations are accepted, or contact me for an address to mail a donation to the cause.

* No. They have not refunded my money.

I’m up early tomorrow, so I won’t have time to dump some posts onto my site before I leave for work.

I might post later in the evening.

But in the spirit of promoting commerce in the river city, I’m announcing a new feature: A business directory page. If you own or operate a local business, just click here and post some details that will be listed here.

And if you have a business or offer a service and have ever donated to the Blog Peoria Network, feel free to include your business without feeling the need to donate more.

My apologies. Blog Peoria has been down for a few days. That kept her from posting details about an important event in her life.

Congratulations!

Woo Hoo!

I’ve opened just about every single blog operating in the Blog Peoria Network, and all seem to be up and running.

There’s one with a glitch that’s putting a error message on top of his site, but the blog is working at least. I have an asking for assistance with this error message on the WordPress forum. We’ll get it licked. And this member bloggers knows all about it, so if you haven;t notified me about a glitch, then I need to be informed.

Why so long? Well, you know how they tell you that nameserver changes sometimes take up to 36 hours to take effect? Well, that’s the truth. We needed for blogpeoria.com to take effect before some routine, post-migration troubleshooting could be done.

And all seems to be well.

Please let me know if you see any problems.

I can now concentrate on content, rather than nuts and bolts.

Some thoughts, in no particular order:

• The site migration is over. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know the images aren’t loading. But they are THERE, and I have Tom Men at my hosting company AND the Word Press community looking into it. They files are NOT lost. Trust me.

• Ray LaHood for transportation secretary, huh. I strongly suspected that Congressman LaHood was on tap for a post in the Obama administration, but I would have bet cash money that he was going to be an ambassador to somewhere in the Middle East. The local train enthusiasts are holding their breath, however, to see if he tried to put the fix in for ripping out the Kellar Branch.

• Folks … don;’t let the television stations scare you. If you bought a digital television, it is entirely possible you are going to see that scary message telling you you DON’T have a digital television, and are thus unprepared for the big digital switch over.

  What utter bull.

  Yes, if you are using a television that’s older than three years (and thus MIGHT not be digital) and your don’t have a digital converter OR you are not watching through cable, you MIGHT need to check with the manufacturer to see if you have a digital tuner. THAT IS IT.

  If you have a TV sold to you AS a digital television, and if you are using an antenna, you might very well have seen a warning telling you your television isn’t digital.

  Here is why: Digital television’s scan for channels that are BOTH digital AND analog. That scan probably found your local television’s analog broadcast. And that is the channel you HAPPENED to be viewing when you saw that message telling you your television absolutely, positively isn’t digital. Even your television IS digital and will work perfectly after the switch WITHOUT buying any new equipment.

  Why run a warning  that isn’t accurate and has scared at least some of their viewers to the store to buy electronic equipment that isn’t needed?

  I just answered my own question.

  Consider that all of WEEK’s “digital conversion” programing seems to be sponsored by a company that sells big screen digital televisions.

  Feh.

On Tuesday, I’ll be moving the site to its new server. As soon as the migration is complete, I’ll point the domain name to the new IP and all will be right with the world.

So, I highly recommend no one post any article after 8 a.m. on Tuesday. Posting of new articles can commence after I give the all clear.

I’ll ask BlogPeoria bloggers to post articles on their own sites telling their regular readers about the change.

Remember, you might be able to see any Blog Peoria blog, but that doesn’t mean any posts made on Tuesday will appear one the move is complete.

The benefits of the move will be as follows:

• Much faster loading times.
• Less down time.

Every single WordPress expert I’ve talked to about the issues affecting this site are amazed it operates on a shared server. I’ve running on a fairly well-loaded virtual private server (the most expensive they offer). If this doesn’t work, the next step is a managed dedicated server.

UPDATE: Any blogger on the Blog Peoria Network who did not receive an email from me today, please email me at peoriapundit AT gmail DOT com.

Here’s the agenda for tonight’s meeting of the Peoria City Council. I’ll be liveblogging, but in a different way than usual. I’ll be posting brief updates on my Twitter page, located at http://twitter.com/peoriapundit. The Blog Peoria Network server is too slow to load and sometimes times out when I’m using an iffy wireless connection. I’ll be able to use these miniposts of 140 characters or less to create more traditional posts the following day.

UPDATE: I’m on Twitter now. Readers MIGHT want to sign up for their own Twitter account so they can reply to my Tweets. Also, if you sign up, be sure to follow me and I’ll reciprocate.

bleg: To beg for money on a blog. Beg + blog == bleg. (Urban Dictionary)

This weekend, I’m signing up for a new server. I’m getting an account with these guys, who come highly recommended. I’ll be signing up for the VPS768 account. The features of the account include:

* Intel Dual Xeon Harpertown
* 768MB Guaranteed SLM RAM
* 80GB RAID-10 Disk Space
* 1000GB Bandwidth
* 4 Dedicated IPs
* cPanel / WHM (VPS Optimized)
* Virtuozzo 4 with Power Panel
* Fantastico, RVSkin, WHMCS Available
* Starting at: $77/month

# All VPS accounts come with:
# Full Management

* ServerShield Server Hardening

# 24×7 Phone and Help Desk Support
# 24×7 Proactive Service Monitoring
# Proactive Security Updates
# Grove Client Portal
# Nightly Backups
# Free Migration Assistance

It’s actually going to cost $85 a month because I’m going to pay on a month-by-month basis. I do that because I’ve been burned by paying in advance. I pay more than that now on an account that was supposed to cost just $50 a month, but I didn’t count on the host’s inability to run my massive database without paying for additional features.

The site seems to have the oomph I need for Blog Peoria. I’m familiar with the control panel, and the company has a good reputation for service, while my current host, well, does not.

Anyway, I have some cash stored away for the first month, so the start up is no problem.

But what I need to do is pay for a one month of WMPU Dev Premium, which will let me download several plugins I need to make it much, much easier to manage that massive database. Membership also gives me access to special support forums and training videos.

And this will cost me $50. And while I am always happy to receive donations to help defray the cost of hosting, I would be especially appreciative of whatever cash comes my way to support the WPMU Dev Premium membership.

Anyone so inclined can use the PayPal button to the right.

I’m doing the overtime thing at work on Saturday and Sunday, and I spent most of my free time writing an article. So, blogging will be light.

Peoria Pundit is not my only blog.

One of the blogs I operate is called The American Guesser. Its name comes of a pen name Ben Frankin used to advocate for American independence. So to maintain the tradition, I use a pen name on the site, although the “About” page makes it clear it’s me doing most of the writing.

The site is about third parties and issues related to individual freedom. Here are some posts I put up today:

• Now, where did those votes run off to, hmmm?
• Constitution Party to hold special convention in Peoria in January
• Good news, bad news regarding Obama and free speech
• Consensual high school sex play gets woman 12 years on sex offender list