After a long period of hiatus, I guess it is time for my blog to get a well deserved minor facelift. Thus, I spent few hours during my office hours to do a little bit of housekeeping here and there. By the way, while modifying blog and its theme may not be the best activity to do during office hours, please spare me. I was quite bored.

Some stuff that I did today…

Installed the latest version of ‘Unnamed’ theme. Yes, I kind of like the theme and upgrading from 1.0 to 1.23 is really worth it (just like upgrading from Wordpress 2.1.5 to 2.5.1). Unnamed is one of my favorite theme for its simplicity … and for some weird reason… its slider.

While I love pictures and colors, ‘Unnamed’ by default is simply too plain.

Thus, like what someone has said: “if there is no way, lets make one”.

First I realized that the header can be modified from option page in term of height , width and image. So I increase the height to make it look slightly fatter - this is also so I can add a more decent picture. Yet I am still experimenting so there might be a chance I reduce the height once again. I put the decent image of Singapore river there.

Then I rearrange the widgets to give more space. Basically trying to put all the not so important stuff into the sliders.

Take note I do not want to put category or archives into the sliders because they are simply too long.

Moving on, I began to ponder : “Would it be nice if there is a widget that could display a photo or two?” before checking all the possible widgets that can help me achieve the desired result. Apparently I became greedy and wanted a widget that can show random picture - preferably in Ajax (just like www.smukionline.com)

Not just that… I also wanted the header image to be randomized. So every time people come, they will see different picture.

Apparently I could not find widgets that could serve all that I want - Either not meeting the requirements or simply broken or simply cannot be positioned in the places that I want.

So I began to surgically modify the theme to suit my needs. Looking to all possible places where I can get the desired result. Being PHP-idiot, I am really thankful to all people who have put numerous PHP tutorials on the net (which can be googled of course).

The result may not be too professional but at least I got image randomizer for header and image container on the sidebar of my blog. I intend it to be a Ajax-ified slideshow but oh well… that can wait.

After much ‘hassle’ due to lousy automated Fantastico upgrade, I manage to migrate to Wordpress 2.5.1 which is supposedly to be much secure (though I cannot understand why).

My wordpress database is still in a mess. While normal wordpress installation have approximately 10 tables, my current database has 38 tables! Thanks to all the lousy plugins that I tested live.

I will deal with it later somehow.

More information on how to surgically upgrade your wordpress from ancient version (mine was 2.1.5): visit Upgrading Wordpress.

Oh… in case anyone of you have not realized, I just bought www.adityalesmana.com