Welcome to the all-new jimcofer.com website! As you can see, I’ve finally ditched the old FrontPage site for WordPress. I know that some of you are already unhappy with the change, but I hope you’ll understand – the new site will be so much easier to maintain!
For those of you familiar with WordPress, this site will hopefully be pretty easy to figure out. For those of you more familiar with the old site, please check out these new features and changes:
Categories: If you look in the right-hand sidebar on the home page, you’ll see an entry called “Categories”. Many of the pages from the old site have been converted to WordPress categories. For instance, the old “Geek Stuff” page is now the “Geek Stuff” category. New “Geek Stuff” entries will be posted on the main page, but will eventually “fall off” the front page. To filter your results to “Geek Stuff” entries only, just click the “Geek Stuff” category. Most entries are posted in the same order as they were on the old site, so everything should be pretty easy to find.
New RSS feed: There is a new link to the RSS feed. If you were using the direct RSS link from the old site, you’ll need to change your subscription URL to the new feed. If you were using the old site’s FeedBurner feed, you will need to change to the new feed.
Pages: Some of the pages from the old site won’t easily convert to a “category” format, so they have been converted over to “page format”. For instance, the old “About Me” page is now located under the “Pages” link in the right-hand sidebar.
Links: You’ll find several links in the right-hand sidebar on the main page, such as links to the “Old Site Archive”, the photo gallery, and links to my Rotten Tomatoes, YouTube and My Space pages.
Search: You can search the site using the “Search” box.
Calendar: There is a calendar at the top of the right-hand sidebar on the main page. Any day with a link is a day I’ve posted something. You may filter your view by clicking any day with a link to see what I posted on that day!
I’m looking for [insert article here]. Where can I find it? Well, it depends. Around 45% of the old site was converted to the “new” format. Around 45% of the old site didn’t get converted, but is still accessible via the Old Site Archive link under “Pages”. Around 10% of the old site didn’t make the cut and has been deleted forever. How can you tell where your article might be?
When I converted the site from FrontPage to WordPress, I generally converted the old site’s pages in this order: 1) any page that could easily be turned into a category has been given a WordPress category. For example, my old site’s “Geek Stuff”, “Rants” and “Recipes” pages have been converted to individual posts within new “Geek Stuff”, “Rants” and “Recipes” categories. 2) Any page that could easily be cut and pasted into the WordPress edit window was converted to the new format, either as a category (such as “Reviews”) or as a page (such as the “Useless Facts” page). Most of the pages from the old site with lots of links and\or graphics have been moved to the Old Site Archive. This includes things like the London Travelogue and most of the “How To” articles that were heavy with screen captures. 3) The older it is, the less likely that it made the cut at all. Many reviews from the earliest days of this site seemed kind of pointless these days, so I didn’t bother converting them to either the WordPress or Archive format. Also axed were many of the old site’s “regular features” – such as the “weekly” Top 10 Tunes list (which was last updated in 2004!). Your best bet for finding a particular article is to use the search box in the right hand sidebar. If you don’t see the article in the search results, try looking in the Old Site Archive. If you don’t see it there, it’s probably gone forever. You can always use the Contact Me page if you have any questions.
But I like the old site: Yeah, I liked it too. But let’s face it – FrontPage sucks, and it’s been discontinued by Microsoft.