Theme change

You get what you pay for. At this point, I am working with the selection of free “themes” that Word Press offers. There were several things about the previous theme that I had been using since moving to WordPress.com that I did not like. So here is another one to try out. While I was at it, I decided to upload an image of the Sierra as seen from the outer portion of the Plainfield finca, looking over the neighboring vineyard, olive grove and goat dairy.

Let me know if this does (or does not) work well for you.

Welcome!

This is the new home of Fruits & Votes.

Things should look the same. Only different.

All old comments should have come over, along with posts. Please note that this URL has wordpress in it. The old “fruitsandvotes.com” will no longer host the blog.

Old links within the blog will not work. Links to content at fruitsandvotes.com should be OK, but blog-post URLs will all be different. Please use the search function or browse the categories to find old posts. They are all here!

A big THANK YOU to Steven Taylor for doing the heavy lifting. And thanks, as always, to my readers and commenters!

A basic question for anyone who knows Word Press

[Yes, we are having technical difficulties…]

As some readers no doubt noted, there was a shutdown recently. No, not that one in Washington, but at this blog. Yet again, the hosting service shut it down due to spammers having somehow used the domain to send spam emails. Hence a question for anyone who is sufficiently familiar with Word Press…

Site issues

This website was suspended for a while this weekend. The hosing company, PowWeb, says that spam was being sent from it, that there is a corrupted script, and that I need to change my FTP password and update all applications running on the site. I did all of that within the last few weeks, and yet an attack on the site’s integrity has occurred again.

The PowWeb compliance department says that the password must have been stolen. If so, it was not stolen from me, but rather off the site. I don’t know much about web hosting, but I wonder if readers who do have any solutions in mind. A different, less vulnerable, hosting service? Some other fix?

The user should not have to be a security expert. And I certainly do not have time to fix problems on the site every few weeks. The password I changed to a few weeks ago is so complex–to comply with the host’s security recommendations–that there is no way I could remember it, and yet I am supposed to come up with a new variant every few weeks.

Suggestions welcome, or else this blog will just go away–an outcome I really do not want. Yes, I am frustrated.

You might want to send suggestions via email (either at the “contact” link on the left, or at my personal email if you have it), in case the site gets suspended again between the time you read this and I check back.

Trying to make up for it…

I haven’t been posting a lot lately. Just trying to catch up…

I’m back

Well, sort of. Challenges of internet access out in the countryside will make appearances on line somewhat limited for a while.

In the meantime, here’s a view from the new finca.

(It actually looks much nicer than that. See, I said some internet issues were yet to be worked out…)

Thanks to those who have kept things active during my absence.

Advisory

Blogging–by me, anyway–will be almost non-existant till the very end of March or early April. The move to the Davis area is upon us at last!

Those who have the keys to the virtual orchard are invited to plant (as Alan did earlier today). I will be checking comment threads now and then; if your comment lands in the moderation queue, it may take longer than usual for me to spot it and clear it.