Most of you know I love the plugin called CommentLuv. I’ve been a fan of that plugin since 2008, so much so that I went ahead and paid for the premium version, which comes with a few more bells and whistles.
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Lat year, I noticed that it wasn’t working on this blog. That occurred after an update, which the premium version has at least once a month so it was easy to spot. That it only stopped working on here was odd, so I contacted customer service for help.
After going back and forth in a few emails, turns out the problem is that I removed the footer here years ago because it had this bit of code in it that was falsely indicating what the blog was about. Most websites don’t have this as a problem but most blog themes come with a footer where, if you want or its an option, you can add even more links to your site. I couldn’t add anything to it, and I had problems with any alterations, so I just removed it. The blog works perfectly without it, and I never looked back.
However, the upgraded premium plugin needs the footer to do its job. For me, it kind of stinks, as my theme is pretty old, but which I’ve modified over the years, and I’m not in the mood to get a new one. During testing I swapped to one of the current WordPress themes to see if it would work, and it didn’t. So, whether it’s the footer or not is still out there, but the reality is that I had to load a previous version to get it working again and I’ll just have to be happy with that for now.
What this points out is that the latest and greatest isn’t always so for everyone, and holding onto something old isn’t always the best way to go either. I’m sure there are still many XP users out there who think it’s the bees knees (does anyone say that anymore?) and swear they’re never going to switch up, but last year when Microsoft finally stopped supporting it. If anything goes wrong you’d best be ready to pony up some big bucks for someone to come fix it, as most have moved on to newer operating systems, or be ready to totally wipe your system and load the disk that came with it, without knowing if any of the updated files will still be available.
Back in the early 2000’s the big thing most people wanted was some kind of flash on their websites. It was pretty, bold, and, well flashy. It also didn’t look good for everyone because sometimes it didn’t match up with what their business said they did. I’ve seen a lot of those websites over the years, and most of them have no rankings whatsoever; so sad… As a matter of fact, I’ve removed Flash from my computers, which is problematic because I’m a major fan of Firefox and none of the Flash content on other sites will play on it. However, Chrome seems to be converting all Flash stuff to HTML5, so if I really want to see something I just paste it there.
This is why you need to take a look at your website and your blog every once in a while to make sure everything’s working the way you want it to, as well as to do an evaluation as to whether it’s really getting the message across that you’re hoping to get out to the world. Remember my post about another plugin that started giving me trouble?
It doesn’t mean everything has to change, but it does mean you need to know what’s going on so you can make the determination as to whether to keep on the straight and narrow or make some kind of modifications here and there.
Due diligence is always the best way to go.
I’d generally go to the trouble of switching themes rather than ditching the Luv. 😉 Even if I had to use a previous version to keep a theme I loved, I think it’s worth it. (I did ditch Blogspot, in part, because although Andy implemented CL on BS – too tempting, okay, Blogger – for a while, it no longer works.)
I did try going to the default WordPress theme but no go. I must have done something all those years ago when I altered the footer file here. Oh well, at least I can run the version I have and it works pretty well.
Hi Mitch,
I like you have kept my theme the same for many years now but have made some subtle changes.
I also found out that some plugins did not work well on my theme and almost took the whole site down. I became cautious after that.
your site looks nice and clean on mobile now it looks like you did a little changing with that, no?
Lisa, I added the WP Touch Mobile plugin to help with mobile. However, I’ve noticed it doesn’t seem to work on all browsers for all my blogs; that’s just so goofy! lol Still, for many people it should be a great help.
Hi Mitch,
Indeed, we need to keep upgrading ourselves with the latest upgrades, else we might miss on something important. Or even worse, we would not know which things are not working fine.
Sometimes it is a lot of trouble, but in the end, as you said, one needs to understand their requirements and go with the decision as long as one is happy to deal for any consequences.
Have a great day buddy. 🙂
Actually Rohan, we should probably be reading what those upgrades are first before doing it. It certainly would have relieved me of some grief later when I couldn’t figure out why things weren’t working properly anymore.
Great advice.
I will be looking to see how my blog is functioning now that you mentioned this!
Sometimes I too want to resist change, but sticking with the old is not always such a great idea.
Thanks for this,
– Nestr
No problem Nestor. It works well to check one’s site out every once in a while, just to make sure things work well.
Absolutely Mitch, a much needed post at the right time. As very recently I have added a blogging section to my website, I am in need of some piece of advice like this. Thanks a lot Hesham for sharing the awesome list of bloggers from whom we need to need to inherit a lot for better blogging.
Thanks for your comment Andrea. Which Hesham; strange as it might seem, I know more than one. lol I hope your new blog works out for you; my site has experienced a nice little bounce and I haven’t really done much with it yet. I’ll take what I can get. 🙂
being a blogger i just believe that content written for people is always better that content written for only search engines.
Very true, yet there are lots of folks more worried about SEO and being found on search engines than writing for the people.
Things upgrade so fast and there are so many new versions there are often compatability issues and of course each side blames it on the other. So frustratiing.
EasyAzon for instance does not work on Chrome. They blame it on Chrome. Do you think Chrome is gonna care if I contact them? Of course not. So here we are. UGH!
PS- CommentLuv Premium rocks!
CommentLuv across the board is great; I wish I could upgrade on this blog but I can’t. As for Chrome… well, you know your comments always end up on spam but you’re not the only one. Turns out there are settings you can do on your Chrome browser that would keep you out of there, but it’s stuff you probably don’t want to do. For instance, you can use your privacy setting to comment on the blog and it’ll go through. However, in privacy mode it won’t save your passwords and such.