The Political Vine gets the Kickass Treatment
Just got the new Political Vine site up and running with a new Custom Kickass WordPress Theme. Not only did we rise to the challenge of putting this prolific pol onto the new WP 2.0, but we’ve also, through some custom spider magic from Shawn at AutoMapIt converted the formerly asp part of Bill’s Political Vine site into static and more easily search engine spiderable html pages, thus making this a truly KICKASS upgrade! I’m next going to build a great “front door” entryway, but the biggest “engineering” feats have been completed.
The idea to convert the old asp site to html was mine, since it seemed a shame to waste all the incredible material that was there already by putting it on a different domain, which was what Bill had planned to do originally. But the daunting job of converting 1,500 asp pages was not one that I could or would do by hand. So I asked Shawn, and, like I knew he would, he said, “Sure, no problem!” There were a couple challenges. The old asp pages had to retain their current directory structure in order for the links to work, so we couldn’t put WP or its index page toplevel like we’d planned, since permalinks would have gone haywire with any duplication- which is why the new front door entry is next. But when the site is totally complete it is guaranteed to take off for site owner, Bill Simon. There is so much googly goodness here! That’s if he gets over his writer’s block . . .
Technorati Tags- Custom WordPress Theme, Convert ASP to HTML, Search Engine Optimization
January 15th, 2006 at 2:02 am
BJ, I’m thinking you might be a good little instigator on my site…you can join under a pseudonym and kick some politicos rears…maybe better than I can!
January 15th, 2006 at 9:51 am
If one actually LIKED to read about politics that might be true . . .
No offense, love, but a root canal sounds more attractive. I’d rather wrestle with code than people.
January 15th, 2006 at 10:08 pm
The site looks great! You really do a nice job with design..congratulations!
January 15th, 2006 at 10:17 pm
Thanks! Nice to have a return visit from you! How goes the School Band Blog? Have the kids been getting involved?
January 16th, 2006 at 4:11 am
The band blog goes well, thanks! Now that marching band season is over, the kids are starting to play more with the idea of podcasting and other blog fun. Our challenge at this point is convincing the school district that Flickr isn’t evil and can really be unblocked at the server level. The kids completely get it — but the district is just a bit slower.
Thanks for asking!
January 17th, 2006 at 10:29 pm
Hey Bill…. I’m happy to poke ‘n’ prod, will I do instead? *laughing*
January 17th, 2006 at 10:43 pm
DrumsNWhistles- Go for podcasting first, the kids will get SO much out of it, and they can get silly AND perform. Really sharpen their skills in a lot of ways.
Vicki, Oh THANK you! Much as I love Bill AND his site, I’m just not the political type. You’d make a great poker and prodder, to keep those pols honest! (and give Bill a poke and a prod for me occasionally too, k?)
January 18th, 2006 at 7:16 pm
Heh…. sure, don’t even have to borrow your bullwhip (have a horsewhip of my own, thanks….)