This blog runs on WordPress, having enjoyed a long journey of transitions and conversions from other blogging engines including Movable Type and Blosxom.
Actually, not only do I run WordPress, but these days I run an often updated version checked out of the WordPress SVN trunk repository. I got hacked a handful of times running slightly out-of-date versions, so now I just keep updating and hope to catch bugfixes early. That and, well, I’m arguably insane.
Theme / Plugins
Sandbox — a WordPress theme that’s extremely minimal visually, but embarrassingly rich with semantic tags and CSS classes. There’s hAtom, date and category classes, simple layouts, and a whole lot more. Perfect for whipping up a quick original visual style. It’s also got a few convenient hooks for extension with plugin filters, which keeps me from needing to edit much of the theme itself beyond CSS and makes later updates so much easier.
Akismet — Die comment spam, die in a fire.
Markdown — I can’t bring myself to blog without Markdown HTML assistance anymore.
WP-Syntax — I plan to post lots of code listings, and this seems to help nicely.
Universal Edit Button — It’s an edit button in the URL bar, next to the orange feed button. Check it out!
WP-OpenID — If you’ve got an OpenID, use it here to post comments with pre-approval moderation. If spammers abuse it, I’ll close the hole when it happens.
WP Ajax Edit Comments — Trying this out. I’d like visitors to be able to edit comments when Markdown conventions do unexpected things.
WP-Polls — I don’t use it much, but posting polls seems like it might be a neat idea from time to time.
Drop-down Archive Widget — This is probably too minimal, but I’ve got a lot of monthly archives here accumulated over years. I wanted them collapsed into a single sidebar drop-down.
Executable PHP widget — I got a related posts plugin that seemed keen yet didn’t come in sidebar widget form. This widget seems to have worked as glue.
WordPress Related Posts — I want to allow some contextual exploration into my blog archives via related posts listed in the sidebar.
History
2002: It looked like this. I launched this site on a lark, liking the name oxDECAFBAD. It’s a 32-bit hexadecimal number, as well as an expression of distaste for things not containing caffeine. Initially, the software was Movable Type, which I quickly overwhelmed with hacks and plugins and all manner of crap.
2003: It looked like this. Tired of the crud I’d accumulated with my Movable Type exploits, I rebooted things and reworked everything to use Blosxom. I also started taking a turn away from blogging “proper” and mostly posted lists of links for awhile.
2004: It looked like this. I stole some ideas from Mark Pilgrim’s accessibility series (whether it showed or not), and planned to switch to a more verbose and article-oriented style of blogging. I also tried to integrate my wiki and link-blogging activities into a more unified navigation on the site. Unfortunately, the net result was that the only thing that really every got updated was my linkblog. Oh yeah, and I returned to Movable Type.
2005: It looked like this. Wanting to switch back to a more free and lightweight style of blogging, I ditched Movable Type and my article-length-biased templates. (For some reason, I always end up making MT move like a battleship.) This is another reboot, and as such, many of my site’s previous features (ie. the wiki and linkblog) have gone away until I’ve had a chance to reevaluate them. This time I moved into WordPress territory.
2006: It looked like this. I got tired of sidebars and thought I might try doing something like a functional footer to take their place. I stripped everything down and shoved it to the bottom. I think it was an interesting experiment, but turned into a big mess.
2007: Not much change since 2006, other than to gradually strip away crap from the footer and start experimenting with lifestreaming tools like FriendFeed to gather all my disparate crap not represented on the blog.
2008: Starting with a clean slate install of the Sandbox theme, I threw together a new original skin of my own hoping to revive some of the better navigation elements I had back in 2004. That, and I wanted to stick my own picture and “about me” blurb back into the sidebar, as well as pictures of my books for sale.
What’s up with that image at the bottom?
This comes from a scan I did of a third-grade report card book my Mom had lying around. There was also one like it for first an second grade—in my cruddy handwritting, I’d written in “Computer Scientist ✔” each time. I’ve known what I wanted to be when I grew up for quite awhile now. :)
