so, now that all that boring relaunch related stuff is out of the way, it's high time I sit down for a real post�the obligatory "catch-up" post.

when we last spoke, i was hot in the middle of procrastinating on my novel for National Novel Writing Month, particularly by brushing down this old horse. now, we've gone all the way through winter and come out the other side, the spring storms are tearing at our shutters, and the grass is growing faster than I can push the lawn mower.

on the plus side, we've got central heat & air installed in our little home now, so I'm not going to have to drag out those loud obnoxious window units. of course, this just means that now we'll have to bicker about temperature more, since we no longer have room-by-room control�no big deal.

the next exciting thing on our schedule is a trip to DC�we'll be heading up there to visit our new nephew (and the rest of his family) for a few days. i've said this to a few people before, but i'll say it here again… it's so strange that little Reuben hardly seems real to me at this point. when Emma was born, my sister & bro-in-law took pictures of her daily, and sent digests weekly via email, so i was intimately connected�at least through pictures�with her growth and development. she seemed real to me even before I met her.

with Reuben, it's different. Sara and Andrew haven't been taking pictures daily, or at least not sending them out weekly if they have. maybe because they're now living in the states, they feel the need is lessened, but his family is still in NZ, so it'd still be important. maybe because they're both much busier than they were when Emma was born�both working, trying to raise two kids now instead of just one. but for whatever reason, lack of evidence, lack of contact, whatever, the new kid just seems more like an idea than an actual physical entity. this is, of course, why we're so excited that we get to go to DC to finally meet him.

and even more important, this could be our only chance to see him (and the rest of the family) for several years. with sis (and possibly bro-in-law) going into the foreign service, they might be out of the country pretty-much until they retire. obviously, they'll visit us and we'll visit them, but those opportunities will be few and far between.

i may have gotten used to seeing my sister (and her new family) only infrequently over the last 10 years or so, but that doesn't mean i have to like it.

as it turns out, there were some issues that 10% or fewer of bipolar's audience might have experienced post-relaunch. brian and his new friends from the land of the rising sun discovered shortly after the launch that most of the new themes were varying levels of screwed up when viewed in Safari. this morning, our favorite beta-tester�MC Seth-yo—informed me that things were also pretty whacked in opera.

i believe things are pretty well patched up all around, so feel free to alternatively compute to your little hearts' content.

this probably has limited intrinsic value, but it's something i've thought was neat for some time, and now that we've got wordpress, it was crazy easy to implement.

you know about avatars, right? as a limited example, they're the little images you choose to personalize your profile on bulletin boards (or forums as the young bucks like to call 'em). well, a guy had an idea that if you wanted, you should be able to use a single avatar, centrally controlled, from any site anywhere on the 'net. and, since we've all got unique email addresses, that could be the peg the hat hangs on. so now, if you login or post to a site that uses these "globally recognized avatars" and give them your email address, whamo-bamo, your personal little pic shows up on their site.

since I tended to use the same avatar (and username) on every site I visit anyway, this seemed like an obvious solution to a problem I hadn't realized I had. so, I signed up.

now, there's a plugin for Thunderbird so you can see gravatars in your address book, and, of course, there's a plugin for wordpress, so you guys can see your pictures when you post comments.

all you need to do to set up your free gravatar is go to http://www.gravatar.com and sign up. The gravatars have to be approved manually, and they are rated, so if you submit porn, someone will see it and rate it appropriately. because of the approval process and the 1-avatar, 1-email address limit of the free account, it could be a chore if you wanted to occasionally swap out your avatars.

i'd love to see all the regular characters set up a gravatar, just 'cause i think it's fun, and y'know, i went to all the trouble of installing the plugin.

oh, and btw, happy birthday to the amazing sharon—officially not a youngster anymore.

BAM!

bipolar has been quiet for a while, but we have not been dormant. off in an anteroom, major changes have been brewing, and now, dear reader, the re-tooled bipolar is once again unleashed upon the world.

after the transition of MovableType from a free to a fee-based licensing scheme, i realized it would be untenable to follow through with the upgrade, since we are (or were at the time) running several different blogs by a few different authors from a single installation of MT. unfortunately, I also wasn't convinced about WordPress or any of the other alternatives, and didn't look forward to having several different installations of a CMS/blog package on a single server.

well, WordPress has come a long way, i've gotten over my no-multiple-installs stubbornness, and our installation of MT has finally grown so long in the tooth that it is slowly breaking down.

so, bipolar is now running entirely on WordPress, with all the old bells & whistles, plus a few new ones of considerable value.

major old features still in effect:
1) themes: all of bipolar's old themes are available, up-to-date, and much improved. go to the theme chooser from (very near the bottom of) the dropdown or links list on any bipolar page.
2) category cloud: see all our categories and how much we post in them visually by viewing them as a "cloud" rather than some boring old list.
3) bipolar cam: web cams are still in effect, and are back to their fully-themed glory.

major new features:
1) new pages/subpages: you're no longer tied down to the side-by-side view of bipolar. now category, archive, and sub-page views have their own page layout, hopefully making things easier to read.
2) popular, related, and recent lists: in various places you can now find lists of popular posts, potentially related posts (beyond simple category relations), and simple recent posts lists.
3) 404 page with way too much info: those lists, the categories and the archives are available if you get a 404, and the site will even attempt to show you a list of posts related to the thing you were looking for.
4) RSS feeds: WordPress allows us a much broader RSS feed smorgasbord—eeds for individual posts, post comments, categories.
5) search: MT had a search function, but i never implemented it 'cause i was lazy. WordPress has it built in as well, so i finally took the time to put it in place.
6) brand-new theme: i've created a swanky new theme, and made it the default. if you don't like, it no problem, just choose your favorite from the theme chooser

hopefully there won't be many broken things lying about, but i'm sure there will be some. if you find something, please let me know so i can get it fixed.

in the meantime, enjoy the new theme and all the other changes around this old place.