Ok folks we’re finally up and running on WordPress.
Dave helped me with the tedious conversion - Thanks Dave!

Now we should see a marked reduction (if not elimination) of the ridiculous spam that was flooding the site.

There are a few things you should know about the new system.

1) Your user name was saved - but your password was not.
(For security reasons even I do not have access to that data)

If you want to log in - you can use the “I forgot my password” link to get a new one if you’d like.

Of course you don’t really NEED to log in but it will save you some time.
Logged in users don’t need to enter in the security code to prove they are human. And of course the site will remember logged in users’ info … so less typing all around.

2) There are still some loose ends.

I am still going back and tagging old Blogs with appropriate categories…
This is a tedious process and may take some time.
Until it’s complete just know that if you click the “poker” icon at the top of the page you may or may not be seeing ALL relevant posts

Also the links, and Resume pages are not 100% just yet.

3) New Navigation concept.

The icons at the top of the page will take you to all posts with the categories that the icons represent.

I think that’s neat… but please know that those are not the ONLY categories.
As you peruse the site, should you stumble upon a post that has an interesting category… click it! There may be many more posts in that genre.

4) Photos to be re-done as well.

Soon (I hope) I will have the photos section moved over to a new (more robust) solution. Once that’s done expect a lot more photos of Ethan to be posted.

Attention !!!

The stupid slime eating hackbas have been filling my site with spam faster than I can delete them.

I can no longer allow links to porn and drugs to clutter the site.

To that end commenting has been disabled.

I am working on a long term fix and will post again when commenting functionality is restored.

ATTENTION Friends, Family, and Loyal Readers:

As you may have noticed DougMeade.com has been getting flooded with “comment spam”.

Some idiot hackbas that post porn links and what not on any site that lets them post a comment have found our little internet gem.

(if you know what hackbas means then you have truly been with DougMeade.com for a long time… comment with it’s meaning and perhaps I’ll send you a free DougMeade.com T-Shirt!)

Anyway…

There are a couple of things I COULD do to stop said hackbas.
I could build a security application into my site.
But that would take some time and effort that honestly… I’d rather not expend.

Or… I could move the site over to an entirely new system.
A “best of breed” blogging application.

There are pros and cons for each possible solution.

The UPSIDE of moving to a new system is that I will get away from my “built from scratch custom” web site.

While I used to take great pride in running such a web site… as I get older I find myself with less and less time to keep it up to speed with all the latest cutting-edge technologies.
(thus the hackba spammmers).
I still want to USE the latest cutting-edge technologies … I just don’t have the time I once did to write my own version of them.

The DOWNSIDE is that once the site was moved over all you wonderful registered users would likely have to follow the “I forgot my password” link to reset your DougMeade.com password and thus initialize it in the new site.
Annoying? Yes.
But a small price to pay if it means the end of spamming hackas.

Please post here if you have any strong opinion / emotion on this proposed solution.

By the way - anyone who posts a definition of Hackbas without a relevant comment regarding the possible move to a new web application will not be eligible for the T-Shirt.

If you aren’t gonna read the whole blog you don’t deserve one.

If you read the whole blog - take the time to comment - but don’t bother to say something relevant … you don’t deserve one.

The links to my friends, family, and daily Blog intake will be back.

It’s not gone forever, I just haven’t added them to the theme.

Stay tuned… I’ll update this story when it’s all back up and running.