Tomorrow I am going to work on new meta tags for the headers of each of my sites. I started today with this site but meta information has changed since the early days when a title and description were enough. Not even a mention of adding keywords now. I guess the older tags are mostly abandoned for the new Open Graph, Twitter and Facebook tags. Everyone thinks they need to be famous. But that leaves no one left to just applaud.

I am using a post from the Moz site to update my meta tags.

I am also changing all my WordPress formatted content to sit back in a subdomain. I have done that much today, and put in temporary redirects. Then I am going to make a one page HTML page to lead into each part of the domain. Not everything is on WordPress. This has the bonus of making it MUCH easier to move out of WordPress while leaving my content unbroken.

Too much time spent today on looking at HTML editors, trying to find a simple template to adapt. When I ended up using one from One Page Love which I adapted in plain old Notepad. I notice my age when it comes to things like this. Before I would not have been intimidated by just going the mad scientist route and changing the template in Notepad. Now, I second guess and try to find a short cut or something that feels safer, with a guarantee of success. That is the sad part about being older, becoming just a little leery of stepping off into adventures.

It would be easier if I could see better. Each time I get the store to fix these glasses they seem ok. But, a few days later everything is blurry again. Not so bad for TV and such but harder to read anything on the computer screen. Most of the time I am reading with my head tipped far back so I can use the bifocal part of the lens to read what's in front of me.

Old is as old does. Has anyone ever said that?

I have a book to start learning Scribus, an open source desktop publishing program. That seems the best way evolve (still having content but not being dependent on WordPress).

Two things about WordPress are bothering me lately.

I've read about a partnership between Google and WordPress.

WordPress continues to support Gutenberg and plans to pull out the current, simple, unblocked editor.

Google collects and sells the information about you. Do you really want WordPress being in a partnership with that? I have written personal thoughts, ideas, and information into my WordPress sites. I never thought of it being picked up by machine algorithms and used against me. (Read more, search for "marketing dystopia").

Gutenberg, I tried the demo and the test plugin, just leave me feeling aggravated. I know how to type into the current editor, save it, check it and publish it. Then I can go on to do other things. (There are a lot of things to do when you run a few sites by yourself). Gutenberg is something else I am going to have to learn and those content blocks are one more complication I can do without. No thanks!

Add to that the other things which keep going missing from WordPress, the tools I use day to day. I am especially thinking of those bookmarklets, again. PressThis and LinkThis have made my life (the time I spend writing online) so much easier and smoother. It was so nice to collect a link as I find it in the web browser, add a note and then come back to the saved post later to finish and publish it. The reasons WordPress and WP enthusiasts have given for removing the bookmarklets sound hollow and phony to me. Since when did WordPress care so much about protecting content on other sites.

So, I am going to change how I do everything. Why not? I can think of a few good reasons mostly involving time and patience (mine). But, I have loved the zine scene, small self-publishing, with very few rules (other than those you choose yourself) for a long time. It could work.

I thought about going to Toronto WordCamp, the WordPress thing. But, I think it will be all about people making sites for clients and not just people making sites. I really dislike the marketing focus with so much online, not just WordPress. But, with WP it has become an obsession, almost a cult. If you aren't part of the marketing cult you are not allowed to have an opinion.

The WordCamp is focused on Gutenberg. A bad sign. Gutenberg seems to be a faster way for web developers to make cookie cutter sites for clients. It is all about that current fad of using content blocks. I'm already done with that. I don't like seeing blocks of content on sites and scrolling down through their coloured content bars. Move on to something else, please.

The rest of the WordCamp is about the future of WP. That would be interesting but... I expect the future the Gutenberg cookie cutter site people see is not the future I would like. I really wish I had found a better way to work with my content, a different CMS from WordPress. But, I tried that and ended up back at the start. For now. Don't think I have given up. I'm just suspending the mission for awhile.

I wrote to ask about the WordCamp in Toronto, Ontario. But, I never (yet) heard back from them. I think I didn't say all the right keywords.

My Blogger links are a mix of things. Some I started myself. Several I found abandoned from old submissions to dmoz/ Curlie. They are all things which interest me or ideas that sounded good at the time.

Backyard Exploring

Be Write Here

Big-Eyed Girls

Blog Resources

Breakfast on Social Media

Canada in Prehistory

Canadian Celebrities

Canadian Holidays

Canadian Ruins

Canadian Urban Exploration

Chaotic Neutral

Chocolate

Christmas ASCII Art

Conservative Blogger Chicks

Creative Horror Writing

Dark Tourism

Declassified Girl

Demolished Canada

Diane is in the Garden

Dinosaurs

Doodle Week

Dragon Friendly

Forgotten Canada

Future History

Gargoyles in Canada

Green Living History

Halloween ASCII Art

Happy Flickr

HerSelf at AQ3D

King Destroyer

Lost Ontario

Made in Canada

Micro Cars

Miniatures and Tiny People

Modern Apocalyptic

Modern Witch Fashion

Niche Marketing Strategy

Old Banks

Old Cemeteries Society of Ontario

Old Hotels

Old Houses in Canada

Old Lighthouses

Old Train Stations

Ontario Bloggers

Ontario Blogging Women

Ontario History

Ontario Podcast Network

Ontario Psychogeography

Ontario Railroads and History

Ontario Rural Ruins

Ontario Urban Exploration

Paper and PenPals

Paper Dolls

Paranormal Ontario

Pet Free

President of Her BookClub

Retro Futurism

Strange Ontario

Tales from the Graveside

Text Art

The Amateur Project

The Canadian Writer's Handbook

The Daily Him

The Dangerous Information Age

The Hand Drawn Map Association of Canada

The Internet Unplugged

The Men Who Made Me

The Obsolete Society of Ontario

The Old Canadian Recipes Project

The Pet Memorial

The Pet Rock Society

The Ragdoll Historical Society

The Silver Writers Society

The Spirit of Canada

Tiny House Ontario

Travels

Unplaces

Urban Decay Ontario

Wiccan Estate Sale

Window Display Artist

Wonderful Stuff

Worst Presents

Writer's Resource Site

Yours Respectfully Occupant of Earth

My Mother sent me this today. Makes me sad to see words disappear, like old buildings, typewriters, wrist watches and almost everything else. (I'm sure there are some things I would not miss should they disappear).

They forgot whippersnapper, or maybe that is older than the 50's and forgotten by more than one generation.

Love this one.....remember them all!

Murgatroyd, remember that word? Would you believe the email spell checker did not recognize the word Murgatroyd? Heavens to Murgatroyd!

Lost Words from our childhood: Words gone as fast as the buggy whip! Sad really!

The other day a not so elderly lady said something
to her son about driving a Jalopy and he looked at her quizzically and said "What the heck is a Jalopy?"
OMG (new phrase)! He never heard of the word jalopy!! She knew she was old.... but not that old. Well, I hope you are Hunky Dory after you read this and chuckle.

About a month ago, I illuminated some old expressions that have become obsolete because of the inexorable march of technology.

These phrases included "Don't touch that dial," "Carbon copy," "You sound like a broken record" and "Hung out to dry."

Back in the olden days we had a lot of 'moxie.' We'd put on our best 'bib and tucker' to' straighten up and fly right'.

Heavens to Betsy! Gee whillikers! Jumping Jehoshaphat! Holy moley!

We were 'in like Flynn' and 'living the life of Riley", and even a
regular guy couldn't accuse us of being a knucklehead, a nincompoop or a pill. Not for all the tea in China!

Back in the olden days, life used to be swell, but when's the last time anything was swell?

Swell has gone the way of beehives, pageboys and the D.A.; of spats, knickers, fedoras, poodle skirts, saddle shoes and pedal pushers...AND DON'T FORGET... Saddle Stitched Pants

Oh, my aching back! Kilroy was here, but he isn't anymore.

We wake up from what surely has been just a short nap, and before we can say, Well, I'll be 'a monkey's uncle!' Or, This is a 'fine kettle of fish'! We discover that the words we grew up with, the words that seemed omnipresent, as oxygen, have vanished with scarcely a notice from our tongues and our pens and our keyboards.

Poof, go the words of our youth, the words we've left behind
We blink, and they're gone. Where have all those great phrases gone?

Long gone: Pshaw, The milkman did it. Hey! It's your nickel.. Don't forget to pull the chain. Knee high to a grasshopper. Well, Fiddlesticks! Going like sixty. I'll see you in the funny papers. Don't take any wooden nickels. Wake up and smell the roses.

It turns out there are more of these lost words and expressions than Carter has liver pills. This can be disturbing stuff! ("Carter's Little Liver Pills" are gone too!)

We of a certain age have been blessed to live in changeable times. For a child each new word is like a shiny toy, a toy that has no age. We at the other end of the chronological arc have the advantage of remembering there are words that once did not exist and there were words that once strutted their hour upon the earthly stage and now are heard no more, except in our collective memory.

It's one of the greatest advantages of aging.

Leaves us to wonder where Superman will find a phone booth...

See ya later, alligator! After awhile crocodile

Okidoki

WE ARE THE CHILDREN OF THE FABULOUS 50'S..

NO ONE WILL EVER HAVE THAT OPPORTUNITY AGAIN...

WE WERE GIVEN ONE OF OUR MOST PRECIOUS GIFTS:

............OUR MEMORIES........