Hi y’all. I updated the plugins and the WordPress version just now. Everything still seems to be functioning? Keep it real. Keep it safe. Wordzzzz.

And that world is Corpus Christi. So, when I’m not doing things like, working on the crazy WordPress Multi-Site which is this blog network, I’m doing way too many podcasts. You of course are aware of the fishing podcast, Last Cast Podcast, where my fishing buddy Jamey and I do a live taping of our attempts to catch fish and the ribald jokery which goes on when we’re alone out in the canoe.

You’re probably also aware of This Week in the Multiverse, where my old Space Squid colleague and former co-editor of the RevolutionSF.com fiction section, Steve Wilson and I tell the stories of Sioux Cantu across all his different versions of the multiverse.

You may also be aware of the spin-off Bad Roll Models podcast where Steve and Jamey and a few other surly customers play vintage 80s RPGs.

Well, all of this comes together with Corpus Thunder, a podcast where Jamey and I bring some of the characters from Bad Roll Models and This Week in the Multiverse, to the seedy detective stories of Corpus Christi, Texas. It’s a perfect storm, a confluence if you will, of many podcasts come together.

As your friendly neighborhood WordPress webmaster, I would like to remind everyone that I have not forgotten about the Revblogs. Just now I have logged in and updated plugins and shook a broom at the cobwebs left by the internet spiders.

An exciting new addition to the blog system is Accelerated Mobile Pages, or AMP for those who are hip. This is in part an improved protocol to deliver mobile-friendly web content, and also another creepy Google scheme to take over the world. You don’t really have to do anything with it, it’s enabled in basic default mode on your blog right now. Just add /amp to the end of any blog post URL like this:
http://www.revolutionsf.com/revblogs/blog/2017/revsf-movie-probe-survivor/amp/
And a generic mobile page will pop up. Let me know if you have any questions. It’s actually much more complicated than what I just said, but in practice it’s easy as pie.

I just updated several plugins and some themes on the WordPress installation. I don’t expect that to cause troubles, but if you notice anything which is behaving unusually on your blogs, let me know.

Hey, y’all!

I was sitting around, staring at a computer monitor like normal, and I thought, if I’m not on the RevBlogs every day, there should probably be some security. So I popped in to install the WordFence security plugin. This has got a bunch of nifty features, like a firewall which blocks a lot of anticipated attacks, a brute force blocker, and an automatic malware scanner. This shouldn’t cause you any problems, except that you can get locked out for inputting the wrong password too many times. But your blog admin email should get you back in. Let me know if you run into any snags or problems!

I also updated all the network wide plugins. If you notice anything odd with your sites from that too, let me know.

I’ve put together recurring analytics report emails for two of the blogs on this site. Why two? Because I could quickly come up with the email addresses of those two.

If you want one of your own (they’re in PDF and have more information than you probably want) and you don’t get one on Monday, then drop me a line and I’ll set you up.

Howdy, RevBloggers! I’ve been doing some maintenance to the blogs today. WordPress has been updated to the most current version, as well as all the plugins which you know and love.

If you’re interested in tracking the visitors to your site, I’ve just implemented the StatCounter plugin. This requires a sign-in at the StatCounter site to activate for your individual blog. I have not actually tried this myself, so I don’t know if that will work. Let me know if you try it!

Also, there’s been some snafus with the Google Analytics tracking, which I had thought was working fine, but in fact it had completely disappeared, apparently some time ago. This is probably because the themes on a multi-site installation are prone to updating and destruction of any hard-coded javascript additions.

So, I spent most of this afternoon figuring out how to enqueue Google Analytics javascript snippets into the header of every sub-site in the RevBlog network. If you’re googling the answer to this question, the secret is to put a micro-plugin into the folder /wp-content/mu-plugins. Here’s the code:

This doesn’t necessarily help you if you’re a regular blogger who just wants to see how many people are reading your posts. I believe I can have a larger drilldown of performance emailed to you on a regular basis, with all the funky little details which makes Google Analytics so powerful. Let me know if you want one of those, and I’ll set you up.

This is your last day to put in nominations for the Hugos. Which is assuming you’re already a member of WorldCon, the previous Texas one or the upcoming LonCon in London.

As it’s a Texas-ish publication, you should consider RevolutionSF for fanzine and the RevCast for the new fancast category.

Here’s some more suggestions, mainly people I owe a favor to, but nevertheless they’re all totally deserving!

Novelette

Babylon Moon by Matthew Bey

Short story

texas died for somebody’s sins but not mine – By Stina Leicht
I Will Trade With You — by J. M. McDermott

Best Graphic Story

Black Science
Sex Criminals
Adventures of the Red Panda

Editor Short Form

Rick Klaw

Professional Artist

John Picacio

Semi-Prozine

The Drabblecast

Fanzine

Space Squid
RevolutionSF
Bookworm Blues
My Bookish Ways

Fancast

Revcast
SF Signal Podcast
We’re Alive: A story of survival

John W. Campbell Award

Max Gladstone
Marshal Ryan Maresca
Rhonda Eudaly