I just wanted to give a quick heads up that at some point over the next 24-48 hours you may experience some DTW downtime. I’m moving my site to a new hosting company and that would be the root cause. I could either break something (frighteningly likely) or there could be some funniness as the change propagates through DNS. Also, if you leave a comment between now and the move it may disappear. I’m not deleting it, but if the comment hits the old server instead of the new one, well, it will just be gone.
If you are having problems, drop me a note on twitter (@billfer). I’ll also post updates with problems/status there as well.
I’m doing this now because traffic and news usually dip around this time of year. Hopefully it won’t be too disruptive.
Thanks for your patience.
UPDATE: It appears that everything is moved over and complete. Hopefully this speeds things up on the site a little bit, and resolves the downtime that the site has been experiencing. My former host said I had outgrown their site, and DTW was the site crashing their servers. I don’t get that exactly, especially on low volume days, but I’ve moved up from shared hosting to a virtual private server so let’s hope this works.
In an effort to enhance the site, I’ll be trying something new. I’m calling it Detroit Tigers Weblog Live, which is me streaming on ustream.tv. I’ve never done this before, so that’s why I’m calling it the pilot.
Friday at 11 a.m. I’ll be “on the air” talking about the Tigers offseason and this whole Jack Wilson business. If you go to the ustream.tv site you’ll see the video and a chat box where you can mock me and ask questions. If things go as planned I’ll have the show recorded and I’ll post it later.
Hopefully you can tune in. Hopefully it works. Hopefully I don’t suck.
Every offseason I realize that after looking at this site for a whole year I’m tired of it. I need to freshen things up a little. I also discover there are some functional things that I’m not really happy with, and so I try to fix those as well. So every year about this time I break out the toolbox and start hammering away behind the scenes. With that I present DTW 2009. I’d go with version numbers but I can’t keep track anymore.
I kept things fairly similar to what has been here in the past appearance wise with a few tweaks to hopefully improve readability. But below the surface everything has been gutted thanks to the wonderful Thesis theme. It’s a highly customizable and somewhat sexy wordpress theme that should allow me even great flexibility to make changes in the future. It is also much more sound structurally than my former theme which actually started out as Kubrick at one point and was heavily modified into its current state (if the last few sentences mean nothing to you, just know that the new stuff is better).
Also, older stuff can sometimes break and I don’t have the inclination to go through 3000 posts and see if they all still look okay. So if you see broken stuff please let me know. This is most helpful if you provide the page, the problem, and your browser. Thanks!
The only functional change at this time is Gravatar support. Gravatars are those little pictures by your names in the comments. To get one go that Gravatar link, and when you comment here just use the same email address that you did to sign up for the Gravatar.
I do have some more changes coming to the comment area, and that should happen with the release of WordPress 2.7 which should be soon. In the meantime let me know what you think of the new look. I’m still building out the sidebars with the links from the old site, it’ll just take me some time because I’m going to do it right. And I’ll probably still make a few tweaks here and there.
If you’re a Twitter user, I created a new profile that just tracks Detroit Tigers news. It is @TweetingTigers. I’ve set it up to pull in the RSS feeds from all Tigers blogs (well, I’m working towards all and plan to get there) and I’m planning to add in the Tiger related feeds from the big dailies as well. The result, you get notified whenever a Tigers blogger or another traditional Tigers source posts a story.
As an aside, if you’re interested in following my updates you can do so @billfer.
As a further aside, or what should probably be a precursor, Twitter is a microblogging service. Think of it as a cross between blogging and instant messaging. If you’re interested in learning more Twitter has a how-to video and Darren Rowse recently launched a blog of called TwiTip.
Detroit Tigers Weblog (as well as my other sites) were hacked this week. Thanks to those of you who contacted me via email and Twitter to give the heads up.
For those of you coming directly to the site you probably didn’t notice anything different. But for those who come from Google or Yahoo, you were being redirected to another site. This appears to be a pretty widespread problem for blogs powered by WordPress at the moment.
I have everything corrected now, but I don’t know how to ensure it doesn’t happen again. So if you see more of the weirdness, don’t hesitate to contact me. Sorry for any confusion and frustration this may have caused.
I’ll be on the It Is What It Is show with Sean Baligian on WDFN 1130 this morning. I’m slated to be on at 10:35 so if you’re interested you can catch the stream. If the audio is available I will post that later today.
UPDATE: Here’s the audio from today: [audio:http://a1135.g.akamai.net/f/1135/18227/1h/cchannel.download.akamai.com/18227/podcast/DETROIT-MI/WDFN-AM/bill.mp3?CPROG=PCAST&MARKET=DETROIT-MI&NG_FORMAT=sports&SITE_ID=1128&STATION_ID=WDFN-AM&PCAST_AUTHOR=Sports_Radio_1130_WDFN&PCAST_CAT=sports&PCAST_TITLE=WDFN_-_Sean_Baligian] or you can download it.
I’ll be on WDET 101.9 FM talking about the Tigers and their losing ways at 10:40 this morning. If you’re so inclined you can flip the dial there, or hit a preset, or get the stream from WDET.org
UPDATE: Here’s the audio. I’m on about 45 minutes in.
[audio:http://www.wdetfm.org/audio/detroittoday/386/FRI_full_show_5-16.MP3]
I’ll be on WDFN 1130AM (wdfn.com) this morning at 10:35 am. I’ll be on It is What it Is with Sean Baligian. As always, I’ll post the audio when it is available. You’ll also be able to find on the WDFN podcast page.
I’m pretty excited that I’ll be participating in a Detroit sports blogger roundtable on WDET 101.9 FM on Tuesday morning. I’m excited because first I love talking about blogging. But second, the other participants in the group are: Big Al of The Wayne Fontes Experience and Side Lion Report, Matt Watson of Detroit Bad Boys, and Bruce Macleod of Red Wings Corner and The Macomb Daily.
The discussion is part of the Detroit Today program and is set to kick-off at 11 am. If you’re in the area you can tune in at 101.9 FM or via their website if you’re anyplace else.
UPDATE: We’re getting bumped for the president. He decided to make a speech today and WDET will be airing that. Perhaps Wednesday morning at 10am.
Bumping this to reflect the new program time: 10am April 30th
UPDATE: Here is the audio from the show. We’re on about 15 minutes in. It was fun being in the studio and talking shop with fellow blogger Matt Watson. The segment lasts 15-20 minutes, but it seemed to fly by.
[audio:http://www.wdetfm.org/audio/detroittoday/371/WEDNDESDAY.MP3]
I’ll be on WDFN this morning at 10:35 this morning talking Tigers with host Sean Baligian. So if you’re in the Detroit area tune into 1130 AM. If you’re any place you can listen to the stream on WDFN.com. If you miss it the audio will be posted both here, and on the WDFN podcast page this afternoon.
UPDATE: Here’s the noise. Thanks as always to Sean for the opportunity.
[audio:http://a1135.g.akamai.net/f/1135/18227/1h/cchannel.download.akamai.com/18227/podcast/DETROIT-MI/WDFN-AM/ferris.mp3?CPROG=PCAST&MARKET=DETROIT-MI&NG_FORMAT=sports&SITE_ID=1128&STATION_ID=WDFN-AM&PCAST_AUTHOR=Sports_Radio_1130_WDFN&PCAST_CAT=sports&PCAST_TITLE=WDFN_-_Sean_Baligian]
I’ll be making another appearance on It is what it is with Sean Baligian. You can listen in on WDFN 1130 or wdfn.com starting at 10:35 a.m. on Friday morning.
UPDATE: It will be 11:05 instead.
UPDATE 2: The segment is on the WDFN podcast page if you’re interested.
I’ll be talking Tigers with Sean Baligian on WDFN 1130 this morning. It looks like I’ll be on at 10:35. So if you’re driving around this morning, flip on the radio and take a listen. WDFN also streams over the internet so you can listen in on WDFN.com.
Update: Here is the bulk of the interview. I was actually on a few minutes more but this is most of it. Thanks to Sean and WDFN for the opportunity and to everyone for the kind comments.
