After a bit of tinkering today Cody got the plugin working for me that reads the rss feed from my Etsy shop and displays what’s for sale on a sidebar on my page. Scroll down a bit and you’ll see the list on my sidebar on the right in the Noelle’s Noodles box. Pretty cool.

He didn’t think the What I’m knitting plugin he made for the site had clean enough code to really share with the public but he made sure that this one was because we thought some people would be interested in this one.

It’s really a neat setup for people who are used to editing their wordpress blogs: install, activate, edit, add to the code. In the Options section you can specify how many items from your shop you want to show and how they’ll be displayed in the sidebar.

Disclaimer: We’re going to assume that you know how to go upload a plugin to your server and are pretty used to going in and editing your presentation code. There are a lot of places on the web that are better at teaching people how to do that kind of thing. One major piece of advice for everyone of any skill level: BACKUP your files before you change anything!

This is for the 2.1.2 version of WordPress - today’s most current public version as far as I know.

So here are the instructions for installing and activating:

- Download and extract bEtsy files

- Upload file ‘betsy.php’ to www.yoursite.com/wordpress/wp-content/plugins or wherever your wp installation is /wp-content/plugins

- Login to your wordpress dashboard and navigate to the “plugins page”

- Locate the bEtsy plugin in the list and click the “Activate” link

- Navigate to the “Options” menu and on to the “bEtsy” submenu

- Enter your Etsy shop feed URL (you should be able to find this link on your shop at the bottom of the right hand menu where the image “rss this shop” is.

- Specify any other html you want to come before and after the item lists.

- Navigate to “Presentation” and “Theme Editor” submenu.

- Place this link in your sidebar in whatever layout works for you.

- Check your links!

- Rss feed will update and change as items are sold!

In case you missed it, here’s the link to the plugin file again.

If you really like this plugin, please go tell Cody about it! He does a lot of cool stuff like this and I don’t think he realizes just how special his talents really are.

Busy couple of weeks. I’ve been feeling much better. Was a little traumatized after having, ya know, PINK EYE and all but the doctors gave me good meds and I’m all better now. A little rough-sounding in the mornings but otherwise doing pretty well. I’m hoping all these health problems are behind me because I’ve got a lot going on. A lot for me anyway.

Lots of big changes to tell you about.

If you’re reading this using bloglines or a feed-reader (if I’ve done my job right you can see these new posts using my old feeds, we’ll see) you might not know that I’ve got a whole new big spanking design. After years of futzing around with Movable Type and a few jobs for other people involving WordPress I decided to bite the bullet and convert my personal blog to WP. MT was the top of the line when I started this blog in 2004. I even got the pay version so I could have multiple blogs.

But the years have not been kind to MT while WP has aged like a fine wine. That seems to be the nature of open source - improving as people keep adapting it to suit them. So hooray for new site design! There are now actual functioning cookies for comments again, which means (if your browser accepts cookies) you won’t have to type your name and info in every time you comment like you used to on MT.

I only have one design ’skin’ for this site but having changing skins is a pretty old design trick anyway and has been a pain in the butt lately. Cody made this knitting hedgehog design for me. And he made a special WordPress plugin for me to keep up with my knitting projects on the sidebar. That guy’s pretty cool.

In other news I’ve been doing a lot of work on the Craftistas group too. We’re really getting moving on that. Getting all legitimate and shit. Beth’s working on a fee-free group shop for all the paid members while I’ve installed a Message Board and even made some fun variations on the logo to sell items at Cafe Press. Last night we gathered our squares for Project Compassion and we were all very proud to have 10 squares to send to Mama E.

We’re also getting moving on the Ugly Scarf Project, which should be fun.

You’ve probably noticed the dearth of photos lately. I’ve been on a photography boycott since Xmas. For some reason I just hate taking photos these days. Hate. It.

I haven’t even taken photos of the roof on the back porch that was picked up by the wind last Friday night, flew over our house, knocked the cap off of the chimney, and landed in the street in front of our house. I was out with Ashley and Christie and apparently Cody slept through the whole thing so the neighbors had to ring the bell to wake him up to let him know what had happened. So this mangled aluminum porch roof is sitting in our front yard waiting for the insurance adjuster to come take a look at it. I guess I should get some photos of that. But meh don’t feel like taking photos.

Hopefully that will change soon as I’ve got about ten thousand things to sell. Stitch markers, dyed yarn, handspun yarn, knit items. Even actual jewelry and pottery. Ha! Yes, I’m going to sell some things from the paint a pottery place. I’m pretty embarrassed about that. But not so much so that I won’t do it.

Anyway I hope you like the new design. I’ve still got a few little adjustments to make but it’s pretty much done now. And we’re going to be at Ladies’ Night at Art Attack this Friday night! Come paint dorky pottery with us!

You may have noticed that I’ve changed the default layout for the site again. To the “Cotton Candy” design, which I also fixed up a bit. It seemed like it needed a little love. If you’d like to change to the default design just click here. Be sure to hold your ctrl key and click the refresh or reload button to be sure it’s the right one. Or feel free to change to whatever layout you like using the gallery.

I also fixed the problems the “Neapolitan” skin was having in Inernet Explorer. Or I think I have. I’ve checked the skins in Mozilla, Firefox, Opera, and IE. I haven’t gotten screenshots from the Safari generator so who knows what that looks like. I’ve also finally fixed the links list. In the links section of the sidebar there’s a “blogrolls” form button. Click on it and you’ll get a matching popup list of some of my bloglines - yeah I have a LOT of bloglines subs.

Here’s an example that matches the new default skin:

I have not figured out what’s going on with the “remember me” cookie function in the comments section. I think I’ll have to go in and tinker with the headers in all the skins to have this work universally. I also haven’t checked to see if there’s a new version of Movable Type that may have fixed this. However, if you log in using a (free) Typekey account, it does seem to remember you that way. And it will work in all capable versions of Movable Type as well as all Typepad websites. But I’ll get this remember function fixed someday. I know it’s a pain.

I feel somewhat ashamed that I work harder fixing other people’s sites than my own. Seems to be a sort of “cobbler’s children having no shoes” type of situation. But I’m trying a little on mine anyway.

In related shoe news, Cody and I braved it over to the Coronado Mall yesterday and I had some fun visiting the Torrid store. It’s always interesting to see the stuff in person as opposed to the online store. This shirt is much better looking in person. It looks like barf on the site though. This, while it looks cool on the site looks like cheapo trash in person. And I’d been wavering back and forth on getting this shirt online but wasn’t sure. Then saw it in person and really wasn’t sure. But when I tried it on I couldn’t believe how flattering it actually was. Particularly since it’s fitted in the belly area, which usually means very bad things. But the panel down the middle with ruching on the side looks really good!

So I got a few things and got a chance to use up one of those “ten punches for 15% off” cards. Which was nice. And we found a shoe store across the hall from the Torrid which seems to be closing and has DOC MARTENS ON SALE! Cody finally found two pairs that were comfortable enough for him. Is it strange I find him sexier wearing them? And I got a cute pair that’s pretty close to what I wanted. For twenty bucks. Let me say that again: Doc Martens for 20 bucks.

In beverage news (ha) there’s a Boba Tea Company in the mall now. Of course this is the mall that’s clear across town from our house, not the one that’s just down the hill. We still have to cross the river and I-25 to get to Bubble Tea. But isn’t that weird? Bubble Tea in a mall. And I got to use another one of those “ten punches for a free smoothie” cards at Keva Juice. Go me being a conscientious consumer.

We never did get to Trader Joe’s. Maybe next week? We did get to the regular grocery store though so I’ll get to eat this week yay.

Remember my little hedgesanta game? Well, I saved the names I didn’t draw in December in a little box and have been planning to do one drawing a month this year. Let’s hope I can remember (and afford it) every month.

This month’s lucky winner is Fiona! I’ll be picking out a little bauble from her wishlist and sending it off today.

Oh, if you signed up before and would rather have a donation made to a charity in your name instead just let me know and I’ll update it in my notes. Then if I draw your name I’ll just post which charity you wanted and a link to your site. k?

More prezzies:

I could kick myself over and over for this, I missed my favorite Bad Kitty’s birthday! Gaaah! So please go wish her many happy returns and convince her I’m not an oblivious forgetful ass, even if I kinda am. I’m working on a present for her that I promised a long time ago so hopefully that will make up for it! (And hopefully I can finish it tonight because I’ve got a job to work on tomorrow.)