Mike Mertsock

Some history

This is the second major version of mertsock.com. The last version of my site is still online — I’m still using some of those old pages while I work on converting everything to this new version. Eventually, that site will go completely offline.

This new version features a sparkly new blog powered by WordPress. I am also reorganizing the other content, consolidating fluff, putting more focus on my portfolio and (coming soon) online photo albums.

I installed WordPress at around 8:00 AM on May 14, 2005 — the morning of my college graduation. Literally by 8:07 AM the blog was operational and my first post was visible for all the world. A supremely easy installation. Then, I began creating my own set of templates (contact me if you would like the source code) and began adding pages to the site. I have begun posting regularly to the blog, and am still working at the style sheets and getting all the pages up.

This time around, I aim for the site to be 100% valid XHTML and CSS, with semantic markup and multiple style sheets and all of that good stuff. I implemented the cool expandable blue/gray bubbly boxes using the sliding doors CSS technique, as I learned it on A List Apart and from some individuals.

Using this site

This site has two main sections: the blog and the “topics” pages. The main pages of both sections are accessible through the navigational links at the top, above the main title. There are some “meta” links on top too for accessibility and to get more information about the site. Most pages, except for photo albums, have an additional set of context-sensitive navigational links (which appear on the side of the screen if you visit using a traditional full-size web browser). These links suggest categories and pages related to the current post or topic, list archives and more meta links, and allow navigation out of and deeper into the current category or topic.

About me

I am a graduate student in computer science at RIT. Web programming is my greatest professional strength. I enjoy taking on freelance projects in just about any area of software or web development. Contact me for more information.

About RSS

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a technology that provides the flexibility to access chronological data (such as a blog) in any way you want. You can subscribe to an RSS feed using a special reader program, a modern email application such as Mozilla Thunderbird, a modern web browser such as Mozilla Firefox or Opera, or online aggregator services. The main advantage is that you can subscribe to a variety of feeds and scan updates to all of your favorite web sites in one place, without going through the mechanics of visiting all of them repeatedly.

WordPress plugins in use

I already have my WordPress system customized with a few plugins, and am considering writing some plugins based on the trickier programming this web site requires. Here’s what is in use right now…

Hello Dolly 1.0 by Matt Mullenweg

The best thing since “Hello, world” and the world’s first official WordPress plugin.

Post Updated R1 by Kaf Oseo

As these non-blog-post pages change, you can check the “Updated” date at the bottom of each page to see if there are any new changes. Showing the date updated rather than the date created is not easy to do without this plugin.

Google Sitemaps 2.7 by Arne Brachhold

Automates the creation and broadcasting of a machine-readable sitemap, using the Google Sitemap standard. My blog post talks more about this.

Permalinks Redirect 0.3 by Scott Yang

A simple plugin to ensure that visitors access each blog page or post using one consistent URL. I think this helps search engines and statistics engines do a better job collecting good information.

Official Comments by Brett Taylor

Adds some functions to customize the appearance/content of comments posted by the blog author. I use it to add a little icon other decorations to my comments — very easy to use.