Returning Renault Bears to a worthwhile life of daytime telly, eating jammy toast and surfing the internet.
Posts tagged WordPress
Get A Free Blog
Mon 16th Aug 2010
From time to time people have asked us how they go about starting their own blog. We usually point them in the direction of Blogger or WordPress.com where they can start their own blog free of charge. Both of these sites offer a chance for newbies to produce professional looking blogs of their own very quickly.
The only drawback to using any of these services is you have to use their layouts and themes and you cannot easily make your blog look just the way you want it. In the case of Blogger it is possible if you know some PHP programming and in WordPress.com if you pay a fee for the service, usually a few dollars a month.
This is where The Bears have now stepped in.
We are offering any of our Bear Friends (sorry, offer is open to Official Bear Friends only) the chance to start up and run their very own WordPress blog completely free of charge. The blog will be hosted by us but you can design your own artwork and choose a free layout theme for your blog.
There is no catch whatsoever, everything is free and will remain free for as long as we decide to run it. We are simply doing this so that others might start to enjoy blogging as much as we do. There is no catch!
Your blog can be on any subject you like. It can be about the things you do from day to day, or can be based around a hobby or pastime you enjoy. If you would like an example of what a blog can look like go and look at Granny’s Blog. Granny’s Blog is hosted in the same way as yours will be and will include all the features included on Granny’s and more if you desire.
Here are some examples of just what can be done with a WordPress blog…
http://tellerallaboutit.wordpress.com/
http://settysoutham.wordpress.com/
If you fancy becoming a blogger all you need to get started is tell us the following…
- Name. Your blog will require a name from which to operate. (e.g. Mary’s Blog)
- Layout Theme. If you search online, there are plenty of free themes available for WordPress. You can search for them using Google (just type in “free WordPress theme”) and once you find the one you like just tell us what it is called and where we can download it. We will do the rest.
- Artwork. This will be required if your theme involves a header imagine like the one we have used as an example above. If you are not very good with design or photo editing we can help you with this to get you started.
We are quite willing to help you set your blog up and help with the initial installation and artwork. We can also offer help with posting videos and photographs the first time you choose to do so. However, once your blog is up and running you will be the one who decides what to write about and what to include in your blog.
Unfortunately, we do not have the time to spend hours helping everyone write and edit posts and the day to day administering of your blog. Once your blog is up and running it will be your responsibility to maintain it. We can point you in the direction of online manuals and documentation but it is up to you to read it. We will try to help you if we can, but this will be when we have some spare time.
If you would like us to help get readers for your blog, then we can also give you a link from our own blog to try to get other Bear Friends interested. However, if you would rather keep it secret we can block anyone from finding it, including search engines like Google.
Blogging can be fun; we have all found that out over the years we have been running this blog. If you would like to experience it for yourself, just give us a shout and we will help get you started.
Latest Bear News…
Fri 14th May 2010
WordPress have just released the second beta of WordPress 3.0, our blogging software, and Edward has been experimenting with some of the new features over on our test site. Some of these features, including the new menu interface, look great and we have to admit we are extremely impressed. For the benefit of those who do not know, WordPress is open source software that means it is free and is developed by a team of volunteers helped by a strong user community. We have to say that being part of this community and having a say in what is included in new versions is exhilarating. Keep up the excellent work WordPress – we love you!
My name is Earl, or is it Razzi?
You may have noticed we have a new header graphic on the blog, made by our very own Egginanoo. We are always looking at things to improve on the blog and although we love the new graphic, Egginanoo is still not happy with it so it may change again. Watch this space.
We would like to apologise to anyone who has been speaking to Razzi on MSN lately. Unfortunately, we have been watching old episodes of “My Name is Earl” and it has gone to Razzi’s head. We know how open to suggestion Bears can be, well Razzi has been pretending to be Earl Hickey and he even has a list he is attempting to remove things from – if that makes no sense to you, you obviously do not watch the programme. We fear worse is about to follow, because last night he was watching “The Royal Family”. Just to warn you, if Jim Royal pops up on your MSN tonight we would suggest you take anything he says with a pinch of salt!
We read a very interesting news item today that we thought we would warn people about. We have to confess we do not always put our brains into gear before we publish things on our blog. This has gotten us into hot water previously, but we have not gone as far as the one man. He was annoyed about missing a plane because Nottingham Airport was closed under heavy snow. He posted on his Twitter account, “Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your s**t together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!” The authorities decided his tweet was too close to a threat and prosecuted him. He has been prosecuted and fined £385 with £600 and a £15 surcharge. Furthermore, this man now has a criminal record.
Be careful what you say out there people!
Latest Bear News…
Sun 2nd May 2010
We thought we would use today’s post to bring you up to date with all things Bear related. When we give our opinion on matters happening in the news, it is easy to lose track on just what is happening here at the Bear Sanctuary.
Last Sunday we reported we would be taking extra steps to stop hackers who were trying to abuse the Bear Blog. Although it means you cannot now open a “Friend” account without our help, it does mean we have stopped the hackers in their tracks. The only attacks we have experienced this past week are the continuing attack of the spammers. Thanks to WordPress and Akismet this is only a minor irritation.
Don’t forget, if you wish to become a Friend of The Bears, just drop an email to friends [@] renaultbears [.] com with your details and we send you a username and password to start your account off. Remember to leave the square brackets and spaces out of the email address.
Keep an eye open next week for a further development in the story Private Robert Jones, VC. He was the hero of the Battle of Rorke’s Drift we featured last Monday. We will let you more of the development next week as soon as we have all the details. However, it does look like good news.
We had hoped to let you know how the Blacksmith’s Arms FC team had faired yesterday but unfortunately the Lincoln Saturday League website is months out of date. We will let you know the result as soon as we find out ourselves.
All is quiet on the eBay front right now, although Edward is monitoring the situation closely.
Finally, our very own Andrea has gone to Alton Towers today so keep your and eye open in case she makes the national press. She has just reported in to tell us she has been on the Pirate ship and stood in the queue for Oblivion for an hour. Unfortunately, there was a shorter queue for the Log Flume so she now has a soaking wet bum!
All The Bears hope you have a great Sunday and remember… Let’s be careful out there!
Latest Bear News…
Fri 12th Mar 2010
We are planning to make some changes to the blog over the weekend. Providing we get the time, Edward will be changing over to using a different version of WordPress. We are not sure how long this change will take so we thought we had better warn everyone in case we are down for a prolonged period. We should be able to start the change over on Saturday afternoon and if everything goes according to plan, we should be back up and running an hour or so later.
However, we have no experience with this other version of WordPress and so it is going to be a steep learning curve. If anything goes wrong, or if we need longer than we originally planned, then the blog maybe down for a longer period.
During the changeover, you will not be able to view the blog and your browser will report an error. Do not worry; we will get the site back up and running as soon as we can. Once the changeover is made, if you visit the blog prior to us reinstalling the Mystique theme and restoring all our articles from backups, then the results may be unpredictable – please be patient.
In case you are interested, we are changing over to WordPress MU. This is the multi-user version of WordPress designed for running more than one blog. We are making the changes to enable us to run a second test blog alongside our existing blog to enable use to test new plug-ins and design elements prior to making them permanent on the main blog. WordPress MU is the version of WordPress used by everyone from Yahoo to the New York Times, so it should be good enough for a few Bears.
We hope that the changes will be over in an hour or so without any major upheaval but please be patient with us if this is not the case.
Have a great weekend 
Thank You…
Thu 26th Nov 2009
Today we thought we would take a day out from the normal day-to-day activity of the Blog to record our thanks to some people who usually don’t even get a mention. However, without these people it would be impossible for us to bring you all the latest tales of The Bear’s exploits. Many of these people work without pay; they do it purely for the love of it.
First off, we have WordPress, which, for those of you who do not know, is an Open Source Content Management System. Put simply, it is the system that runs our blog behind the scenes. They have recently won the Overall Best Open Source CMS Award at the 2009 Open Source CMS Awards. It is our publishing system of choice and it doesn’t even cost a penny – a whole host of volunteers maintains it. It is like the Microsoft Office of the blogging world except because it is open source we get to download it and all updates free of charge. In addition, just because it is free, doesn’t mean it is not straight out of the top draw with some of the best support available through the Codex and Forums.
Every day thousands of new people turn to WordPress to power not just their blogs but also to control full sites and communities like our own. They do this safe in the knowledge that because they are opting for the open source option they are not compromising on usability or scalability, as is the case with many paid for legacy CMS systems. Everybody involved with the WordPress community, from developers down to users like ourselves, is part of the overall experience. We share ideas and all gain from the experiences of other users.
Without WordPress, this blog would not be here today.
Another who is responsible for a great deal of work behind the scenes if Milenko over at digitalnature. He is the person responsible for our WordPress theme: Mystique. Mystique is a free WordPress theme that attempts to top commercial themes in terms of its design and functionality and includes one of the best, advanced user interfaces of any commercial theme we have seen.
For those of you who know nothing about blogging: if you think of the blog as a car, then WordPress would be the engine and chassis while the theme would be the bodywork and the way everything looks to the user. Milenko works tirelessly on this theme, which only today we have upgraded to version 1.30, and again he releases it under the GPL Open Source agreement and asks only for donations for his work. Just as with WordPress, a user community who share ideas and experiences helps Mystique.
Those of you who have been following our blog for a while will know we have had some terrible experiences with Web Hosting in the past. However, since we have transferred everything over to Just Host everything has just worked. They have proven to be one of the most reliable web hosting companies we have dealt with. Their service is fast, reliable and all at a very reasonable price. Furthermore, their response to requests for technical support is swift and helpful. It is easy to say; “well that is what they get paid for,” but so many other services are not the same. We hope you are listening Weycrest!
The following are people who work on WordPress plug-ins to add features to our blog and as such deserve our thanks…
- Matt Mullenweg for Akismet (Anti-Spam)
- Marco Cimmino for CIMY User Extra Fields (User Database Registration fields)
- Keith Solomon for Configurable Tag Cloud (Tag Cloud)
- WP Marketing for the Hana FLV Player (Embedded Video Player)
- Hannah Gray for Profile Pic (Profile Photographs)
- Simon Bruchner for Show Authors Without Posts
- Lester Chan for WP-PageNavi (Advanced Paging)
Finally, we would like to thank you all for dropping by from time-to-time and reading of our exploits. We run this blog for fun and we have a great time doing it but it would get mighty lonely around here without you all.
Thank you.
…and hey, let’s be careful out there!
Blog Problems
Mon 17th Aug 2009
One or two people, well Linzi mainly, have been having trouble updating their profile picture on the blog and are blaming the blog or WordPress for this. Can we just assure you it is nothing to do with the blog or WordPress?
When your browser (Internet Explorer or Firefox, etc) downloads a web page then it saves any pictures from the site in what is called a local cache. If you then go back to the site and a picture has changed your browser will not download the new picture and so you will see the older picture taken from your locally stored cache. If you update your picture on the profile and it doesn’t appear to have worked just simply press the “F5” key and it will update the picture stored in your local cache and you will see your new picture.
Unfortunately, some people continue to delete their picture and update it over and over again and end up going off to bed in a huff with themselves or start blaming the Bears! Don’t we Linzi? Just remember the “F5” key and all will be well and good. If in doubt consult your browsers online help before throwing your computer out of the Window.
We are well aware that as we add new features to the blog it gets more and more complicated to use. Having User Profiles can sometimes be a little difficult to master. So please, don’t forget, if you are having any problems with the blog then just drop us a line we are always happy to help.
Edward is a very clever Bear, he can usually sort out even the most complicated problems.
Our Anniversary
Mon 10th Aug 2009
If you check back to yesterday’s post you will see a comment from “Teena” in Canada wishing us a Happy Blogoversary. At first we were a little confused because we still have 150 days left until our Blogoversary. For those who are a little unsure, a Blogoversary is simply the Anniversary of the starting of your Blog. However, it turns out that today is the Second Anniversary of us starting the original Bear Blog over on Blogger.
A lot of things have happened since those days and an awful lot of water has flown under the bridge. Furthermore, it is over three years since Queen Anastasia and myself sat down one boring Sunday and decided to start our own blog off. This resulted in us writing stories about our days out and making the most rediculous videos to ever disgrace YouTube. Then things began to get really serious!
About two and a half years ago Tony asked us to take his Renault Bear on holiday with us and the whole Bear thing started. Firstly on Queen Anastasia’s blog, where we kept track of the exploits of Eddie & Co, then two years ago today we moved them over to the original Save The Renault Bears blog. Earlier this year we moved over to WordPress to host our own blog to give us a greater control over its appearance and features.
Back when we first started the original Bear blog off we only had eleven Bears, now we have over eighty and it takes a Bearkeeper and three full-time Apprentice Bearkeepers to look after them all.
If you are feeling a little nostalgic you can read about the Bears exploits right from the start on these two blogs…
We really have had a lot of fun doing these blogs during this time and I feel sure they will continue for a long time yet. Happy Blogoversary guys!
