Protecting the Castle

Darcy Place

bam_tower12_squareToday we have another wonderful example of how much creativity runs in our family!

Darren’s oldest son is an extraordinary builder, blocks, Legos, etc.

This castle is one of his favorite creations. He’s always liked to display his projects around his room for weeks or months at a time.

Once his baby brother became mobile, however, we quickly discovered we needed to take our photos as soon as possible…many a creation didn’t last long enough to be displayed!

In fact, if you look closely at this photo, you can see the 2-year-old brother’s hands reaching over to “help” his older brother with his project!

Setting Up and Testing a WordPress Site Before DNS Propagates

Darcy Place

Ah, the web designer’s dilemma: when to declare a site is finished and ready to go live! With a straight HTML site, this is easy…you move the files to the live server (from your testing server) and your site is live.

With a WordPress site, it’s a bit more complicated to transfer files from a test server to the live server (it’s not TOO complicated, just a bit more complicated).

So, sometimes, especially when I’m transferring a site from one host to another and/or I’m not the only one working on building the site, I choose to use the live server as my test server and not transfer the DNS from the current live site until the new WordPress site is looking and working beautifully.

Of course, there’s a trick to doing that successfully. You can edit your computer’s HOSTS file or you can edit your WordPress installation’s URL settings. When I’m not the only one building a site, I choose to update the WordPress settings to keep everything straight at the source.

The best step-by-step explanation I found for doing this is at Koza Communications. Works like a charm and doesn’t require backing up databases or moving files. You change WordPress to your hosting server’s temporary URL while you are building the site. When you are finished and the site is ready to be live, you change WordPress back to the real URL.

Fun on the Gingerbread Holiday Express

Darcy Place

gingerbread-hp11_squareAnother fantastic holiday Gingerbread Village display at the Seattle Sheraton this year. The theme was “Holiday Express” and we were all amazed at what these fine chefs and artists could create using candy!

We saw a surfin’ Santa, the abominable snow monster, short yellow minions celebrating the holiday, and much more.

Our favorite “houses” included King’s Cross Station from the Harry Potter books/movies and the toy train from The Island of Misfit Toys.

And the youngest member of our group was completely delighted to see that each display featured his favorite things in the world: trains!