Text-Link-Ads is a nice service which I use to help pay the bills for running this site. They just released a new version of their WordPress plugin which I use to put their adverts on this site, so I installed it but in doing so it overwrote a couple of changes I’d made to the old plugin. I had made those changes as I like the service and I definitely like the additional income1, but I don’t like how the plugin makes the ad links less than obviously ads. So my changes in the plugin add a specific class which I can then style via CSS. Since I don’t want to have to keep redoing my customizations from scratch each time they release the plugin; I’m posting the code changes I make here.

Under function outputHtmlAds(), I changed the following line of code from:
echo "\n<ul>\n";</ul>

to:
echo "\n<ul class=\"tla_sponsor_link\">\n";</ul>

Also under function returnPostAd($postId), I changed:
return "\n\n<em>".$prefixes[$prefixIndex].":</em> $ad->before_text <a href=\"$ad->url\">$ad->text</a> $ad->after_text";

to:
return "\n\n<div class=\"tla_sponsor_link\"><em>".$prefixes[$prefixIndex].":</em> $ad->before_text <a href=\"$ad->url\">$ad->text</a> $ad->after_text</div>";

Side note: TLA, you guys should change the Our Blog to be called something else as the link doesn’t actually take users to your blog.

1 I don’t make enough from these ads to get rich mind you. Just enough to cover the costs of running CoffeeBear.net and maybe a cup of good coffee from my local coffee shop.

As you’ve probably noticed by now, I’ve found a work around to the plugin problems. From what I’ve been able to determine so far, the plugin is having problems calling in the Amazon product images for my sidebar. For now, I’ve reconfigured the plugin to display the text without images which seems to be mostly working though my sidebar is now getting tossed down to the bottom of the page. *sigh*

Update: Actually, it appears a different plugin is the source of the sidebar being shoved down. This other plugin adds in it’s own CSS; so I’ll be looking at that to try fixing the issue. Life is never easy.

From Pukka:

Not from Pukka:

4th of July Fireworks

I finally got around to updating the Gallery‘s CSS to better match the styling of the rest of the site; plus I added some of the more interesting photos that I took during our local 4th of July celebrations. I’ve also tweaked the About page by adding back in a sketch of the site’s mascot. I’ve got a better sketch in my pad, but I need to get that scanned so I can post it. The problem is the wife’s computer was the only one with an ISA slot for the adapter card for the ancient scanner I have and her machine recently died. Of course, even if her machine was fully running; there’d be the bigger problem of trying to get it to run under SuSE. I don’t think SuSe has ever been able to detect the card, much less the scanner itself, though the XSane project does show the scanner as one that is supported.