I love how images look in the new wordpress editor found in v2.6+. But when I hit publish, they looked pretty weak. Here, I thought it was just how the theme I used wanted images to look very minimal. Turns out it’s something you’ll need to add to the majority of your theme’s stylesheets. Glad I looked it up before I went messing around with my theme.

Further reading: Floating Images within the post in WordPress 2.6 (wprocks.com) Thanks Sadish!

I love the GridFocus theme by Derek Punsalan found at 5thirtyone.com.

The only thing I would change, is i’d rather it be even more simple as in two columns instead of three. I’m not expert with WordPress, so take this simple 12 step program for what it’s worth. Here’s my quick guide to removing the third column. I hope it’s the correct way to do it:

1. Log into your dashboard, go to Appearance, then Editor.

2. Select the stylesheet, style.css

3. Find #mainColumn about half way down.

4. Change the width from 420px to 640px. Save.

5. Select Single Post, single.php.

6. Comment out the second column found at the bottom, Example:

Original:

<?php include (TEMPLATEPATH . ‘/second.column.post.php’); ?>

New:

<!—<?php include (TEMPLATEPATH . ‘/second.column.post.php’); ?>—>

7. Save

8. Select Main Index Template, index.php.

9. Repeat Step #6 and #7.

10. Select Page Template, page.php.

11. Repeat Step #6 and #7.

12. When using widgets, put them in the Shared space.

I’ve made the switch. I’m extremely picky about web hosts, and I don’t have many crazy requirements. I barely use any disk space or bandwidth, and although I care about uptime, I probably wouldn’t notice it if I went down for a while.

What I care about is a good price, the ability to pay monthly, quick, and instant access. I am looking for something more of a playground. I program all day at work, so I want to try out new things in my free time. If they don’t work, no big deal.

That being said, I think I found my soulmate in Steadfast Networks. Now, I’ve only been a customer for a little over 24 hours, but so far I’ve had a great experience.

I was a godaddy customer at their $4.95 a month plan. I was only allowed to host this domain. Their control panel while extensive was difficult to navigate and every major action seemed to take several minutes for the server to process. I don’t fault them, but I wasn’t thrilled.

The other day, I discovered that some web hosts are offering an “unlimited domains” under a single account. This was perfect for me, I could play on multiple domains for the same low price. So I began the search for a new provider since godaddy did not offer this service in their basic package.

After reading a ton of reviews, I took a serious look at Site5, Bluehost, and Hostgator. While Bluehost and Hostgator looked great, I didn’t like the fact that you had to sign up for a year. There’s little chance I would leave within a year, but if the service is terrible right at the start, I would want to move. So, sorry Bluehost and Hostgator.

I came within minutes of signing up with Site5, until I found hostjury.com which seems to be one of the few websites host reviews that isn’t an obvious marketing site for a web host. Site5, while it seemed to enjoy great ratings before, was recently bombing out on Site5. Supposedly, some new management was causing problems. While I can’t confirm this one way or the other, I decided not to go with them.

From hostjury, coming in around #5 was Steadfast Networks. From the reviews, the customers seemed to love them. They offered multiple domains and I could pay monthly if I so desired. After doing some snooping, I signed up with their 2nd level account at $4.95 a month.

I was blown away by how quickly I had access to the account and how wonderful their control panel was. It was simple and straight forward. Let’s be honest, most people using these control panels know a thing or two about computers and we don’t need to be glamored by graphics. We just want to be able to do things quickly ::cough godaddy cough::. I transfered a few domains from godaddy paid and free hosting and within minutes the sites were up and running. Multiple domains under a single account.

I tried their one click install of wordpress, and while it worked it was a few versions behind. I decided I’d do it myself. Steadfast’s DB tool was great, the FTP worked immediately, and everything seemed great. Within an hour I had several blog software up and running.

As of right now I’d give Steadfast Networks a 10/10. As long as the uptime is reasonable and they don’t screw up billing I don’t see where this could go wrong. I’ll try to update as I get some more time on their servers.