I’ve been slacking on putting anything on this site. I could make some excuses. Been working on other sites. Busy with real life. Whatever. But those are excuses, not reasons. So I figured it was about time to do some much-needed updates to the site that has my name on it.
Server Stuff
What made me finally pull the trigger was a warning in WordPress that I was on an outdated version of PHP. This site was running on a Digital Ocean droplet with PHP 5.6. I had another running PHP 7.2 so I just moved it over there. Easy enough.
Next was moving the database. With the old droplet I had been running a full LAMP stack on the same box. I’ve since split out a separate MySQL droplet and have been using that for my newer stuff. So instead of migrating the database to the new Apache / PHP droplet I moved it to the MySQL droplet.
Going to PHP7.2 has definitely made a difference. Not sure about splitting the database onto its own droplet, but it should be easier to keep track of what needs to be upgraded if the site slows down.
Theme
The theme I had been using was a child theme I built years ago and was getting dated.
I wanted something simple, almost minimalistic. But plain white themes, or really any solid color, have never been my first choice.
The theme I settled on is one called Author. It’s available for free from WordPress.org, but like most themes also has a paid version. I’m sticking with the free version for now.
Cleaning Up
Next up was cleaning up WordPress.
I ran this site against GTMetrix’s site checker tool and noticed that there were a ton of JavaScript files loading, although none directly from my server. The culprit ended up being a plugin for Viglink that I had installed years ago and never really used.
Also took out several other plugins like Jetpack that were active, but never really got used.
Good Bye AdSense
By far the biggest clean up though was ditching AdSense.
I’ve had ads running on this site pretty much since it went live years ago. Never thought I would make quit my job income, but it would have been nice to break even with hosting. After looking at stats for the past year it’s not even close. $5 was a good month. So I decided that the $30 or so I’ve made a year off of AdSense ads on this site wasn’t worth it and I got rid of them. The site loads faster and looks better. Seems like a win-win for not much of a loss.
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