WordPress - Karmi's Musings & Tech

Twitter Blue now allows 4,000 characters instead of 280 – no more ‘Sardine-Can’ Tweets!!! 😁

August 10, 2025February 11, 2023 by Karmi

I forget when I first joined Twitter, but deleted that account when going wid the Twitter Blue subscription for my Karmi Tux @KarmiTux account not long ago. Have one other Twitter account that is used a little on an old WordPress blog I still have.

Was never much for tweeting, but ended up wid three Twitter accounts at one point because of the three blogs I was running. Will probably delete that second account at some point, since Karmi Tux @KarmiTux is now my primary Twitter account, and my primary blog is the self-hosted Karmi’s Musings & Tech (aka KM&T) blog.

Had signed up for Twitter Blue on 12/14/2022, because I liked what Elon Musk was doing wid it, and less than 2-months later he introduces the new 4,000 characters long-form Tweet.

\o/ ‘Hippity hip Hoorah‘ \o/

Annual Archive: ‘Need a Monthly DROPDOWN Archive WordPress Plugin for Sidebar?’

August 10, 2025December 4, 2022 by Karmi

Apparently my Theme doesn’t offer a monthly or yearly dropdown Archive widget, just some that will require 4-Lines after 4-years or 48-Lines after 48-months. 😉 I had tried several plugins, but they either didn’t work or were the same space wasting widgets that my Theme already offered.

WP Categories Widget: Customizing WordPress Themes w/ sidebar Dropdown menus

August 10, 2025November 11, 2022 by Karmi

I have recently started this Self-Hosted WordPress blog at Hostinger, and my longtime favorite Rowling theme just didn’t work right there. The Rowling theme works great on 3 WordPress.com blogs, but for some reason it was missing some dropdown menus, and some important custom settings not available for the same version when downloaded for my Self-Hosted WordPress blog.

Searched lots of free themes, but none were offering what I was looking for *OR* simply didn’t work for me, and I then decided to check out some premium themes. At some point during that premium theme search I came across the Multipurpose Blog theme ‘s free version, loved the look, but it was missing some things, IMHO. However, liked it well enough to check out their Multipurpose Blog Pro, and wid a coupon code they were offering it was only $29.25.

It was missing some dropdown menu widgets that I like, so another search began, this time for dropdown plugins/widgets…

‘WordPress.com vs Self-Hosted WordPress’ – OBT (‘On-the Blog Training’)

August 10, 2025November 6, 2022 by Karmi

Not positive yet, but it’s ‘Feeling‘ like I am slowly moving away from both WordPress.com & the Linux Newbie – since 1996 blog!? Just purchased a Hostinger Self-Hosted plan on 10/27/2022 (for testing), and then purchased a 4-year Hostinger Self-Hosted plan & started the Karmi’s Musings & Tech blog on 11/2/2022. See Web Hosting Info ‘n Ideas page for more info. It has been a fast ride to this point!

How to Set Up Local WordPress Testing for Theme Changes

October 14, 2025November 4, 2022 by Karmi

Local WordPress theme testing setup guide for step-by-step tutorial

Testing WordPress themes on your live site is risky. One wrong click and your site breaks. Visitors see errors. Search engines penalize you. You scramble to fix it while traffic disappears.

Local WordPress testing eliminates this risk completely. Using Local by WP Engine, you can test themes safely on your own computer before touching your live site. No hosting needed. No risk to your live site. Break things, experiment, and test freely – then apply what works to your real site.

This guide shows you exactly how to set up Local WordPress testing and create a test site with your actual content. The entire process takes about an hour, and you’ll have a safe sandbox ready for testing any WordPress theme.