If you’ve been on this site before and made your way here now, it’s easy to see that the look has changed. But it isn’t just the look, it’s vastly more than that. It’s the entire functionality of the site. But it’s a long way from being there yet.
I’m a big believer in the idea of just jumping in with both feet. In terms of website lingo, that means go ahead and launch the site, then fix the problems. I figure if I waited till the development site was perfect, I would never get it up. So, I once again asked my tech guys, who have been working on this new update forever, when it was going to be ready. I know they are as tired of diddling around with it as I am, so this last Thursday, the main guy said, let’s take it live. I was a little apprehensive because I’ve been around long enough to know that it’s not the best idea to launch as the weekend is drawing near, but I was so ready, I said, let’s do it.
I figured we had plenty of time to make changes on Friday, and my tech guy said he was going to be around all day Saturday, so it shouldn’t be a problem. Unfortunately, he had an unanticipated family crisis on Thursday night, leaving the whole thing to me. Which was truly the blind leading the blind.
So, the long and the short of it is that this site is a work under construction.
Here is what we did.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I’ve had database problems and character issues in my blog to such an extent that I couldn’t really bring myself to post (unless it was a very short post) because it took me several hours to deal with the problems. Just to get a single short post up took 20 minutes to write and two hours to fix the character issues and format. A long post took forever just to get it to be readable. Needless to say, this situation greatly diminished my enthusiasm for posting.
When I finally decided to do something about it, I purchases a premium theme for WordPress and found a tech outfit that promised to get everything up and running within a couple of months. That was in November 2013. I went through a succession of tech people (I won’t bore you with the dismal details or the expense, but let it be said, I’ve been pulling my hair out for over a year and a half) till I finally found someone who could get ‘er done.
Typically, with a blog, one just lays a new theme in over the old one, and it’s done. It takes two minutes. But in this case, we completely redid our site and put the entire thing on the WordPress platform. Which took a little longer because everything had to be migrated from the old site to the new. And the database had to be fixed. And, most complicated of all, the forum had to be dealt with. Or, more correctly, the forum is still in the process of being dealt with.
We have a hugely active forum on this blog that is administered by a handful of competent people (which handful does not include MD and/or me). The forum took on a life of its own six or eight years ago and has grown since then. If you’re new to low-carb or even an old timer, you’ll find a lot of help and a ton of info on the forum. Problem is, we’ve had to find a server on which to host the forum because it’s so large and active. Most of the data is being migrated over this weekend, so it should be back to normal in a day or two.
The new theme we’re using to make this site look like it does has a ton of functionality that I have to learn how to use. What you see now is sort of the basic look, but almost everything can be changed. I just want to do it a bit at a time. I could’ve waited till it was perfect then launched, but, as I wrote above, I would prefer to launch, then fix. So expect to see a gradual evolution of the site until I get it like I want it.
Updates
A few quick issues I’d like to bring you up to speed on.
RSS
A couple of days ago my RSS feed (powered by FeedBurner) sent off an email containing a couple of old posts of mine. (This happened before the changeover of the site, so it had nothing to do with that.) The only reason I knew something had happened was that I suddenly got inundated with comments about a post that was over a year old. I still don’t know why FeedBurner did this, but I trust it less and less. A couple of times it hasn’t sent out posts that actually were published. Rumor has it that FeedBurner (a free service provided by Google) is on its way out and will end up on the trash heap just like Google Reader (my favorite blog reader) did. I have no control over how my posts are formatted in FeedBurner (other cleverer people may have control, but I can’t figure it out) so the posts come out with all the paragraphs squished together.
If you want to get your posts by email, just sign up for my email alerts on the upper right side of this post. I promise not to burden you with emails. I’ll send you a notification whenever I’ve posted something new.
Gastritonin (formerly Protexid)
For those of you who have been waiting (forever) for a new batch of Gastritonin, it is now in the warehouse. Problem is, the store part of our site is in a shambles, courtesy of this change over. It is like we are just moving in, which in a sense we are. (Remember my motto: Launch first, then fix.) There are empty shelves and boxes everywhere. I doubt you’ll even be able to find the Gastritonin if you go to the shop in the next day or two until I get someone to help me straighten it up.
Gastritonin is the exact same product as the Protexid we had years ago. It is made in the US, following all US stringent supplement manufacturing regulations. The Protexid you can find online is made in Brazil and has a different formulation from the original Protexid. Someone at our company was asleep at the switch and allowed the trademark for Protexid to lapse, and someone else jumped in a grabbed it. So we’re now manufacturing the same product under the trademark Gastritonin.
If you don’t know what Gastritonin is or Protexid was, take a look at this blogpost from several years ago. I wrote the post to explain what it was, what it did and to give away our remaining supplies before they went out of date. So, irrespective of what this old post says, THERE IS NO MORE PROTEXID LEFT TO BE GIVEN AWAY. You won’t be able to find it in the store anyway. Of course, as I mentioned above, you may not be able to find the Gastritonin either for a few days. But it is in the warehouse and available. Soon.
Low-Carb, High-Fat Convention
As many of you are probably aware, I gave a couple of talks at the first international low-carb, high-fat convention in Capetown, South Africa in February of this year. It was a tremendous experience meeting all the many people involved in low-carb writing and research, whom I had never met, and great fun catching up with old friends. The talks all these folks gave were pretty remarkable.
The organizers of the program are making all of these presentations available for $69 total. It’s a great deal. I don’t get any piece of this – it is for the organizers to continue to offer these kinds of seminars in the future. (The next, I think, will be in London this fall.) If you have the opportunity to attend one of these conventions, try your best to make it. Short of that, watch it all at home for 69 bucks.
Now that I don’t have to worry about the character issues and spending all the time dealing with that and the formatting nightmare the old site engendered, I should have a lot more time to blog and a lot less hesitancy. I won’t be required to take hours away from my new profession as an appliance salesman to put up a simple blog. So I hope to be a lot more prolific in the days to come. I have about a thousand (it seems) ideas for posts sitting in Evernote tagged as Potential Blog Topics.
Thanks for hanging in there during all the down times and during the under-construction condition of the site now. It can do nothing but get better.
? And all the science…. I don’t understand…
it’s just my job… five days a week… ?
You see Mike…..you are a IT retard.
It took me 8 years to know how to cut/paste. And can’t get my head around, how to download podcasts (Stitcher e.g.).
Even when I ask a ‘wizard’ how to do anything, they talk fast and assume I know what they are saying….nah
BTW: I have had my ‘Sous vide supreme’ for 3 years and not quite sure what to do.
You’ve hit the nail on the head — I am definitely challenged when it comes to IT.
As to the SVS… Go to the website, there are countless hands on videos there as to how to use it.
“I hope to be a lot more prolific in the days to come. ”
AH! Nirvana approaches! (YIPPEE!)
El
New site looks great and loads quick. Fonts are easy to read. Can’t complain about a single thing. Looking forward to reading lots of new content.
V/r,
Bryan
Lovely to see you posting again Dr Mike. And I am most interested to hear there may be a low-carb, high-fat convention in London this autumn !!!! How will people over here be able to find out about this ? Will you be there ?
Anne
I will post about it once the date and venue are set. As it stands now, I should be among the speakers.
The site looks beautiful, “even” as-is. Remarkable improvement.
Always enjoyed your posts in the past, and I am happy to see you in “print” again. I’m an old IT pro, and I appreciate clean, informative, navigable sites that employ thoughtful sidebars. This design fits the spec precisely; VERY nice job!
Best,
Brooks
Thanks, but I can take no credit for the design, only for being clever enough to select a very good theme someone else designed. Now if I could just make it do what I want it to…
Yeah, that´s it. I couldn´t describe it in a better way, than: Really, a VERY VERY nice job, beautiful design, easier readable, clean structure. If this is your idea of “still under construction”, how marvellous will it have to be to be called “finished”? Congratulations!
Saludos
Amparo
Love the new look. Hopefully when this project ends you can return to your highly informative self. When i need computer help, I call one of the grand kids. Some of us( your faithful readers) might like a post on the new LP-PLA2 blood test!
I may be the only dolt who tried this, but I am so used to seeing a menu spread out across the top that I clicked on “CBS” and of course, got nowhere. Then, spotted the “As seen in” above it. Whoops.
I listened to your first lecture at the LCHF convention and the history you present is really amazing. I had a fuzzy idea of what went on during the last thirty years, but certainly not the detail that you described.
I was offered the lectures at $49, and I have no regrets about buying them. I am not sure what the distribution model will be in the future. I certainly do not mind supporting these events financially, but I would imagine that as time passes you would want to disseminate these lectures as widely as possible.
I think that your point about having the right narrative is often overlooked, but it is required if you want to have an impact.
Thanks. Glad you enjoyed the talk. I’m glad you got the deal for $49. Maybe they had a price reduction. I’m always the last to know.
Thumbs up on the new site, Dr. Mike! Love your blog and all the good book reviews (just got another from Amazon yesterday, BTW)
Hubby and I both look forward to trying Gastritonin so will be waiting on the word it’s on the shelves! Thanks!
Read the old blog entry about the history of your use of Protexid (why, where, how, etc.). I am wondering if you have any idea of the mechanism involved in how it helps to (it sounds) strengthen the LES?
I don’t have an idea of the mechanism. I should probably try to figure it out. All I know is that it works, at least for me.
‘Gratz on finally getting things cranking, looking decent so far, hopefully does away with some tech rage and doesn’t introduce too many others.
RE: Google Reader RIP, I’ve never been able to find another service that was nice bare-bones and functional like that, they all seem to keep pushing bells and whistles upon you when all you need is a feed of personal interests.
Anyhoo closest I’ve found after trying probably 20 of them is NetVibes which was able to import my old Google Reader feed pretty well, I haven’t looked for any others since so there may be better options nowadays. Here’s an example of what my “health” dashboard looks like.
–> http://ashsimmonds.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/netvibes-snapshot.png
(not sure what markup is allowed in a reply or what gets flagged as spam, guess we’ll see…)
I’ve experienced a fair amount of tech rage over the past few days, so I know all about it.
I was really pissed when they did away with Google Reader because, like you, I thought it was the best one out there. I’m using Feedly now, and I’m not crazy about it. Maybe I’ll give NetVibes a look, especially if you think it’s close in function to Google Reader. After GR was gone, I expected someone to come up with a paid version that looked and worked the same. I would have gladly forked over for it, but, alas, no one did.
It’s not exactly like GR as I recall it, but a reasonably clean feed that I can check once a day easily. With GR I had all my general interests grouped into their own columns (cars/science/health/lifestyle/fun), and each subset organised the display to see more info on what I deemed worthy.
Just found a screenshot from ~Feb 2012 and it makes me realise how much I miss it, integrated widgets of various things as well as feeds and bookmarks and podcasts and realtime news and website stats and such so I always had an at-a-glance overview of stuff I nowadays am back to checking on individually if I can be bothered.
As to this site update, your reply thing doesn’t have a checkbox or whatever to opt-in to subscribe to email replies to your own reply or all others on the post, people who participate will have to remember to manually check the post to see if there’s any replies until this is implemented.
You would think some enterprising techie would recreate GR and sell it.
Thanks for the heads up on the email deal. I’m sure it’s something I have to set up. I’ll add it to the list, so keep an eye out for it.
Yup, I saw the new look-and-feel the other day. I thought it would be announced. Searched around but didn’t find an article announcing it. I wondered how long has the new look been around and I didn’t see it.
And finally here it is! So, not that long.
Your new site looks good but it is forbidding the lynx text browser for no good reason. Years ago there was a malicious exploit called “lynx”, but the lynx text browser has no connection to this old exploit.
Dr. Mike, is there a transcript or audio file of your presentation from last February? Love the title…
Not that I know of. Maybe there will be later. The talks I gave weren’t exactly what the titles were. As per usual, I didn’t have my talks prepared until the 11th hour, so they put in titles for me. The talks were different.
Glad to see you back! Sometimes I just cruise the archives to get my Drs. M and MD fix!
Got a sous vide this spring (cute little smaller-size red one) – loving it. Just easy stuff so far, but the way it cooks a rare ribeye is worth the price of admission itself.
Site looks great – will be watching and reading.
Appliance salesman? Did I miss something?
My day job is running an international appliance company that makes sous vide units for the home cook.
http://www.sousvidesupreme.com
I don’t believe that you have any character issues. Well, none that Mary Dan hasn’t corrected.
Hah!
Hi there… I emailed you last week to report issues I’ve been having with your forum since joining a couple weeks ago, one email bounced back, tried a different email address and didn’t get a reply… I can’t post, reply, or even view my own profile… will that resolve when it’s moved, or whatever it is you’re doing? I did PPP back in 1999 and it’s the only program I’ve ever successfully lost weight on, but I gained the weight back after developing a chicken aversion after the first month and never tried it again… I recently repurchased your book and have been reading it on my kindle app, and I’d like to post some thoughts/questions… Thanks!
I think the forum migration is nearing completion. I hope my tech guys get it all hooked up very soon.
I went to your old site, recently, and it is true that it was hard trying to maneuver it. But, at least I was able to purchase one of your books. I already had the other one. But, this site is truly, several times over, better. Now, I can find the information that I am looking for so that I can keep on this journey until I reach my weight loss goal (especially this “middle-aged middle” that I am trying to get rid of.
I’m glad you like the changes. It’s been an expensive process associated with much brain damage.
Wonderful improvement! I’m reading on my Fire Phone at the moment, and page formatting is very readable. Hierarchical indenting in the forum was getting strange in lower levels with super short line lengths, until I remembered to to turn my phone to view it in landscape instead of portrait…duh. I also tried it on iPad and the desktop and it worked great there too. I look forward to more valuable posts, unfettered by technical impediments and distractions in the way of your magnanimous sharing of acquired wisdom for the public good. I also wish for for your continued economic success.
Thanks very much. One of the reasons — among many — that I went with this theme was because it was mobile responsive. Based on our analyses of people coming to our sous vide website, we discovered more and more people reading it on smart phones, tablets and other mobile devices. So were redoing our site there to make it mobile responsive. I figured just as many people were reading my blog on smart phones, etc., so I went with a theme providing with a mobile responsive design. I’m glad you noticed.
Awesome, thank you.
I wanna recommend that when you print/save a post, there should be an option to include all comments too. thanks
That’s a good idea. I’ll see if something in the preferences will let me do that. I’m still learning how to operate this theme.
I can’t find any contact information for the store, so I’m replying to the post that sent me there. I ordered the Gastritonin for my wife who is trying to get off of her Prilosec prescription and my card was charged on June 24th. (order ref number is 126648). I haven’t received the product or any other emails (such as notice that it shipped) since the June 26th email saying that my order was complete. How do I find out the status of my order? I didn’t expect my card to actually be charged until the product was heading out the door so I kind of expected to see it by now. Maybe it will show up shortly? I just wanted to ask somebody if it has shipped and by what carrier but couldn’t find any contact info for the store.
Mike.
I will get on it pronto. Someone will get with you ASAP. Sorry for the trouble.
Received my order today, sent overnight. Thanks so much for taking care of this! Crossing my fingers that this helps my wife get off the prilosec at last.
No problem. Sorry for the hassle, but we’re still under construction with the store, and it looks like your order somehow fell through the cracks. Let me know how it works.
I don’t use translate at all if I have the choice!
I am trying to place my first order with your company / website. It doesn’t want to accept my credit card information and I don’t know why. Have you thought about using PayPal as an optional payment method. The other issue I have is there is no way to contact customer service concerning my order. I can not find a link to a email address or phone number anywhere on the shopping webpage. Leaving this comment in your blog looks like the only way to contact your company. Thanks, I hope to place an order with you soon. Ray
Hi
Sorry for the hassle. We had a technical issue that has been repaired, so everything should be working fine.
Thanks for alerting me to the problem. We’re working on getting an 800 customer service line and contact email, so you’ll have someone to reach out to in the future.
MRE
Looks like the system worked today.
Thanks,
Ray
Thank you again for the heads up.
The site looks beautiful, “even” as-is. Remarkable improvement.
Greetings!
Linda.