Profiles

Bio

A software professional from the IBM mainframe world, I’ve taken up web development since the waning days of the last millennium.

A WordPress user since 2007, I’ve since become a WordPress disciple. It’s been a great deal of fun but I realize that I still have a lot more to learn. That’s part of the beauty of it!

WordPress Origin Story

My first attempt at installing self-hosted WordPress ended with me giving up on it and leaving the support group a rather harsh final comment. However, several months later I realized that the problem was with my web hosting (you get what you pay for) and when I finally switched to a decent one, installing WordPress was a snap.

Fortunately, I wasn’t banned from the support forum and have practically built a new career on the CMS over the last 7 years.

  • Member Since: February 18th, 2008
  • Location: Muncie, Indiana
  • Website: stephendowell.com
  • Find me on:
  • Posted a reply to UPDATE GENERICONS, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Thank you for the info jordesign!

  • Created a topic, UPDATE GENERICONS, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Since this theme uses genericon intrinsically, it seem…

  • Posted a reply to Portfolio Shortcode Broken, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    I originally had this in a text widget, but switched it to an custom html…

  • Posted a reply to Portfolio Shortcode Broken, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Thanks Animesh! I've tried all of the standard WP troubleshooting - deactivated plugins, changed themes,…

  • Created a topic, Portfolio Shortcode Broken, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    I noticed today that the portfolio shortcode has cease…

  • Created a topic, Very Useful, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Been using Optimole for a few years now. Very useful f…

  • Posted a reply to Filter controls disappeared, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Thank you?

  • Created a topic, Filter controls disappeared, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Earlier today I noticed that the filter control at the…

  • Posted a reply to Is ANYBODY SUPPORTING THIS THEME?, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Never figured out what the cause of this problem was, but was apparently caused by…

  • Posted a reply to Theme not loading, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Turned out to only be occurring in Chrome and it's because of some new changes.

  • Posted a reply to Header Disappeared, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Turned out to be the result of some custom CSS that I recently added.

  • Created a topic, Is ANYBODY SUPPORTING THIS THEME?, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    WHy doesn't the site icon work like it did and is supp…

  • Created a topic, Header Disappeared, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    I could use an extra set of eyes on this. Yesterday, p…

  • Posted a reply to Event page critical error since WP 5.4.2, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    UPDATE: I enabled the templates and checked out the page. The page came up, but…

  • Created a topic, Event page critical error since WP 5.4.2, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    All of a sudden, the events page is causing a critical…

  • Created a topic, Support?, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Since updating to the latest version of Wordpress (5.4…

  • Created a topic, Shortcode stopped rendering, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    After installing the plugin yesterday, I put the short…

  • Created a topic, Go To Gallery Plugin, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    I've used this on several sites. It's gotten to be my …

  • Posted a reply to Missing Menu Caret, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Never mind! I apparently over-rode it with custom CSS and forgot about it!

  • Created a topic, Missing Menu Caret, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    I've located the "menu-wrap" and "caret" elements but …

  • Created a topic, Including font awesome 5 in frontpage sections options, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    I had posted a couple of years ago about adding font a…

  • Created a topic, Updates to widgets creates a duplicate, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    I've noticed for a while that every time I make an upd…

  • Created a topic, Bombardment of incoming for a known issue with Google, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    I just wanted to say that there is an already identifi…

  • Created a topic, Unnamed item in Google Search Console, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    I'm starting a new thread on this issue as my situatio…

  • Posted a reply to Need some intervention!, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Or has it been abandoned?

  • Created a topic, Optimizing social media images in cache, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    BTW - love this plugin, it's very useful. I've had pe…

  • Posted a reply to Twitter re-authentication, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    By creating a brand new Twitter Developer account with no prior activity, I was able…

  • Created a topic, Twitter re-authentication, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    I recently noticed an error message pointing to the tw…

  • Posted a reply to ipstack log warning, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Resolved

  • Posted a reply to ipstack log warning, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Hey there duralcelltomi, yes I'm using w3 Total Cache plugin and no, it's not a…

  • Posted a reply to ipstack log warning, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Problem seems to have gone away. Must have been a hiccup of some sort! I'll…

  • Created a topic, ipstack log warning, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Today, the following condition occurred on my mobile d…

  • Created a topic, My “Go To” Plugin for Ads, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    I've been using WP-Insert for years, won't use any oth…

  • Created a topic, Breadcrumbs anomaly, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    The portfolio link in the breadcrumbs injects "http://…

  • Posted a reply to Offset not working in Chrome?!, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Alright, thanks for your quick response!

  • Created a topic, Doesn’t work in Chrome?!, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    First of all, thanks for this plugin! I've used on a c…

  • Posted a reply to Custom CSS, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Thanks for your quick response!

  • Posted a reply to Custom CSS, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    This really more of a question than an issue. I've got the formatting resolved.

  • Created a topic, Custom CSS, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    It seems that when I first starting using this plugin,…

  • Posted a reply to Tops posts and pages widget, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    All I did was go make myself a sandwich LOL and when I returned to…

  • Posted a reply to Tops posts and pages widget, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Okay, stats seem to be accumulating again. I guess I need to figure out what…

  • Posted a reply to Tops posts and pages widget, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Update - now "There are no posts to display. Want more traffic?" What?

  • Posted a reply to Tops posts and pages widget, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    I've stabilized my site which is now https://amazoniabookshoppe.com but the problem with the "top posts…

  • Posted a reply to Subdomains not secure, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Finally got resolution! The valid certificate furnished for my apex domains is from cloudflare. The…

  • Posted a reply to Subdomains not secure, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    To further point out the security issue - https://fundament.cognitive-design.org/ - the browser indicates that the…

  • Created a topic, Subdomains not secure, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Hello, Love this plugin, it saved many a headache in …

  • Posted a reply to Fatal error: Uncaught exception ‘Exception’ with message ‘unknown engine, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    I've been using both Cloudflare and W3 Total Cache for a number of years and…

  • Posted a reply to Tops posts and pages widget, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Thanks for helping Cena, The support thread mentioned is https://wordpress.org/support/topic/popular-posts-not-working-after-update/ . Also, since I posted…

  • Created a topic, Tops posts and pages widget, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    About a month ago, I noticed my "top posts" widget dis…

  • Posted a reply to Fatal error: Uncaught exception ‘Exception’ with message ‘unknown engine, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
    Thanks cbrandt, Yeah, GTMetrix is what started this entire escapade. Perhaps I shouldn't worry about…