Changelog

This page is designed to keep a simple changelog for Jon Curnow’s website, curnow.org. This site is managed through WordPress and hosted with Dreamhost.

28 July 2026

  • Created a small site-specific WordPress plugin to keep features unique to curnow.org separate from the theme. This should make them easier to maintain and less likely to disappear during a future theme change.
  • Added date-aware descriptions to the homepage and London page so the years I have been writing and living in London remain current automatically.
  • Created a London page featuring ten posts selected using the BEST London posts.
  • The London list uses each post’s current WordPress title, link, publication date, excerpt and useful tags.
  • Gave the London page a quieter, text-led design without images, numbering, dividing lines or oversized headings. It should feel more like a curated reading list and less like it is shouting.
  • Moved the six recommendations beneath Jon’s best bits into the same site-specific system. Their order remains manually curated, while their titles, links and descriptions come from the matching WordPress posts.
  • Both curated lists use manually written post excerpts when available and create a short, clean description when one has not been provided.
  • Reviewed and improved the excerpts used by the homepage and London selections.
  • Added safeguards to prevent the private plugin from being replaced accidentally by an unrelated public plugin.

27 July 2026

  • Reworked the home page introduction to describe the site as a long-running digital home, notebook and archive, with less emphasis on my career.
  • Added introductory text to the Latest Writing section and created Jon’s best bits, a curated collection of older posts drawn from more than 25 years of writing. ChatGPT read many posts and selected these. So, blame the machine.
  • Created the selected-writing tag to collect recommended posts and provide a complete archive beyond those featured on the homepage.
  • Moved On This Day into the main homepage content using a new child-theme widget area and shortcode, with introductory text and a link to the complete daily archive.
  • Updated the three homepage lists with consistent bullet points, placed On This Day years beside their post titles and reduced unnecessary spacing.
  • Removed the sidebar across the site. I like the cleaner view now.
  • Removed Related Posts from all my pages. There are better ways to navigate.
  • Added custom text to a post’s metadata to allow ‘On This Day’ links for both the date of the post and the viewing date. A little CSS was added to make it look nicer.
  • Updated the footer to include a link to the RSS feed. I love feed readers. If in doubt, try NetNewsWire.
  • Added a llms.txt file to say hello to any AI crawlers that may be popping by.

14 February 2004

  1. Removed the bio from the bottom of each post. Seems ridiculous as I am the only author these days. Ref: template-parts/biography.php

13 February 2024

  1. Disabled comments across the site so no cookies can be set for visitors.
  2. Disabled Jetpack image optimiser and stats services to prevent external tracking.
  3. Disable cookie consent banner as no cookies are set.
  4. Confirmed Dreamhost stats are off. Confirmed Google Analytics was previously removed.
  5. Added a new privacy page. The old page remains in the archive.

4 October 2023

  1. Added a link to my Threads account to the main page, contact page and replaced the @curns link in the footer to go to Threads. Added Mastodon to the contact page.

9 August 2021

  1. Removed the contact form (also from Full Disclosure) because it’s rarely used for real contact and I get so much spam. You can also @curns me.
  2. Moved the media file template to the child theme to that it can be customised.
  3. Removed the Apple News link from the footer because I did not publish enough for that channel to be maintained.
  4. Changes the cookie banner plugin because the previous provider was sold and the service changes. Updated the privacy and cookie policy to make references to embeds. Added a redirect to /cookie-policy.

5 April 2021

  1. The site’s theme was changed back because Chunk turned out not to be responsive.
  2. Updated Full Disclosure to reflect that some of the music and book links may start to feature Amazon affiliate links. I don’t know if it’s worth updating them but I might. [Previous Version | Current Version]
  3. Spent sometime updating dead links in some older blog posts to point to The Wayback Machine.

21 March 2021

  1. Change the site’s theme to Chunk. As a resulted I added the new footer elements. I am undecided if I will keep it like this. Added Goodreads and Blipfoto to the contact page and cleaned up some of the homepage.
  2. Forced the domain to direct to https. This was more complex than I imagined and resulted in being logged out of WordPress for a period. Hint: I can overside the site defaults in wp-congig.

2 August 2020

  1. There’s been a typo on the home page for years. I have only just seen it. There will be others, I know, but how many times have I read that page?

31 July 2020

  1. Finally got around to removing references to a site I no longer have (curns.me) as well as links to Google Plus from the Contact page. Added Instagram to the list of social media accounts.

23 November 2017

  1. Added the Listen page as a new top level menu and the second level-audio collection listing by year.

10 April 2016

  1. Publishing on Apple News using Publish to Apple News by AlleyInteractive.

11 February 2017

  1. Ambrosite Next/Previous Post Link Plus & WP Super Cache plugins deactivated.
  2. Autoptimize plugin added.
  3. Maxmind geoplugin JavaScript removed & references to Maxmind  removed from cookie policy.
  4. References to Twitter Digests and old recommend site lists removed as content is now stored in draft form only.
  5. o5-50 and 2004 in Pictures updated with pictures imported into WordPress library; Treo category updated.