My site is slow

How man plugins are you using?

CPU usage?

[Signature redacted]

Hi TJ
I have 7 plugins and will contact Dreamhost about the CPU.
I changed the theme and that seemed to help.
Thanks so much.
Glenna

glennamjenkins – You should switch to PHP 5.3 on your domains (and personally I suggest turning on PageSpeed as well)

Hi Mike,
Thanks, I will try that. I’ve been fiddling with the plugins and the site seems to be faster. I also changed the theme.

A badly designed theme can slow you down a lot :/ And usually it’s not as simple as “This theme is bad” but more “This theme, when used with this plugin, based on the way my site is visited, makes for bad.”

It’s like buying a car. Everyone uses them a little differently, so you’re going to get different miles per gallon than I am.

Hi Mika,
Yes, you are correct about the theme and I just discovered that my theme ‘Choco’ hasn’t been upgraded in 2 years and that the designer is no longer active. So, I am trying to change the Theme and being the Real Dummy that I am, I am making a mess of it. So, I am going to cave in and get a consultant to come to my house and make him tea and watch what he does with the disaster my site has become …
Thanks loads,
Glenna Jenkins

You’re not a dummy, you’re just not used to it yet ?? It’s like anything, you get better the more you do it, so never feel stupid for not knowing. You weren’t born knowing how to drive, after all! (I’m still not-great at it, but I no longer suck. It’s all practice.)

Do you need help just activating a new theme or customizing it? The former I can help you with ?? The latter is really subjective and I can try, but it’s hard to determine what looks right to someone else.

HI Mika,
Thanks for the kind words. I need help uploading a new template to my WP site. I managed to download Filezilla, thanks to Ron, and also to open my FTP, also thanks to Ron. I loaded a file for a new theme onto my cPanel. Now I’m stuck, because I can’t find the file. I have an old WP site that has been dismantled, and 2 new ones, and Filezilla found them all! I have to go take my Dad out tonight, so I won’t have time to look at this until tomorrow. If you have any easy suggestions, I would like to try again. But I’ve put so much time into this, on the computer and reading up on it, that I think I’m ready to get an expert in and see, first hand, what he does.
Thanks loads,
Glenna

You can install a theme from inside WP’s dashboard ??

Go to https://example.com/wp-admin/theme-install.php

If the theme is one of the ones from www.ads-software.com, search for it and install that way. If you downloaded it as a zip file, click Upload and you can use that interface.

If all you have are the raw files, you’ll want to use Filezilla and copy the theme folder to /home/username/domain.com/wp-content/themes/

Have a good dinner with Dad!

Hi Mika,
Thanks for the advice. I tried all that stuff, but messed up somewhere. My computer guy, who knows me well, said I shouldn’t be using Filezilla and going into my cPanel. I think what he’s saying is that I’ll mess it up, which I did, and not that these are bad things to do. On the contrary, if I knew more about this, they would definitely be an option.

Dinner with Dad was great, by the way. Then we went to see Django, a great movie. I was warned that it was violent. It was, but in the Trenton Tarantino genre of violence. The Weinstein brothers and Tarantino together make a for a great movie. Some of the content is v. disturbing, however, because it took place in pre-Civil War America, in the South, during the slave era.

We don’t have cpanel at DreamHost… He probably meant panel and just typod ?? You CAN use the FTP app in our panel (webFTP) but personally since it’s not besties with SFTP (which is all I ever use), I avoid it.

Django sounds like one I’ll skip then. Been avoiding gory violent movies for a little while, since my better half doesn’t enjoy them at all and I hate going to movies alone!