Beau March 2nd, 2008
One of the neat things about sharing thoughts and pictures with a blog is the ability to reach so many people. The internet still amazes me, and through writing on a blog we can appeal to a diverse array of people from all walks of life and all over the world. Sometimes we find a blog accidentally while searching for something else. But most people who visit a blog or website do so quietly, preferring the anonymity of the web. In blog jargon, people who visit a site but don’t comment much are called “lurkers.” I read somewhere that more than 80% of a sites visitors usually just browse the site without commenting.
I must admit that I’m a lurker on most of the sites I visit! Usually I just don’t think I have much to share or contribute. When I do make a comment however, I find that the host really appreciates it. Sometimes I’ll “subscribe to a feed” or RSS link in my newsreader, and receive updates on daily posts.
But for other sites I’ll sign up directly for an email subscription so that whenever a blog post is made, I’ll get that email on the same day even if I have not visited the site in a while. I find it easier because I don’t always remember to visit different sites, and frankly I just don’t have the time.
One of the companies that has simplified blog feeds and email subscriptions is FeedBurner. The company grew so quickly and was so effective that Google bought them last year! But FeedBurner is not perfect as I found out yesterday. I’ve had a “Subscribe vie Email“ page and link on the site for some time, and when I went to help someone sign up yesterday I found it wasn’t working. Arrggh! It seems that if FeedBurner makes some tweaks to their system without notifying users it results in a broken sign-up process.
So that link is now fixed… if you’ve tried to sign up in the past and didn’t succeed, I offer my apologies. And if you haven’t tried to sign up in the past, well then I hope you’ll consider it now! :)
I certainly understand if you enjoy reading quietly from afar. But if you ever think about commenting on a post or topic, please feel welcome to do so. Soon it will be time for the garden, and I hope some of you can share your growing insights!
After fixing the links on this site, it’s time to head outside. It’s supposed to warm up to 73 degrees today before turning colder again this week. But the cold won’t last for long! I hear the birds singing… Best regards-
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Beau January 25th, 2007
Aaron from Technosailor wrote a nice summary of WordPress 2.1 “Ella” and the “10 Things You Should Know…” and I thought it was helpful. While working in the “weeds” during an upgrade/install, sometimes we need to step back and look at the big picture for why we’re doing it! The big items include “autosave” of posts while you write- which I didn’t know only functioned when you put your title in the title box. Good to know… I’ll start putting a draft title in every post from know on. The new visual editor is nice with a “code” tab to switch back and forth, although the font/style comes out differently in some posts… not sure why yet?! Image handling is also more explanatory, although I found the previous capability just fine. Merging of links and categories is an interesting subject… many blogs are having difficulty with how their themes and plugins handle the differences. You know what I’d like? A blank link category…
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Beau January 25th, 2007
I finished the upgrade from Wordpress 2.0 to 2.1 “Ella” last night. Wahoo! Not too complex, but took longer than I thought (Details and steps are on the next page, below. *Note: Some of my plugins caused broken pages/categories, but I have updated them- especially a quick fix from Moeffju.net for Ultimate Tag Warrior- see end of post). Mostly took longer due to my FTP connection, and the full backup of the database and installation of files…. and I went slowly! (Hmmm… this text looks smaller?!) I use FireFTP within Firefox, and it is reliable yet can be slow… primarily because I work via satellite internet. I think the latency present in the satellite internet connection does not allow a constant data stream and many FTP programs “time out” and attempt reconnection. Normally it’s not a problem with a few files. With a new installation or upgrade however, it can be very frustrating and takes more than 30 minutes for 15-20 files! Maybe someone else knows a better way to configure my computer or FTP program to maintain connectivity while using satellite internet… but while I await further recommendations, I’ll tell you my quick fix! I thought… “Well, perhaps if I had a constant packet stream that would allow the FTP program to work efficiently?” I tried chat and voip to see if that made any difference… nope. What about downloading streaming video or music? Didn’t work with large files, too much coming in… Hmmm… what about YouTube? It worked! I simply looked for various YouTube music shorts of 4-5 minutes in length… let them play in the background, and lo and behold the FTP program worked like a banshee uploading files in a fraction of the time it normally would independently. Could there be a ”normal” way to configure FTP or my computer differently to achieve the same?… anyone? Until I find the answer I’ll be visiting YouTube regularly… :) Now about the WordPress upgrade…. with all due respect to those of you reading, I try to remember this quote by Douglas Adams (1952-2001):
“A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof, is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.”
Okay, here’s how I completed the upgrade. If anyone has other useful information, please comment!:
Remember: If you are using an older version of WordPress, earlier than Version 1.5x, you must upgrade to Version 1.5x first, and then upgrade from 1.5x to 2.0.x or 2.1. Go here for Wordpress instructions to upgrade older sites: http://codex.wordpress.org/Upgrade_1.2_to_1.5
- First- read, heed and become very familiar with WordPress Upgrade instructions. Wordpress is the authority and reference for how to upgrade- so go there first! The following information is simply a guide for how I completed my upgrade, in case it might be helpful.
- Plan for at least a couple hours (or more) of time in case something doesn’t upload correctly or you forget where you were in the upgrade process… if you have to leave and come back eight hours later, you may not remember and your site could be hard down!
- Complete all database backups as indicated, both within WordPress and phpMyAdmin. I like to save the backup files both to the web server and my local computer. WordPress has excellent database backup instructions here: http://codex.wordpress.org/Backing_Up_Your_Database
- Make a copy of the .htaccess file and the wp-config.php file in case they are accidently deleted. I also like to save a copy of my WordPress wp-content folder in case I accidently delete or overwrite those files.
- Do you have backups of all images and other customized content that you have uploaded to the webserver? Do that if you have not done previously.
- After downloading and extracting the file to my computer, I set up Windows Explorer to show the file tree of the new files and the file tree of the files on my blog (using cPanel File Manager) to see what was different. I familiarized myself with the folders and files I would be adding to the webserver. WordPress recommends deleting webserver files first to ensure a clean install/upgrade. However I chose to overwrite the files as I went along, paying attention to exactly which files would be changed. I am not familiar enough with every file used on my web server to simply delete them all. Some of those files are used by other components, functions or plugins, and I wanted to ensure I kept them there. Your choice.
- I have a duplicate functional localhost site of my blog (using WAMPSERVER) which helps in two ways:
- First, it allows me to test and verify that certain components, plugins and upgrades will work on my blog.
- Second, I can then reference exactly what files are used while I upgrade via FTP to my live hosted blog. So after first completing the upgrade/install on my localhost site to verify compatibility with my theme, plugins, etc. I was confident to upgrade my live hosted site.
- I read the WordPress Upgrade instructions a couple more times… “measure twice, cut once!” Now I started the FTP program and went to work.
- In my FTP program, I expanded the file tree of the newly extracted WordPress files, and once step at a time verified exactly which files and folders would be transferred to the webserver. Ensure that you don’t simply tell FTP to transfer folders without verifying what files are in them! After you’ve done this a few times it will be easier, but you don’t want to overwrite (or delete) your wp-content folder on the webserver!
- I uploaded the main/root WordPress files to my webserver root. Follow the WordPress Upgrade instructions if your blog is not in your root directory.
- I uploaded all the wp-admin folders and files, then all the wp-includes folders and files. Some of you may have other files or customizations here, but I knew I didn’t and simply replaced them.
- Then I started on the wp-content folder files:
- In the wp-content plugins folder, I only uploaded the new Akismet and “hello” plugin files to my plugin folder. I have other plugins in the folder that I wanted to save.
- I then uploaded the new Classic and Default themes in the wp-content folder (making sure I left my own themes and files in the wp-content folder on the webserver!). If you are using the Classic and Default themes, you should know if you customized any pages or templates, and uploaded images- these “customizations” should be known by you, and the images saved as well in case you overwrite or delete them. I don’t use the Classic or Default themes, so I simply replaced those folders with the new WordPress Classic and Default folders.
- That should be it! Uploading everything took about an hour because I went slowly. Now you simply add “/wp-admin/upgrade.php” to your site URL in your browser, (e.g. http://www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin/upgrade.php or http://www.yourdomain.com/wordpress/wp-admin/upgrade.php if Wordpress is not in your root directory) hit enter and follow the simple instructions. Remember to restart your plugins one by one and see how the site runs.
- Any Problems? Lets hope not- WordPress has instructions to restore your backups if necessary here: http://codex.wordpress.org/Restoring_Your_Database_From_Backup.
- One of the problems I did have on my localhost upgrade was that after everything was up and running, I went to update my permalink customization in the Wordpress admin site. Guess what? I got a 500 server error… and then couldn’t go back or restart the site at all. I was bummed but checked my log files. I found in my Apache log file a list of errors with one commonality:
- “.htaccess: RewriteRule: bad flag delimiters, referer: http://……./wp-admin/options-permalink.php”
- After a Google search, I learned there could be code errors, spaces, etc. in my .htaccess file. So not having any php coding skills, I took a clean, basic .htaccess file with only “RewriteEngine on” and replaced that with the one in my root directory that wasn’t working. And voila! Success! Wordpress modified the .htaccess as it needed.
- Some of you have many different .htaccess configurations, and that is why it is recommended to back it up before starting the upgrade. My original .htaccess file had a php test configuration added to it, and that appears to have been the problem.
- I did not have any file permissions issues after the upgrade. I have seen this happen with other files I have added to my webserver, so that is one area to look at if you do have problems.
**** Update: 1-29-07 **** I found some pages and categories were broken over the course of two days. It stemmed from plugin issues. I have installed the following updated plugins: Ultimate Tag Warrior (but it required THIS FIX here - the next version of UTW will apparently include that code); Dagaon Design Sitemap plugin; and Subscribe-to-Comments plugin.
Hope your upgrade goes smoothly… remember not to underestimate the process! Again, with all due respect to those of you who have read this far…. Douglas Adams also said:
“The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair”
We should probably remember to think of this process as something that “might go wrong”… ! But you’ve got to love WordPress…
Thanks to the WordPress team!
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Beau January 10th, 2007
What a day… lots going on, and as a newbie WordPress user I feel like I’ve been drawn into a whirlpool of pluginmania. Hmmm… sounds like a good domain name for some able-bodied coder team, probably already is but I won’t check! Oh okay, just for grins I did check… Pluginmania.com does exist! Not updated. But I’m flabbergasted…(yes, I said that) about how many plug-ins are available… I keep thinking, “Would be nice if WordPress could…” and then I find a plugin somewhere that is pretty close. Yesterday WordPress announced a couple of new projects, Ideas and Kvetch! that could be neat for putting ideas together from collaborative sources, and for feedback- subtle or not, from the user experience. I don’t have a Kvetch! comment really… I think this whole thing is pretty cool. Like dog training, any limitations I find are mostly with me. Lots of ideas but I’d like to see some type of instant messenger beyond a link, etc. that could show the WP user is online with a way to connect to them if desired. I remember using Lotus Sametime (and here) in a networked environment with users all over the world… worked very well. Maybe GoogleTalk, or something Trillian-like for app integration? Using some type of IM for WP may not gain the user much beyond what various messenger apps can do now, but some type of cleaner integration, live comment interface, or collaborative comment interface (aka Sametime meeting room) would be nice- at least for WP users and bloggers! Have I just not seen it yet…?
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