As previously mentioned, I upgraded the test blog brother of this site to WP 2.5 recently, and other than a few small issues all went well. I therefore decided to take the plunge and upgrade a further eighteen of my sites yesterday. All seemed to go well, with no themes suddenly broken, and as I’d already tested their plugins on the test blog, no issues there either. The upgrade process went smoothly, though I did ensure I had both exported XML files for backups on each blog, as well as downloading the SQL table backups before starting each upgrade.
Now all I need to do is wait for the Random Tagline plugin author to not update his code (no response from e-mailing him, and the site appears to not have been touched in a little over a year), or just skip that and go ahead with upgrading this blog now. Can anyone else recommend an alternative to WP Random Tagline?
Apr 09 2008
19-1 In Favour Of WordPress 2.5
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Apr 02 2008
Further Testing Of Plugin Compatibility With WordPress 2.5
As previously mentioned, I have used my sacrificial lamb test blog to check how things would go if I upgrade all my other blogs to WordPress 2.5 . From previous experience I know that updating WP can cause problems, and if core parts of your site rely on certain plugins, if the plugins no longer work, you can end up with a real head ache.
So, having compiled a list of all the plugins I use across the various blogs, I installed each to test.chrismerriman.com, and then checked that their functions (both in-post, background and sidebar-based) still, well, functioned.
I am happy to report that the following plug ins continued to work as expected with WordPress 2.5 : 404 Notifier, Bad Behavior, Blog Voyeur, Comment Referrers, Different Posts Per Page, Easy IP2Country, Executable PHP widget, FeedBurner FeedSmith, Fuzzy Recent Comments, Google XML Sitemaps, randomimage, runPHP, ShareThis, Subscribe To Comments, WordPress Automatic Upgrade, wp-GotLucky, wp-headlineanimator, WP-UserOnline, WP-UserOnline Widget and Zap_NewWindow
However, Fuzzy Widgets, Sticky Post, WP Random Tagline all have issues of varying importance.
Fuzzy widgets – The widget title is not displayed correctly
Sticky post – Must be disabled for the blog to display
WP Random Tagline – The tagline is displayed in extra white space inserted above the blog, and minor admin issues when enabled/disabling
I’ll be updating you with further info if/when the authors update their code, and I notice 😉
Mar 30 2008
WordPress 2.5 Early Reactions – Sticky Post + WordPress Automatic Upgrade Plugins
[UPDATE AT END OF POST]
OK, I have upgraded my test blog site to WordPress 2.5, to see if any problems occur with my current plugins etc., before committing myself to upgrading my 19 other blogs.
It would appear that a couple of things may be of interest to others…
1) Using the WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin, the process bombed out at the ‘cleanup stage’. To clarify, the upgrade proceeded as normal, but the procedure halted when the process attempted to delete its temporary files. I was able to continue (WordPress had me login in again), click on the Manage link, go to Automatic Upgrade, and finish off the process successfully (AFAI can tell). Go here for the general plugin page, and here for the latest update info.
2) The Sticky Post plugin (previously found at http://blog.vishalon.net/Post/88.aspx, though that page is now removed or perhaps the permalink structure over there changed?), that enables you to keep a specific post on the front page for as long as you want, without constantly fiddling the time stamp, appears to be temporarily broken by WordPress 2.5 . I suspect this was due to code changes within WordPress that deal with handling which posts should be displayed. If you have the plug in installed, upgrade to WordPress 2.5, and find that none of your posts appear, along with an error of WordPress database error: [Table 'wp_posts' from one of the SELECTs cannot be used in global ORDER clause] at the top of your page, login as normal, and deactivate the Sticky Post plugin.
( SELECT SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS wp_posts.*, 2 AS N FROM wp_posts WHERE 1=1 AND wp_posts.post_type = 'post' AND (wp_posts.post_status = 'publish' OR wp_posts.post_status = 'private') ) UNION ALL ( SELECT wp_posts.*, 1 AS N FROM wp_posts INNER JOIN wp_postmeta ON wp_posts.ID = wp_postmeta.post_id WHERE wp_posts.post_status = 'publish' AND wp_posts.post_type = 'post' AND wp_postmeta.meta_key = 'STICKY' AND wp_postmeta.meta_value = '1' ORDER BY wp_posts.post_date_gmt DESC LIMIT 1) ORDER BY N, wp_posts.post_date DESC LIMIT 0,10
I still want to carry out further testing before upgrading my other blogs, but I’m reasonably happy, so far at least.
For further info on the final release of WordPress 2.5, see here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
[UPDATE]
See this post for further details on plugin compatibility testing with WordPress 2.5
Mar 18 2008
Failing Blog
Came across this blog, and though you might like to check it out. In the same way as pwned refers to a situation where one person or object has thoroughly bettered another, fail (a little more obviously) refers to a situation where someone or something’s endeavour has not gone according to plan.
Arguably that picture could have been in a pwned collection as well.
Took me a couple of seconds to work out where the ‘fail’ was in that one 🙂
Click the link to see more photos (otherwise the main blog page would take too long to load)
Continue reading “Failing Blog”
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Mar 07 2008
Have You Visited John’s New Blog Yet?
Next time we get over to Swansea (well Clydach to be precise), I need to run through a few processes with John, to do with his new blog. He originally had one hosted with wordpress.com, but decided to buy a domain name and have the extra freedom (and headaches 😉 ) that having his own server to host the files would entail. So, if you’ve not yet made it over to Celt Photographic yet, take a moment to check it out. Although some sections are still work in progress, the main change is that the front page will be an area to display his photographs, although the actual blog posts (which apparently will improve in their frequency) are still accessible. We also have a coppermine photo gallery to play with on a related domain, but as I’ve not delved into that before, I’ll wait until we’re sat in the same room – some things are just more easily done in the ‘real’ world.
Feb 27 2008
WordPress In Kazakh !
I meant to post about this a while back, but as you may have already guessed from the title, the WordPress software that this blog is based on is now available in the Kazakh language. Whilst it is likely that 99.9%§ of people who will be installing WordPress on a server are already able to speak Russian, and therefore use that pre-existing version, the fact that the option is now there for those that want a Kazakh interface, is definitely a good thing. Check out the semi-official news release here.
§ – Did you know that 64.7% of statistics are made up?
Feb 22 2008
Upgraded All Blogs To WP 2.3.3 …
and this time round it was a lot quicker. I had looked at a couple of plugins that attempted to automate the process last year, but they either required more coding expertise than I felt comfortable reaching for, or shell access to my server, which I’ve yet to enable (I need to e-mail a scan of my driving license first).
Anyway, head on over to Techie Buzz to read more about it. It saves me time upgrading 20 blogs to a new version of WordPress in a number of ways; I don’t need to download the new install locally first, and I also don’t need to upload the decompressed version 20 different times via FTP. Unfortunately the fully automated procedure does not work with my config, but I hope to try and assist the author with that matter once I’ve finished importing all my old web site articles into the new blogs that are sitting ready and blank right now. The ‘manual’ option still saved a lot of time, and automates backups beforehand, so should anything go wrong, it should be reasonably easy to roll back. Anyway, with the plugin in place, and known to be working, the next time even a minor (2.2.x etc.) update is released, I can not have to lose so much time upgrading all the sites.
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Feb 13 2008
Sparse Posting
Quick explanation for those of you who thought I had given up on posting here, or had no internet access – I am currently still deep in the process of setting up my other 18 sites. They were originally created as static (well almost, too long a story to recount here) pages, and whenever I needed to make amendments, it tended to take a long time. Deciding to swap hosts, I took the opportunity to also use WordPress as a CMS system for these sites. This has meant a fair amount of preparatory work; I am now manually importing each old article into individual blog posts, tidying up the strange snippets of code that snuck in here and there, and then finally tweaking the theme for each to get what I need. I’ve completed this process on about 1/3 of the sites, however in terms of work, I am only 1/5 done at max – some of the sites only have 50 or so articles to import, whilst the ones left are closer to 200 🙁
Anyway, once this process is complete, I’m hoping to start earning some money from them again (the reason they were originally created), and any future amendments will be a lot easier to carry out, be it on an individual page, or site-wide. Until then, this blog will continue to be updated less frequently. Sorry.
I still have a large back log of posts to write here, ranging from the ‘missing’ book reviews, last year’s Amsterdam trip reports, and a lot of Eating Out posts, since meeting Oz Dave, Chris2 and Eric.
Finally, although not as concrete as I originally hoped, a trip to Amsterdam and short time in Britain is still a possibility around my birthday (4/20 for any American schmokers reading this 🙂 20th April for anyone else). Since the ACD (Amsterdam Coffeeshop Directory) forums are still down, and Channels.nl is getting ever more full of trolls, I decided to source a new site for reliable information…
Virtual ‘Dam is looking good so far 🙂 (Nope, not another sponsored post, just happy to recommend the site to others interested in all things related to Amsterdam.)
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Feb 13 2008
Randomness
As observant readers will have noticed, this blog has been missing a tagline§ since I moved hosts and reinstalled WordPress from scratch. Part of the problem was that I couldn’t decide which to use, having already cycled through a few on the old version of the blog. I am now trying out a new plugin (WP Random Tagline (I love plugin authors who name their code with a descriptive name, saves so much time when searching 🙂 )), and so each time someone visits a page on this site, they should see a new tagline at the top, just above where it says ChrisMerriman.com.
Now some people would say this does not help with search engine optimization, however 1) I’m mainly writing this blog for my own sanity, not necessarily to try and draw in a crowd of thousands 2) It is better than having none at all 😉
Anyway, the plugin automatically creates the required SQL table thingies, which is a relief, as this is one area I’m still a little hazy on.
§ – Thats the text you see next to many blog names (normally a short description/quote/explanation, as opposed to the site name itself)
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Feb 06 2008
WordPress 2.3.3 Released
I have just noticed the link in my dashboard, informing me that a security update has been released for WordPress. See the WordPress dev blog post on this subject here. Basically, a security flaw was discovered, where IF you had registration enabled on your blog, members could theoretically hack in and edit other people’s posts. Although this doesn’t effect this blog, (anyone is welcome to leave a comment, but no one can register), I’ll be uploading the new xmlrpc.php to my 20 blogs tonight, and probably update them properly to 2.3.3 tomorrow morning. As ever, head on over to the official WordPress download page to grab the latest stable release. (If you are looking for nightly builds, I doubt you need me to go digging about for the URL, I imagine it is imprinted on your brain already 😉 )
Anyway, if you have any friends with WordPress powered blogs (that is those who host their own files, and download the software from wordpress.org, not those who use wordpress.com services), do them a favour and drop them a line to give them a heads up on this update.
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