Posts in category "blogging"

Feedburner - WordPress.com provides users with statistics about feed subscriptions. At best, these metrics were questionable and I used to provide two RSS feeds (WordPress and Feedburner) so the metrics didn't capture all feed activity anyway. As there is no equivalent functionality in WordPress 2.0.4 out of the box, I resurrected my Feedburner account and installed this WordPress plugin which automatically routes any subscribers to the WordPress RSS feed through Feedburner.

Sitemap - I started from zero when I created this site so I could try my hand at organic gardening. The only search engine I submitted to was Google. When I was trying to encourage Google to index the new site, I discovered that a sitemap could accelerate the process. This WordPress plugin generates a sitemap which tells the Google crawler about the site structure and recently updated pages. The sitemap automatically gets updated after each post and helps to reduce network traffic.

After my recent move from the community of WordPress.com, once again I truly feel like a Blog in Isolation. There are a few features I missed from WordPress.com:

• Dashboard - I can still check the WordPress blog, Top Blogs and Top Posts independently.
• Forums - While I can still participate, I don't really feel like a member of that WordPress community any longer.
• Comments - signed up for coComment that tracks all comments (not just those on WordPress.com)
• Tag surfer - can create Technorati feed(s) to replicate this but this was a nice, dynamic feature.
• New WordPress themes - If I like them, I simply download and experiment on this blog.
• Latest WordPress posts - an occasional diversion. No real equivalent (unless I login to my placeholder WP account)
• Avatars - Not bothered but favicon is your friend.

The Barthelme theme for WordPress is close to absolute perfection.

My only minor reservation is that elements of the sidebar (Pages, Categories, Recent Comments) and the title of the Next/Previous posts appear in UPPER case.

This is one of my pet hates as it looks like SHOUTING which is RUDE and, IMHO (sic), is completely at odds with the minimalist, understated feel of the theme.

However, a quick edit in 'style.css' to change two occurrences of 'text-transform: none;' to 'text-uppercase: none;' fixed that.

My life is now complete. All that remains is to add 'CSS' to my CV.

Just installed and configured Drupal 4.7.3 and noted an announcement asking for volunteers to test newly added support for the Oracle database.

Most open source, content management systems (WordPress, Joomla et al) use MySQL so it will be interesting to see whether there is much demand for a CMS running on an Oracle database.

On a similar note, Oracle are likely to confirm that the next major release of Siebel (8.0) will be available on the Linux platform. The official announcement is expected at Oracle OpenWorld later this month. This isn't wholly unexpected as support for Linux in Siebel 8.0 was included in the public Statement of Direction (May 2006).

The availability of the Siebel on Linux is is likely to be an attractive option for smaller companies, some of whom who already deploy the Siebel database on a Linux platform.

The migration from andyc.wordpress.com is now complete. All articles have been migrated. All comments have been lovingly preserved. All the internal links have been fixed (by hand) in a long and painstaking process. Robots and spiders are crawling all over the new site.

The only omission was a handful of WordPress images. I realised that I was a little hasty in deleting my old WordPress blog otherwise I could have easily retrieved these files too. Or a simple 'wget' of the complete site would have done the job.

Time for a checkpoint, I think. Activate the WP-DB Backup plugin and take a full backup of the MySQL database. Export the complete blog (posts and comments) to XML. As for Charlie - well that's yours truly for not taking a checkpoint earlier.

I decided I didn't like the format of the ' Related Posts' plugin and uninstalled it. However, when I reversed the database changes, I inadvertently deleted two key WP tables instead of column attributes. This idiotic error broke my blog. Totally.

So I was forced to delete my shiny, new WordPress installation and database, and repeat the whole migration process again (including the time consuming and painstaking change to all internal links) from my local WordPress installation. Lucky I took that copy otherwise I would have been really stuck.

Still, I am getting pretty good at the migration from hosted to hosting WordPress now and, finally, I understand the importance of backups.

I have been pretty impressed with Dreamhost so far:

• Configured putty for SSH access.
• Installed Joomla (one-click)
• Upgraded to PHP5 (one-click)
• Installed MediaWiki (one-click)
• Installed Gregarius (all by myself)

The only minor issues I have encountered is that I can't disable telnet (insecure) and my analog stats didn't get refreshed today.

Dreamhost have a blog, a Wiki, support forums and any idiotic questions (after ignoring all of those) have all been answered promptly and courteously.

The WordPress rich text editor is pretty good but has an odd bug which is a little irritating. It keeps confusing paragraph end with line break

I tried Writely which worked but has no support for adding categories, omits the title and uses an obscure post slug so now I am trying Performancing for Firefox which has none of these limitations and works fine.

Choose domain name which is taken. Choose another domain name.

Sign-up with Dreamhost despite recent bad press. All the other hosting providers look similar and all have supporters and critics and, to be fair, Dreamhost were quickest (and most helpful) to reply to a simple technical enquiry.

Payment processing takes a long, long time which is a little disconcerting.

Install WordPress 2.0.4 using One-Click installation. Shortly receive email stating 'Blog creation failed. Please try again later' which is worrying.

Repeat installation of WordPress which is successful.

Export existing blog from WordPress.com into XML.

Import XML into a local installation of WordPress 2.1 alpha (includes all comments).

Import XML into new blog. Everything imported successfully apart from the comments.

Install TechSailor plugin. Delete some posts with comments and repeat complete import. Existing posts are skipped and import includes comments for some posts but not others.

Delete complete WordPress installation, recreate mySQL database and empty blog.

Install TechSailor again. Import XML which works fast and without error. All posts, all comments, all categories are present. In fact, everything is intact.

Change theme to the stunning Barthelme which was the main reason for all this effort.

Upgrade Barthelme to the latest version (1.2.2).

Notice that the 'About' page wasn't imported and recreate.

Change permalink format to include name/date as used on WordPress.com.

Install widget support and configure sidebar widgets.

Activate Akismet plug-in (needs WordPress API key).

Install Google Analytics tracking code.

Stake my claim on Technorati.

Respond to amusing comment accusing me of blatant plagiarism.

Delete WordPress blog. Suddenly realise I didn't put up a closing redirect entry. Oh well.

Put kettle on.

Someone ripped my blog off. And it looks better than mine. That's it. Its over. Finished. Goodbye.

There I was - teetering on the precipice of getting my own domain name, a hosted blog, Website, anonymous FTP server, message board, Wiki and countless other stuff I would never use.

A fully hosted solution (with unlimited bandwidth) on a Linux platform, the bleeding edge versions of mySQL, Apache, PHP and WordPress, a 'control panel', SSH and the prospect of sharing my wonderful set of feeds to my adoring public using Gregarius.

The domain I had set my heart on was 'www.mrbrightside.com'. When I went to buy it, I discovered to my disgust that someone (a female in Doncaster) currently had control of this domain.

I didn't even know idiots speculated on domain names so this was a terrible shock but this article was most useful. Then fate smiled upon me to overcome this minor setback.

When I consulted the 'whois' entry, I found that the domain had recently expired. On 16 September 2006 to be precise. How very exciting ! This surely means I am destined to succeed after all.

All I need to do now is to wait patiently until the domain is released back to the Interweb so I can register it. The only outstanding question is whether I sign up for 1, 2 or even 10 years.

I was excited. I was confident. I started to research various hosting providers in the US and the UK. People I trusted used DreamHost and were blissfully happy with the service.

I was poised with my credit card, polling the domain name every 30 seconds. I had to take compassionate leave from work citing 'illness of someone very close to me' in this dogged pursuit of 'mrbrightside.com'.

In my spare 29 seconds, I busied myself researching the themes, plugins and applications I would be using in this brave new world.

Then, suddenly the status of 'www.mrbrightside.com' changed to 'Locked'. Apparently this means that the owner has not responded to multiple emails, phone calls and final demands to renew his interest and the release of the domain name is now imminent.

Fantastic. Only Brandon Flowers can stop me now.

Then, as always, fate intervened again but this time she wasn't smiling.

The wizzened old hag from Doncaster returned from market in Malton and finally decided to renew the domain even though it cost her more money than if she had acted two days earlier. Maybe Yorkshire folk aren't so mean, after all.

Then the blogosphere erupted, moaning about the appalling level of service provided by Dreamhost - downtime, poor support, bad communication, slow connectivity, veiled threats, termination without due cause.

Phew. What a relief. That was a narrow escape. Fate was really saving me from a disaster.

So, on reflection, I decided to take the easy option - put my wallet away and do absolutely nothing.