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Metablogging / Technology / Webculture / Wordpress — Comments Off
24
Feb 11

Upgrading to Worpress 3.1

WordPress has recently upgraded to 3.1.  You can find out what’s new here, like the new toolbar, internal linking and post formats, or by taking a glance at the below infographic.

You can get higher quality images of the above infographic here (PDF, A4-sized PDF, Print-Quality JPG), and download WordPress here.  Fresh install instructions as well as upgrades are on WordPress’ site.  Lastly, if you get “run out of memory” errors when upgrading, check this post.

Some quick observations:

  • You won’t see the admin bar unless you enable it in each users profile (which you can find at yourdomain.com/wp-admin/profile.php).
  • You will need to use a theme which supports “Post Formats” if you want to use them.  Post Formats allow you to specify posts as being quotes, videos, galleries, and links.
  • Creating a network and using multisites looks easier, but still not easy.
Technology / Webculture — Comments Off
01
Dec 10

Quick Tip when Upgrading your WordPress Install…

There is an important WordPress Upgrade today to 3.2 that everyone is encouraged to install.

If you happen to run into an “Out of Memory Error” when updating, do the following:


  • Backup your databases (I use WP-DBManager).  Make sure you know how to restore them if needed.
  • From the plugins page (yoursitename.com/wp-admin/plugins.php), deactivate ALL of your plugins.
  • Run the upgrade/update.
  • Reactivate your plugins.

It appears that some hosts limit the amount of memory that can be used.   If you are using a lot of plugins, you may bump into that limit.  Deactivating plugins frees up memory, allowing the upgrade.

Metablogging / Misc. / Technology / Webculture / Wordpress — Comments Off
05
Sep 10

WordPress, Cheap hosting, and Memory Limits

I’ve run into a bit of a wall doing three things with this blog, namely upgrading to WordPress 3.0, configuring and updating sitemap.xml, and exporting my posts (a necessary part of upgrading and migrating one’s blog).

All three of these memory intensive activities ran about against the PHP settings of my host – 1and1. I’ve by and large been happy with 1and1 – mainly due to cost – but it appears that their limitations are approaching a level where they may no longer be a viable hosting choice for hobbyist website builders.

The specific issue is that 1and1 limits their basic accounts to just 30MB of PHP memory usage.   Exporting several thousand blog posts and updating a large sitemap simply consumers too much mempory, consequently, the jobs never run.

After attempting various fixes – changing wp-config and wp-settings as well as adding memory limits to .htaccess and creating php.ini in several directories – proved to be fruitless.

My solution – short of migrating my blog and changing hosts – was to disable every single plugin except the barest of necessities and THEN run either export (or import) or Google Sitemap. Once those tasks are done, you can re-enable plugins.

Along those lines, I went through my plugins and themes and examined what plugins or widgets were necessitating a database call. At some point in the near future, I will hard code those features (comment policy, Creative Commons license, Statcounter code, etc.) directly into the theme as opposed to using a plugin or widget. I was also running some plugins that are effectively obsolete thanks to new features in subsequent versions of WordPress. As such, I have decreased the plugin footprint of this humble blog from near-50 plugins down to a more manageable 32, with at least a few more destined for deactivation.

Daily Links — Comments Off
14
Feb 09

Daily Links for February 13th through February 14th

  • Daily Kos: Ben and Jerry’s Bush Memorial Flavors [Suggestions] – - Grape Depression – Abu Grape – Cluster Fudge – Nut'n Accomplished – Iraqi Road – Chock 'n Awe – WireTapioca – Impeach Cobbler – Guantanmallow – imPeachmint – Good Riddance You Lousy Motherfucker… Swirl – Heck of a Job, Brownie! – Neocon Politan – RockyRoad to Fascism – The Reese's-cession – Cookie D'oh! – The Housing Crunch – Nougalar Proliferation – Death by Chocolate… and Torture – Freedom Vanilla Ice Cream – Chocolate Chip On My Shoulder – You're Shitting In My Mouth And Calling It A Sundae – Credit Crunch – Mission Pecanplished – Country Pumpkin – Chunky Monkey in Chief – George Bush Doesn't Care About Dark Chocolate – WMDelicious – Chocolate Chimp – Bloody Sundae – Caramel Preemptive Stripe – I broke the law and am responsible for the deaths of thousands…with nuts
  • Disposing of Assets of Failed Banks Tests F.D.I.C. – NYTimes.com – The F.D.I.C. inherited the collection of loans and property after the failure of 25 banks in 2008, compared to just three in 2007. Thirteen more have failed this year, including four on Friday night, and no one doubts that more are on the way. The F.D.I.C., which insures bank deposits and ultimately has responsibility for liquidating failed banks, is selling hundreds of millions of dollars worth of loans through eBay-like auction sites.
  • forum – creative notes – LOHAS – Mindmaps for Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability.
  • 20 WordPress Tricks to Improve Your Blog –
  • Chart Rules, As Simple as Possible, But Not Any Simpler! | More Information per Pixel – In chart design it’s good to make things simple, but you certainly should avoid oversimplification.

    As Einstein said: "Things should be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler".

    Seth Godin presented in his blog The three laws of great graphs: 1. One Story 2. No Bar Charts 3. Motion

    Effective chart design rules are simple, but reducing it to this set of 3 rules certainly is an over-oversimplification.

  • BeFunky.com – Photo effects with one click, Turn your photos into artwork. –
  • Philadelphia’s fiscal crisis | A Nutter crisis | The Economist – Philadelphia’s problems are huge and getting huger. By law the city’s five-year fiscal plan must be balanced annually. As well as seeking emergency federal help for public pensions, infrastructure, and access to capital for short-term cashflow, Mr Nutter has been forced to make difficult cuts. Every department’s budget has been slashed and will probably still lose another 10%-30%. His rescue plan so far has delayed tax breaks and reduced the city’s payroll. He has cut his own salary by 10%. Seven fire companies and several city swimming pools are on the chopping block. Mr Nutter has been forced to hold a series of town hall meetings to explain the cuts and the crisis. He got an earful, especially over the libraries.
  • The Top 20 Most Engaging Facebook Applications – I'm sorry, but this is just disappointing. Is gambling the new porn? Isn't there something better we can be doing with Facebook Apps, things that bring us closer, makes us better, and tells us the things we want and need to know?
Daily Links — Comments Off
17
Apr 08

Daily Links

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