WordPress

Still Trying to Troubleshoot FeedWordPress Issues

Posted on July 8, 2009

defeatUnfortunately the last few updates to the FeedWordPress plugin have not fixed the issues that I have been having. What is going on is that the meta data is not being pulled in to the individual posts when automatically searching for feeds and therefore it is not linking back to the original post.

I have setup a test site with a fresh install of WordPress and the FeedWordPress plugin that is updating correctly so it looks like I may have to kill my main site and start from scratch. The good thing is that I will be able to keep all 300+ posts that the main site has by exporting and reimporting via the WordPress import/export mechanism. My plan is to export the content, delete all the WordPress files including themes and plugins, and delete the db. From there I will do a reinstall of everything with fresh files and cross my fingers that it will work. It seems extreme but it seems the only fix available.

Wish me luck!

Why I Really Like WordPress 2.8

Posted on June 22, 2009

I have been slowly updating the sites that run WordPress over the last week or so and have started to really love WordPress 2.8. The reason for this sudden burst of affection are a couple of new features that version 2.8 introduced.

wordpress-upload-themeThe first feature that I really like is the ability to upload themes and plugins via the WordPress interface. This has eliminated the need to break out Dreamweaver or another FTP program to get something uploaded to a site.  That is significant because I usually download plugins and/or themes to my desktop. If I have to upload either of them with FTP I have to put them in a particular folder and hopefully I already have the FTP info entered into my program. If not then I need to go through those steps. With the web based upload feature I can quickly upload in a few steps.

The other feature that I like is the built in code editing for themes and plugins. I know this feature has been around for a while but 2.8 added code highlighting. This makes it much easier to find and edit small items without having to break out an FTP program and code editor.

These two features have reduced the time that it takes me to do small edits and I am truly gratefully for them.

WordPress 2.8 Release – Looking Good

Posted on June 11, 2009

wp-logoLast night WordPress 2.8 was released and I updated the idano.net website to check it out.

The installation went without a hitch through the automatic upgrade process and from what I can tell nothing broke on my site. WordPress.org notes that the new items that were apart of this release were:

  • New drag-and-drop widgets admin interface and new widgets API
  • Syntax highlighting and function lookup built into plugin and theme editors
  • Browse the theme directory and install themes from the admin
  • Allow the dashboard widgets to be arranged in up to four columns
  • Allow configuring the number of items to show on management pages with an option in Screen Options
  • Support timezones and automatic daylight savings time adjustment
  • Support IIS 7.0 URL Rewrite Module
  • Faster loading of admin pages via script compression and concatenation

It looks like most of the changes in this release have to do with the setup and administration of a WordPress site so things that you do day-to-day should not be impacted.

Here is a quick video WordPress released in regard to version 2.8:

In Other WordPress News…

I am excited to hear that WordPress and WordPress MU (Multi User) are set to be merged. This has the potential to be very cool especially for folks like me that have several blogs but have them all in separate installs. We will have to see when the merged version comes out whether it will be worth it (or even possible) to consolidate all of my blogs together.

Cograts to the WordPress team on another great release!

Fessing Up and Building My Own WordPress Themes

Posted on March 24, 2009

pulling-hair-outFor client work I always work on a custom website design and layout and then transform that into WordPress template for the client’s website. For my personal sites I will admit that I generally rely on the work of others to get something up quickly and have even resorted to purchasing some memberships to theme sites and outright purchased themes. It is the same adage of a chef that does not cook at home, you do it all day as work so the last thing you want to do is do it at home.

Recently I decided to take the easy way out on a couple of personal sites by purchasing a few themes for them. The main reason that I purchased these themes is that out of the box they seemed to do exactly what I wanted and even seemed to be a step up from what I usually produce myself. Unfortunately with both of these themes I spent more time fixing theme to run properly then I would have if I would have built them from scratch myself. In both cases I could tell that the people building them while excellent Web Designers were not that well versed with WordPress.

I supposed this is just a testament to the fact that the easy way out is not always the best way to go.

Back to Photoshop & Dreamweaver I go to make my own themes!

/Rant over.

Playing With the WordPress iPhone 1.2 App

Posted on March 18, 2009

WordPress has released their 1.2 version of their iPhone app. Noteable items that this update includes are:

- Landscape Mode
- New/editing pages
- Comment moderation
- Image resizing
- Password protect posts

I am using it to do this post and it seems to be working pretty well.

Good job WordPress iPhone App Dev team!

Now I just need to get used to tying in Landscape mode with my thumbs.

- Post from my iPhone, please excuse any typos :-) .

Fixing FeedWordPress PermaLinks to the Original Website

Posted on March 8, 2009

feedwordpressWith the recent upgrade of the syndication plug-in FeedWordPress that I use on my network.idano.net syndication site the links on the articles were no longer linking back to the original website. A few people had noted this issue on the comments thread but no one provided any solutions. Because the network.idano.net website was linking back to itself I was not getting the SEO and cross linking advantage that was intended. In fact there was a possibility that I could be penalized because of duplicate content.

To fix the issue I deactivated and deleted the plug-in on my network.idano.net website and then re-uploaded the plug-in. This included the MagpieRSS-upgrade rss.php and rss-functions.php files that needed to be uploaded to the wp-includes folder as well. Once that was done I cleared the cache in my browser and re-activated the plug-in.

From there I did a test post and manually had the FeedWordPress plugin check for a new post from that site. The plugin found the post and when I checked the Permalink it linked back to the original website like it was supposed to. Unfortunately it did not update the previous posts.

To correct the rest of the posts I went into my syndicated site and deleted the posts that had the incorrect linking. From there I went in and had the plug-in update from all of the syndicated sites. It found all of the posts that I had deleted, added them, and properly linked them back to the original sites.

Problem fixed. Case closed :-) .

WordPress 2.7 Released!

Posted on December 11, 2008

Wow! That was quick. I just installed RC2 yesterday and now the official release was pushd out today.

I have updated all on my sites and the update went really smooth.

Congrats to the WordPress 2.7 development team!

Playing With WordPress 2.7

Posted on December 10, 2008

WorpdPress2.7 I have installed WordPress 2.7 in a couple places and have begun to play with. I have to say that I really like the new interface. It has a really good feel to it and reminds me of when I used to run MovableType back in the day. I still bumble around here and there trying to find things but I am sure I will get used to it.

Additional things that I like about WordPress 2.7 are the automatic install and update functions. WordPress 2.7 now lets you update WordPress in a single click. It downloads, installs, and updates your database all automatically. The only thing that it doesn’t do which the WordPress Automatic Upgrade plug-in did was backup your database which is really important to do before upgrading.

This lack of automatic backup wasn’t that big of a deal though because I went to the plug-in section within the admin section of 2.7 and did a search for "backup" and found the WP-DB-Backup plug-in. I clicked "Install" and it automatically downloaded and installed the plug-in for me. This sure beats having to open an FTP program in order to upload a new plug-in. Anyway, I did a backup and then scheduled a daily backup to be emailed to me. From there I did the automatic update of WordPress with the native upgrader. It is really nice to have this automation now baked into the native admin section.

I am sure there are other little nuggets that are sprinkled throughout that I haven’t discovered yet but I am very impressed with what I have seen so far.

WordPress iPhone App Version 1.1 Released – I Can’t Wait Until 1.2

Posted on August 4, 2008

WordPress has just released the 1.1 version of their iPhone Blogging application. This was mostly a bug and stability fix so their are no noticable feature updates or changes. They did reference the coming 1.2 version and provided a link to it from their announcement iphone.wordpress.net.

The 1.2 version virtually looks like my Don’t Like and Wish List combined together. It is supposed to include the ability to add links to posts, better image insertion, and password protection. This app already has gotten me blogging more but the addition of these items would make my life much easier.

Thanks WordPress team for awesome blogging software and an awesome software app!

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