As a follow up to my rant in a previous posting, I’ve actually done something about it and put it on the net. Maybe someone can find it useful. Anyhow, I’ve updated my WordPress, and made various changes and updates overall. Hopefully, this current set of software will last, oh, at least the next ten minutes, before being considered out of date.
Archive for the ‘DW.Net’ Category
So, WordPress 2.5 has just been released. Its new gallery system is really good, I would like to use it. Unfortunately, the WordPress team only added such a feature in to the basic system long - far too long - after picasa and flickr made web galleries a norm. So WordPress users like me had to turn to advanced plugins like myGallery and features like Lightbox to add those much needed “flash”. And now, there is no clear upgrade path for users (who had no choice earlier but to use those plugins) to convert to the WordPress gallery.
Some of the gallery schemes used in WP25 conflict with myGallery, and they cannot co-exist until myGallery is updated. Thankfully, Alex Rabe’s NextGen Gallery has been updated in time. But this is cold comfort for someone like me. When I chose myGallery, NGN was nowhere to be found. And now, with say hundreds of images in myGallery, what is the next step?
The WordPress development team should take into account the issues faced by users who had to deal with WP adding features into core that third party developers provided. The whole thing with Tagging is being repeated with media galleries. What’s next - caching?
Furthermore, at this point, I can’t even run the myGallery and WP25 gallery side-by-side. So I have to convert to NextGen Gallery (which thankfully has an import from myGallery function), then upgrade to WP25? This is a big job needing Big Hairy Balls. And all the time, there is this banner reminding not just me, but all my subscribers that I need to upgrade.
I am not objecting directly to the fact that the WordPress development team has adopted third-party features into core. I am merely saying that when they do something like that, the WP development team should consider the impact on people who did use the third-party function and made it so popular that it was folded into core. It is like screwing the very users who “voted” that the feature is a good one in the first place. If this sort of thing keeps going on, plugin developers will get pissed off and maybe I should bite the bullet and consider Expression Engine - at least I can scream dollars and sense into them.
Phew! What a day!
I must admit, there were times when I was sitting nervously in front of my PC, wondering if things were going to be OK, or if I would end up wiping out several hundred MB worth of online web data. Of course I have backups! But even with backups, it is still scary when performing major surgery on a website..
Anyway, I have since upgraded WordPress from 2.0.5 to 2.3.1, and at the same time, changed and updated various plugins and so on and so forth. Upgrading the WordPress itself was a breeze. I also used the Maintenance Mode plugin to lock people out until I was ready to have them back in. Since was was going to redo all the plugins and themes, I just threw away most of the wp-content folder, and just upacked the new WordPress. Copied over the wp-config.php file, run the upgrade program, and boom, website is back online. Then I added all the plugins, themes and widgets, enabled them and spent some time configuring them for their various options etc. All this, I did for both DW.Net and for Route 901.
Then came the really scary portion. I decided to change the DB collation type from the default latin1/latin1_swedish_ci to UTF-8. Luckily, I had the UTF-8 Database Converter plugin from g30rg3_x to help me. Now, the plugin has very scary warning pages saying it doesn’t support WP 2.3.1, and you can lose all your data, yadda, yadda, yadda. However, I was already completely out of my mind by the time I reached this point, and said, “F* Me!” and hit “Go”…
I was incredibly lucky, and everything worked. All the pages, etc were still there, and nothing was lost.
That was when the sky fell down. All the graphics from the MyGallery plugin was missing. It seemed that the gallery information and images were all still there and correct, but it kept looking for an “a” folder in the URL. I tried to go look in phpMyAdmin and see if there was a problem with the table data, thinking maybe I could edit the fields by hand. No luck, the database looked OK. Fearing the worst, I was about to go hacking around in MyGallery code to see where the problem was, when on a hunch, I decided to try disable the MyGallery plugin, and re-enable it. Wah-lah, what do you know, it worked. I just needed to resetup and reconfigure the MyGallery plugin and everything was back to normal.
After that, it was a matter of editing tags, rechecking post/page data and so on and so forth. But, basically, things were back to normal. So, here we are, with DeepWave.Net 4.1 - do check out the new Serene Theme and the updated Hide Dashboard plugin - both of which are being released at the same time and used at this site.
It should be noted that the site upgrade also owes its success to one key unsung hero: XAMPP Lite.
The entire upgrade process and all themes, plugins and widgets was tested and rehearsed on my Windows PC before a single modification was made to the live server. This rehearsal even included real live database data from the server imported into the XAMPP test environment. I am happy to say that thanks to XAMPP, the upgrade process was smooth and generally uneventful except for the one problem with the UTF8 conversion and MyGallery plugin.
Conclusion: All’s well that ends well, and hello to widgets, tags and shoutboxes!
Just as soon as I upgraded the whole of DeepWave to 2.0.6, I find out that 2.0.7 is right around the corner. Sigh.. Nevertheless, I think I’ve nailed down the proper procedures, along with the necessary diffs and backup scripts to do another painless upgrade in the future.
Another interesting piece of news is that some of the key members of WordPress are starting a new project called Habari. It remains to be seen if it will be as good as or better than WordPress of course. Right now, only SVN checkout is allowed, but some kind of developer preview will be available soon, I guess. It is interesting though that in this free world, it is possible to challenge the "establishment" and forge your own way should you feel the need to do so. Now, while many may highlight the various advantageous of a more authoritarian approach, it is important to realise that this sort of "rebellion" every once and a while is very useful to produce the quantum leap forwards.
For example, Apple’s new iPhone is a dramatic change from convention. One of its groundbreaking changes is introduced simply by having only one hard button on the entire device. Some (including myself) argue about tactile feedback, SMS-ing in the dark, a hard-button slient/vibrate mode (ala Palm Treo) etc. But regardless, the iPhone is a (dare I say it) revolutionary device. Which phone company executive would have ever agreed to removing every button except for one? So, it took a rebellious, dare-to-be-different, no-past-historical-baggage company, namely Apple, to "rebel".
I’m sure there will be all sorts of issues with the iPhone, from 3rd-party apps, to battery life etc. But simply because it is a device that dares to be so different, using it will probably be a very different experience. I can’t wait. Ditto for Habari.
I’ve just activated the WordPress Notify Members Plugin.. It gives users an option in their profile page to receive an email notification whenever a post or comment is added to the page.
To use it, just register on this site, and select a notification level in your profile. Let me know if it does or doesn’t work 
Over the past couple of days, I’ve added a few new pages. These are mostly old articles and items which were never posted at the previous DeepWave server.
OK, I put up the Manic Depressive Server Message. You can see it here. Most people don’t understand it. They think it is something strange, even though the message right at the top says "File Not Found". But I like it, and it is my website 
so I’ll do what I like to the server.. I can’t claim credit for writing it of course, I think it came from penguinppc.org, but they have a picture of a woman as their 404 page now. Yeah, I’m sure a lot of guys will be hitting penguinppc.org/nosuchfile now.. 
Well, in three days I have setup a blogging / CMS system on a new web host and moved over 120 pages of static content and almost 400 images, files and data. All I can say is, PHEW!
Certainly, this is not the end of the site activity. I still have various things I want to do, like changing the header graphic for the Connections theme, create a Links page of sorts, note down the various changes, hacks and modifications I had to do to get the site running and, of course, start adding more content.. I will also be trying to see if I can migrate Eileen’s Friendster blog to this one, so that will be a technical challenge as well.
And of course, hopefully I will be adding more and more content to DeepWave. It’s not about the technology, it’s about the content, right? Always has been..
Well, looks like the move is almost over.. I registered the DNS change with Network Solutions at about 18:00 GMT+8, and within 3 hours later, my own ISP here in Singapore already has the DNS record updated.. Now that is incredibly fast for a DNS update!
In any case, I’ve moved all the pages etc over, and now only have the Gallery left, and hopefully I’ll get that next. I also want to setup a link page of some kind to add links to other people..
I tried the PHP5, but there seems to be some problem with it. I’ve submitted a ticket to ASO (who have been fantastic so far), and we’ll see.. Anyway, PHP4 is working, so it is not like it is something very urgent..
Other that that, things are Looking Good ™.