by WebKeyDesign | Feb 5, 2008 | WordPress
When dealing with website upgrades, one of the main concerns is trying to make the upgrades go as smooth as possible, but the other concern is that upgrades need to be executed as fast as possible to minimize down time. When it comes to the web, it is a 24 hour cycle, and even 15 minutes of down time can cost web site owners money. Given this, I have come up with the following upgrade process for minor WordPress upgrades, that minimizes down time for web site users, and makes the process a little easier on me.
Verify Backup
Never perform any kind of upgrade without a backup! In the case of WordPress, make sure you have a current database backup and a backup of your wp-config.php file. Now on with the upgrade process…
Prepare Your WordPress Upgrade Files
1. The first thing I do is delete any unnecessary files from the new WordPress release. I do not use the classic theme at all, so I usually delete that theme.
- wp-config-sample.php
- license.txt
- readme.html
- wp-admin\install.php
- wp-content\themes\classic
- wp-content\plugins\hello.php
2. Rename the following folders:
- wp-admin to wp-admin-new
- wp-include to wp-include-new
Uploading Files
3. Upload the two folders that you renamed to your WordPress root directory. Note that this will not overwrite the current folders, since they are named differently. This results in not interrupting the up-time of your site until the next step.
4. Upload all the root files to your site, overwriting the current files already there. Sometimes, it is best to delete the root files first instead of overwriting them, so choose whatever method you prefer. Note that you should keep the wp-config.php file; do not delete this file ever or it will cause problems.
5. Upload the contents of the wp-content folder, meaning you now have to upload the contents of the wp-content/themes and wp-content/plug-ins directories.
Finish Upgrade
6. Most WordPress upgrades want you to confirm the upgrade.php file. This usually runs database changes and such, but for minor builds, it is a good way of confirming the upgrade process worked.
- Run domain_name/wp-admin/upgrade.php
7. Lastly if all went well, you just need to delete upgrade.php and you are done!
Some Notes
Make sure you are familiar with the upgrade process for WordPress and note that some major upgrades may require changes to theme files and such. You may need to modify this upgrade process for a particular WordPress release.
by WebKeyDesign | Jan 9, 2008 | Apple
Three months ago I posted my Apple iPhone Review and detailed my initial thoughts of Apple’s entry into the cell phone market; now with a few months of usage I thought it would be a good time to write down some afterthoughts on what the iPhone experience is all about. First let me state that I have only personally used only three cellphones in my entire life: a Blackberry, a Samsung Blackjack, and an old style cell phone, none of which I personally owned. The irony of course is that back in college I worked at a major electronics chain store and sold cell phones as part of my job. Back then I use to sign up people for Motorola phones all the time. Somehow though I never really thought I would ever need a cell phone until now!
Most Used Features
Without a doubt, the feature that I use the most is Safari. I love being able to read my favorite tech news sites and blogs anywhere I go. Everyone is talking about how some day eBooks will become popular, but in reality the real medium is the news site and blogs that get updated daily and which are read more often than most newspaper columns. The iPhone allows you to do what you have always wanted to do, which is catch up on your favorite sites when you are away from your computer. In many ways it reduces the need for people to use their work computer for idle web browsing and lets people be informed anywhere they go.
I personally hate talking to people on the phone, so I prefer SMS texting to actually calling anyone. Sometimes SMS seems more fun than actually talking. I much more prefer to send coworkers a quick message than to actually bother them during a meeting or worse at home in their private time. The iPhone’s keyboard takes a little getting use to, but it soon becomes second nature and you find yourself quickly adopting to its limitations.
As a manager, you often need to catch up on email or learn more management skills, but lets face it there is never enough time in the day to do this. One trick that I use is to email myself anything I don’t have time to read to my GMail account and then later when I get stuck waiting somewhere with nothing to do, I pull out my iPhone and check my email. This way I catch up on everything I wanted to read eventually without interfering with my regular work routine.
Probably the feature I use the most that is not work related happens to be the camera. Like most people I have a digital camera and it is stuck in a drawer somewhere. The iPhone camera is nothing to rave about, but it allows you the freedom to take a few pictures of the family, especially when they least expect it. For the first time I actually I am using iPhoto weekly.
The Annoyances
The biggest annoyance is the battery life, until you discover to live within the limitations of the iPhone battery. If you find your battery draining like mine, try the following tips:
- Turn Wi-Fi off when you know there are no access points
- Lower your screen Brightness
- Turn Bluetooth off if not needed
- Do not setup Mail to Auto-Check
- iPod: Turn off Sound Check
- iPod: Turn off EQ
- iPod: Turn off Volume Limit
- If you do not need to take any calls, enable Airplane Mode
The other problem that I use to run into is with Safari. At times Safari would just quit without warning trying to load a webpage. I think this is more of a problem with Safari 3 then the actual iPhone. Safari 3 in Mac OS X is still a work in progress and you will find that while Safari 3 improves on the previous version’s speed, it seems to be a lot more prone to long freezes and random quits. A good cure for this on the iPhone is to clear your cache and shutdown your iPhone completely. Once your power it back up, Safari seems to work just fine for a couple a days at least. The problem only gets worse if you switch constantly from Wi-Fi and AT&T.
Don’t Use It
Other than my kids who seem to think it is hilarious to watch SouthPark cartoons with Pokemon character voices, I really don’t use the YouTube feature much. The iPod part of the iPhone plays better video and unless you are connected to Wi-Fi, YouTube does not work very well at all through AT&T.
by WebKeyDesign | Jan 9, 2008 | In Stock
I recently got a new 2007 Intel Mac, which I have yet to review, but which I already updated. Apple has a reputation for gouging customers on extra memory configurations, (much like every other computer maker), and even though Apple now sells their computers with at least 1GB of RAM, this proves to be insufficient for Mac OS X 10.5 at least. However with today’s memory prices, you can easily find a good deal on DDR2 667MHz SO-DIMMS. The best deal I found was from NewEgg: 2GB Transcend DDR2 667MHz SO-DIMM for $36.99. When purchased there was also a $10 Mail-In Rebate that cut the price to $26.99, (with $4.99 extra for shipping). The aluminum Intel iMacs can handle up to 4GB of RAM, so if you do not mind throwing away the original 1GB DIMM, you can max out your iMac for less than $80.
by WebKeyDesign | Dec 19, 2007 | Tech Notes
One of the major reasons Adobe bought out Macromedia was to get Flash. Without a doubt Flash is one of those technologies that makes the whole Internet experience that much more enjoyable for the end user. On the other hand, Flash can quickly become a headache when it does not work properly or if you are trying to work with it and it keeps changing. Given that I have put together the following list of resources and tips on dealing with Flash.
Flash Implementations:
The first thing to understand is that there are really two implementations of Flash. There is the Flash ActiveX control which is used by Microsoft Internet Explorer and the Flash Plug-in. Firefox and Safari use the Flash Plug-in and not the ActiveX control. The ActiveX control is the Flash9x.ocx file and the Plug-in is the Flashplayer.xpt file.
On Windows, Flash is installed to:
- C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\Macromed\Flash
On Mac OS X, Flash is installed to:
- /Library/Internet Plug-Ins
Uninstalling Flash:
The best way to uninstall Flash from Windows and Mac OS X is to use Adobe’s own uninstaller. This can be downloaded from Adobe’s Tech Note 14157 page. Proving that nothing is easy on Windows, by default the Windows uninstaller does not remove registry entries. In order to wipe registry entries for Flash, you must run the uninstaller using a clean switch:
uninstall_flash_player.exe /clean
Installing Flash:
Since there are two implementations of Flash, there are essentially three installations of Flash. For IE (the ActiveX control), you can simply go to Adobe.com and look for the Get Flash Player logo and click on it. For other browsers, when you go to the Adobe.com page, it will instead download an installer for the Flash Plug-in. There is a third installer which is only for developers who want to include both the ActiveX control and Plug-in with their applications. You can usually download the latest installers here:
For testing purposes, Adobe does offer archived versions on their Tech Note 14266 page.
Once you have actually installed Flash, if needed you can also disable Flash Auto Update Notifications. This is done by creating a text file named mms.cfg and placing it in the following directories:
- Windows XP: C:\WINDOWS\System32\Macromed\Flash
- Mac OS X: \Application Support\Macromedia
The mms.cfg file should have: AutoUpdateDisable=1 to disable Auto Update Notifications. Information on doing this can be found on Adobe’s Tech Note 16701594 page.
Resources:
by WebKeyDesign | Dec 6, 2007 | cPanel
This week I wanted to setup a protected directory on one of my personal sites. CPanel has a built-in feature for setting up password protected subdirectories via the .htaccess file, so I figured I would just use this feature to setup my protected directory. Of course, nothing ever works when you want it to and I soon found out that WordPress was preventing this from working correctly. Every time I tried to access my subdirectory I received a 404 error page from WordPress. After a couple of days of messing with the root .htaccess file, I found a solution.
Edit Root .htaccess
Edit the root .htaccess file and look for the WordPress code which is how Permalinks are created. It will look similar to this.
# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress
You will need to add a new section above your WordPress code similar to this:
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/subdirectory/(.*)$
RewriteRule ^.*$ – [L]
</IfModule>
Substitute the directory you want to password protect for “subdirectory”, and then see if you are now able to get your CPanel password protected directory to work.
Still Not Working!
If it still does not work, then you have another .htaccess file that has the same WordPress code. For my domain, I install the WordPress files in a subdirectory named “main”, and when I inspected the root .htaccess file and the .htaccess file under main, I found the same code. The solution is to remove the WordPress code from the subdirectory in which you have the WordPress files. It should now work.
For further information on WordPress Permalinks conflicting with CPanel password protected directories see:
