RSS FeedMessing around with WordPress 2.7 Beta
As I’m getting ready for our WordPress Meetup tomorrow night, I’ve installed the latest build of the WordPress 2.7 Beta. I have to say that the new admin section is a really big step in the right direction.
Before I go on, remember that this is still a Beta version of the software. The screenshots to follow may not match exactly that of the final release version.
For starters, here’s the new dashboard
(click images for a larger view)
It’s hard for me to decide which features of the new dashboard I like the most.
- Left-side collapsible navigation that allows you to get to the feature you want without having to load a secondary page first. For example, no need to click settings, wait for the page to load and then click “permalinks”. Just click the dropdown arrow next to settings and click the permalinks link. Depending on your server speed, this can be a 30-60 second time savings.
- “Right Now” stats showing you number of posts, pages, categories, tags, comments (approved, spam and awaiting moderation)
- Quick Press which lets you write a post directly from the dashboard (or save as a draft)
- Screen options (not shown in photo) where you can decide which elements of the dashboard are shown/hidden.
There is a lot more information being shown, but yet it doesn’t feel cluttered. It seems way better suited to getting the information you need and getting on with your day.
The Plugin Installer
This may be my favorite feature. No longer do you need to go to wordpress.org, download the plugin, FTP it to your server, go to the plugin page and activate it. Instead, simply go to the install plugins page, find the plugin you want and click the install button. It will do the rest for you. When done you only need to click the activate button. This is a HUGE time saver and is amazingly convenient when you don’t always have your FTP username/password with you. You could now install plugins while sitting at the airport or in Starbucks. I’ll bet you could even do it from your iphone without much trouble.
Media Library
The library itself hasn’t changed a lot, but, from the left-side menu you can now go add images to the library rather than needing to be in the write window. This is a big plus for me as I have had many instances where I wanted to store an image for use in a post later, but may not want to start the post and create a draft. Now I can just upload whatever and get to it when I get to it.
Custom Characters
Want to add a copyright, infinity or Yen symbol but don’t know the HTML code for it? In the post writing form there’s a link for custom characters that brings up a fly-out menu with 200 symbols that you can click on to instantly add to your post. I can now add that funky upside down question mark to my posts whenever I want! ¿ Ha!
I’m probably just scratching the surface of the cool features yet to be found in the new version of WordPress, but these are the features that jumped out at my after my first quick glance. I’m looking forward to the final release so I can upgrade my blogs to it right away.
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Blog World Expo 2008 - Day 2 Recap
Day 2 of Blog World Expo started off exactly as I suspected… late. I don’t know that I have ever been to a conference where the final day has started on time. Especially a conference held in Las Vegas. I think the only way to have a final day session start on time in Las Vegas is to make sure the final day doesn’t start until noon.
The keynote today wasn’t so much a speech as it was a dialog/Q&A with Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Work Week and Mike Shinoda, singer from Linkin Park moderated by Rohit Bhargava. 
They talked about building your personal brand and how it pays to be more interested than interesting. Rohit asked them the best question I had heard all weekend: How important to your success has it been to not be an asshole?” This headed the conversation towards how it is important to be nice to people you may think are non-important at the time. You never know which person is going to have the connection or cause you to be in a certain place at the exact right time. Tim also spoke about setting goals but know what the goals give you when you get there. He also suggested to “Talk to your readers like you would talk to your friends after 2 beers.”
The first session of the day I went to was called “My Blog is a Business? Building a Foundation that Can Help You Grow Your Blog Past the Hobby Stage” The panel consisted of Chris Brogan, Rob McNealy, Jeremy Wright and Nina Yablok and was moderated by Jim Kukral. The panel for this session was pretty amusing. Definitely a bunch of characters here. Nina forced them all to give their top keys to becoming a business in less than 5 minutes.
Chris made the following points: Be helpful in your space, write from your customer/reader’s side of the fence, don’t do a sales pitch.
Jeremy said he has 3 simple rules: think less, plan less, do more stupid shit. Don’t get caught up in trying to make things perfect. Of course, he didn’t mean that you should throw any crap together and expect to make money. But I think you get the idea.
Rob pointed out the following: professional bloggers work their asses off 80+ hours a week. Embrace the hard work to be successful, and, if you love what you do and are passionate about it, it doesn’t really seem like hard work.
The next session was called “Beyond Adsense: Exploration of Practical Monetization Streams“. This panel had David Berkowitz, Jason Billingsley, Michael Buechele and Matt Hulett and was moderated by Angel Djambazov. This session had a lot to do with tools each use for making money on their blogs. Mostly ad networks, affiliate links, software to display ads on WordPress blogs, etc. For me this session was mainly review and didn’t have a lot of new content, but there were several people in the crowd frantically taking notes, so I was definitely in the minority there.
Next was the Networking Reception on the Show Floor. During this time I made one final trip around the show room floor. I grabbed a couple more business cards and flyers and broke my rule from yesterday and collected 2 new T-shirts (thanks, Lijit). 
I drank a couple Jones Sodas (cream soda, yum!) and I picked up these two bottles that I think I’m going to go ahead and save for a while. I had some chicken fingers and chips and then I spoke with a few people about WordCamp:Las Vegas. By the time I was done, there was still another hour left before the next session started. I realized that my recent travel schedule plus the marathon day yesterday had left me wiped out. I decided to pack it in and head on home.
I had a great time at BlogWorld once again and I’m already looking forward to next year’s event. I hope to see you all there!
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WordCamp:Las Vegas, January 10-11, 2009
Last month I was really bummed out when I wasn’t able to attend WordCamp:San Francisco. I’ve been using WordPress for a number of years and have always told anybody who would listen that if they plan on blogging, WordPress is the way to go. Last month’s wasn’t the first WordCamp I had heard about, but it was the first one that was taking place at a location and at a time where I should have been able to attend. Unfortunately, sometimes life happens and you just can’t do what you wanted to do.
After the disappointment I started looking for another WordCamp that I’d be able to attend. Everything that was coming up was either too far away to cheaply fly to, or it was on a weekend where I already have plans. It didn’t take long for me to add it all up and realize it’s time to put together a WordCamp right here in Las Vegas. With one little domain name purchase and an email to the nice folks at Wordpress, WordCamp:Las Vegas was born!
I’ve already been very lucky and have had some great responses to my initial announcement of the upcoming convention. I’ve also been extremely lucky to receive confirmation from Matt Mullenweg, the founding developer (and fellow Dvorak keyboard user, I might add) that he’ll attend and speak at our conference. I have another WordPress developer by the name of Joseph Scott who has also confirmed that he’ll be joining us and will also give a talk on the inner workings of WordPress.
Now is when the hard work starts. There are a 1000 things I need to figure out between now and January 10th & 11th. There are probably just as many things that I don’t know I don’t know. I already have the help of some key people behind me who I will be looking to for help in a number of areas. I will definitely be looking for volunteers to help with different aspects of the show. If you are interested in being a volunteer, please let me know. Free entry to the show, a staff t-shirt and my eternal gratitude will be your reward.
The registration for the event is now open. Space is limited, so register early!
See you all there!
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Fixing the WordPress login issue
As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I was having some big troubles with some of my blogs. There was a bug in WordPress version 2.6.1 that was allowing crafty hackers to create a user account in your log and then with a well written piece of code, they could force a reset of the admin password.
Most people were able to get past the bug by simply upgrading to version 2.6.2. Unfortunately, a simple upgrade didn’t do the trick for me on all by blogs. on 3 of them, I was unable to complete the upgrade because I wasn’t able to log in to my admin section and perform the necessary upgrade. So I was caught in a catch 22. I needed to log in to my admin section to upgrade, and I needed to upgrade to log in to my admin section.
This morning, thanks to the suggestion of one very helpful WordPress savant, I was finally able to solve the problem for the remaining blogs. I figured I would share with you the steps I took in order to complete the upgrade.
1. Download a backup of all my wordpress files to my hard drive.
2. Use PHPMyAdmin to make a backup of the current database.
3. Upload the new 2.6.2 WordPress files.
4. Use PHPMyAdmin, Open the options table, edit the “active_plugins” record.
- Copy the list of active plugins, paste in to a notebad for reference.
- Delete everything in “value” portion of the active_plugins record and hit save.
5. Log in to your WordPress admin section.
6. Upgrade the WordPress the database.
7. Log in to your WordPress admin secton (if you were kicked back out like I was)
8. Upgrade and activate the proper plugins.
That’s it.
After everything I went through last night dealing with this bug, the solution ended up being pretty simple. 10 minutes from start to finish and I’m back to blogging rather than bug chasing.
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WordPress and the 2.6.2 mandatory upgrade
Tonight was one of those frustrating evenings where you spend the entire time banging your head against your keyboard trying to figure something out that just doesn’t seem logical at all. It all started out pretty randomly, too.
This morning I realized that I wasn’t able to log in to the admin section of one of my blogs. I wasn’t getting an error message saying I had the wrong password, it was just returning to the login page. I told Jason about it and he says, “It sounds like you were hacked thanks to this security bug found in WP version 2.6.1.” So, of course I went and immediately upgraded the affected site. I then checked another of my sites. It, too, was affected. I upgraded it as well.
I got home around 5 after picking up my car from the dealership. (it had to have a little work done. blog post forthcoming.) We had dinner and then I headed upstairs to tackle the remaining upgrades. This is when the wheels fell off the cart.
I uploaded the new version of WordPress to the next site, modified a config file, updated a database table (all exactly as I had done this morning to the previous sites) but this time, the upgrade didn’t help. I still couldn’t get in. I tried a few more things with no luck. I did some searching online and found no real new information. It seemed like it was a pretty minor upgrade for everybody else and it’s only me that’s getting affected in this way after doing the upgrade. Just my luck. I can’t hit MegaBucks, but I can be the one in 4million who’s affected by some obscure bug.
Of the 13 blogs I manage, 10 of them upgraded smoothly. 3 are left in a state of limbo. The front end of the site works fine, so visitors will have no clue there’s an issue. I’m just unable to access the admin section. I’ve posted on the WordPress forum looking for help, so hopefully something will come of that pretty quickly.
Frustrated & beaten, I’m calling it a night. Hopefully the morning will bring better luck.
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