Archive for September, 2007

Quoshing WordPress 2.3 upgrade gremlins…

September 26, 2007 No comments

Primarily because of the WordPress plugins that I use, a few inconsistencies have leaped out of the woodwork that needed to be fixed. Here are the issues that I encountered:

Database errors appearing in web pages

This was a momentary discovery along the upgrade trail, entirely caused by the way in which I was doing things. As usual, I went and copied over the WordPress 2.3 files to my web server so I saw these errors before I ran the upgrade script. Then, they were banished, confirming that WordPress 2.3 code was trying to access a WordPress 2.2 type database; 2.3 has made some database changes in order to incorporate tagging.

Dashboard Editor no longer fully functional

The move to JQuery meant that some of the things for which its was looking had changed. They also changed the incoming links provider from Technorati to Google, now that the former is having a tougher time of it. It took a while to track down why I was unable to remove components from the front page of my dashboard as before but a quick comparison of 2.3 code with its 2.2.3 forbear revealed all. I can make a copy of the updated code available for those who need it.

WordPress Admin Themer

The plugin works as before and does its job so well that you end up applying an old stylesheet (in the blog’s theme folder) to the latest release. It only took a spot of tweaking to put everything in order.

I am not complaining about any of these, partly because they were easy to resolve and, in any event, I don’t mind a spot of code cutting. However, I can foresee some users being put out by them, hence my sharing my experiences.

Update: Dashboard Editor has since been updated by the author. Even so, I will stick with my own version of the plugin.

Web 2.0, Web Development

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An upgrade threadmill starts again…

September 25, 2007 No comments

No sooner have we passed the CS3 circus than Adobe and Corel start bringing out new releases of their consumer digital imaging software. This autumn has brought us Paint Shop Pro X2 and Photoshop Elements 6. I’ll wait for the reviews but I can’t say that very much about the new Elements strikes me as making it a compelling upgrade and I definitely have left the PSP fold, even if the latest release seems to have some interesting features on offer. In any case, I am not sure who is going to upgrade their software on an annual basis. With so many other calls on my cash, I definitely am not of that ilk.

Graphics, Imaging, Software

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Running SQL scripts with MySQL

September 23, 2007 No comments

Here’s another of those little things that you forget if you aren’t using them every day: running MySQL scripts using the Windows command line. Yes, you can also run SQL commands interactively but there’s a certain convenience about scripts. I am putting an example here so that it can be found again easily:

mysql -u username -p databasename < script.sql

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the same line worked under Linux and UNIX but I haven’t needed to give it a try.

Databases, Windows

WordPress database error: [Can’t create table … (errno: 121)]

September 22, 2007 No comments

I was trying to upgrade one of my test blogs to WordPress 2.3 RC1 when I got error messages like the above littering the screen during the installation. The PHP functions mysql_noerr (or mysqli_noerr) and mysql_error (or mysqli_error) seem to have been busily at work. These messages told me that the upgrade hadn’t worked so I went off googling as usual and perusing the MySQL tomes in my possession. Not for the first time, the web yielded nothing but dross and, in the end, I tried deleting the relevant database and starting from scratch again. That resolved the problem.

The reason for database deletion sorting things out is that MySQL got confused when there was a mismatch between what was in the file system and what its InnoDB table was saying. I think that the cause of this was that I naively copied in tables using Windows Explorer. Deleting the database cleared the air and all was well once I allowed WordPress to do the needful in its time honoured way. Another lesson learned for the future and I wish that frustration wasn’t part of the learning experience too…

Databases, Web Development

Trying out WordPress 2.3 RC1

September 21, 2007 No comments

The final release of the next version of WordPress is due out on Monday and, because there are sure to be security fixes included, I have been giving the release candidate a go on my offline blogs. 2.3 is another major release so I have been doing some preparation.  In fact, WordPress have a blog entry dedicated to such things for this release. Thankfully, I think that my hillwalking blog should emerge unscathed by this upgrade; I still need to have a go with an offline version of this blog.

The special feature in the new release is tagging and it is good to see that it has had no impact on legacy set ups. I had the same reservations about 2.2 with its inclusion of sidebar widgets but the backward compatibility was enough to see me through without any hiccups. Tagging is not something that I see myself using with categories fulfilling much the same type of role; I am unconvinced by the idea of tag clouds, the type of thing that it powers. However, there are some useful extras here and the filtering of posts by edit status is one of these. Having pending review as a publishing status sounds like a tweak that I might use to allow myself a cooling off period before I publish a post for all of the world to see. Revisiting something with a fresher pair of eyes might stop typographical howlers from emerging into public view…

Update: Another 2.3 feature discovered! I have picked up on multiple category widgets by virtue of the fact that category styling disappeared with the upgrade of the offline version of this blog to 2.3 RC1. Adding "-1" to the relevant CSS class definitions soon sorted things out. It does support the idea of testing before implementation even if no other unexpected changes were spotted. I still am not sure why anyone would have multiple category listings, though.

Web 2.0, Web Development

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SAS Institute enters the blogosphere

September 19, 2007 No comments

To get to the blogs hosted by SAS Institute, all you need to do is go here. I have to say that there is quite a spread of subject matter ranging from the high level business strategy offerings through to detailed snippets for SAS programmers. There seems to be a lot here for anyone interested in SAS and business intelligence. I must take a longer look.

Update: I have since discovered a central listing of SAS Institute RSS feeds. The list is well worth your perusal.

Programming, Web 2.0

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