Problem Upgrading To Wordpress 2.9

Just in case anyone else had this problem -

I upgraded to latest Wordpress version 2.9 – and found a bit of a bug when I viewed the website. The homepage showed no posts, and I was unable to change the themes.

This was mainly due to a pretty lazy upgrade process on my behalf – the ‘upgrade now’ button called to me louder than the ‘make sure you backup, and turn off all your plugins’ voice in the back of my head.  I clearly don’t have the patience to be a developer!

The issue for me was specifically to do with the Wordpress Super Cache plugin.

I disabled this plugin, and the problem was resolved.

If you’re having the same problem, but you’re not using this plugin, then turn off your plugins one by one, refresh your site to find the culprit.

Alternatively, if you cannot access your admin panel – then re-name your plugin directory.  This will automatically disable your plugins, and if there is a conflict that is breaking the site, you should be able to access the admin area once more.

Edited: December 30th, 2009

Google Yourself

I’m very aware when I’m publishing anything on the Internet, whether it’s on social networking sites, blogs, forums or clients’ sites.

Because I know that you may think it’s funny or clever now, but you might cringe when later down the line when your parents, employer, or children see it.  I only need to look back at my school books to realise that!

References to the latest celebrity or Internet meme will make you look crazy… I can haz cheesburger? what’s that all about?!

It’s getting more important to take care of your online self, because more and more employers are checking the Internet for the background of their candidates.  Most people I know will type the name of their new love interest into the search engines to see what comes up.  And there was even a shocking case recently when a man murdered his wife after finding out she had updated her Facebook status to ’single’.

So it’s quite nice that a group of people have created a guide to ‘Ungoogle yourself’ at WikiHow.  They have some tips to reduce or shape your Internet presence, for example not using your full name in forums, contacting webmasters who have published content about you, and burying bad references about you by creating more content associated with your name.

Since getting more involved in the Internet, I’m happy to see that I’ve managed to inadvertently bury my previous web presence, which was a photo taken after a skydive, and published in their ‘hall of fame’.  This was an image that compelled me to book a hairdressers appointment immediately.

Anyway, the inspiration for this post was this video on YouTube :

Edited: October 27th, 2008

Beauty & The Geeks Event In Didsbury

Who says ‘beauty’ and ‘geek’ can’t go hand in hand?

Heaven Spa (one of our clients at work) are launching a Beauty & the Geeks event for those interested in beauty and blogging. A number of the leading bloggers in the Greater Manchester area are expected to be there (boys and girls!) and the company is launching an exclusive mouse finger treatment at the event.

Hang on… mouse finger?

OK, it’s a bit of a gimmick, but what other signature geek treatment can you think of?

Apparently, this new treatment will massage your fingers and keep them feeling fresh all day every day.

I will of course be there, taking full advantage of this new mousey treatment. The event is on November the 26th and starts at 6.30pm. Drinks and food will be on offer, and it’s at Heaven Spa’s salon in Didsbury. There should be some interesting conversations with all those bloggers and beauty experts about.

You can click the event image to add it to your calendar.

(Image courtesy of Geek Pr0n)

Edited: October 22nd, 2008

Check if your website really is down

I had problems writing a post today on the PushON Blog, Wordpress is a brilliant platform, but sometimes you can have problems when posting.
I couldn’t see the website, so I wanted to check whether it was a problem with my connection or a problem with the site.
I found this post really useful Triple-check if your site is really down, particularly cloaker.

Turns out it was just me…

Edited: February 19th, 2008

Referral Programs To Publicise Your Website

I’m pleased to have recently been accepted to Blogrush, which is a referral program for bloggers. I say “pleased”, because this is my second attempt!

Initially I was disheartened that I didn’t cut the mustard, but the filtering does mean that the chances of links to poor quality blogs shown on your site are reduced. And to be honest, I hadn’t published many quality posts at the time of my first application.

I’ve been a member of ‘my blog log‘ for some time. This is a similar service, which has been recently bought by Yahoo. I have to say it does generate traffic and subscribers from people with a similar interest. It’s quite nice to see the faces of your readers too!

So far, I like Blogrush – some of the links in the sidebar have sent me to some interesting blogs, in particular this one from Unlocked Profits – How To Get Free Web Site Traffic In 2008. My New Years resolution will be to write some guides for work’s website available for download…

If anyone has any opinion let me know…

• Is it easy to use?
• Does it generate traffic or subscribers for you?
• Do you think it looks spammy?
• Have you used other services to better effect?
• Is traffic not important for your blogging?

Edited: January 11th, 2008

Testing Out Twitter On The Blog

I’m still figuring out whether there is any point to Twitter…

I love the fact that it can be integrated into webpages; there are sleek plugins available; we used some for a pilot project on the PushOn Online Marketing Blog in combination with a mobile phone application Shozu which published images straight to our Flickr account. The images can also be automatically re-published to the PushOn blog, or PushOn MySpace page.

The freedom of instant one click publishing via mobile makes it great for commentary on events, however the fact that it’s so easy to do, means that it’s very quick and easy to publish crap. Big Brother have a Twitter feed, and there have been notable instances where people have said something silly and ended up in a lot of trouble.

Jaiku is a similar application to Twitter, and has had good feedback.

I think I like this ‘micro blogging’ malarkey, it’s good for sending a small amount of information quickly to multiple people with similar interest.

Jack Lail thinks it’s a bad, bad thing, but he likes it, he’s written an interesting post on the subject of Twitter.

Incidentally, I’m trying out a tool which publishes a note on your Twitter account when you post a blog entry… I’ll let you know if it works!

Edited: June 26th, 2007