Yesterday, I attended my first WordCamp ever. I registered for WordCamp for the past two years but due to unseen circumstances I wasn’t able to make it. I arrived there very late, 4pm (it started at 8am). It was fun to see bloggers I last saw a year or two ago. After the event, I went out with some bloggers to socialize.

In a week, Canonical will be releasing yet another version of Ubuntu. It will be Ubuntu 10.10. Just a trivia, Ubuntu does have a unique convention for their version numbers. Ubuntu 10.10 means it will be released on October 2010. They use the YY.MM format instead of the usual version numbers.

I think that would be all for now. Bye.

Hey, I’m doing my first post using the WordPress app I just downloaded from the Android Market!

The app is really intuitive. It’s very easy to add a blog, no need to edit WordPress settings or install a plugin on your blog. It works for wordpress.com and self-hosted WordPress blogs. Soon when I have access to my laptop I’ll grab a screenshot and post it here.

The physical keyboard of the Android Dev Phone 1 (an HTC Dream variant) makes it easy to write this post. Up to now I’m still not used to the touchscreen on-screen keyboard of this one, unlike the Nexus One. Maybe it’s because of the larger screen.

That’s all I got to say right now. Good night.

I have upgraded this blog to WordPress 2.8 codenamed Baker, thanks to Twitter’s (follow me) trending topics option. I upgraded my blog manually by uploading the latest WordPress tar file on my website’s root folder and untar-ing it on my server thru SSH. It was my first time to access my web server thru SSH as I only had my shell access activated today.

The upgrade process went smoothly. Since I already had access to my web server’s shell, I was able to fix all security issues especially the permissions stuff. The process of changing the permissions was smooth, I just used issued the chmod 755 /wp-includes /wp-admin -R command.

One of my favorite features introduced in WordPress 2.8 is the syntax highlighting (they call it CodePress). It’s easier to identify functions, html tags, attributes and parameters now. One thing I don’t like in CodePress though is that it doesn’t produce a tab (the whitespace) when the TAB button is pressed, instead it shifts its focus to the next clickable element just like before. An autocomplete feature for CodePress would also be a very great idea.

Other new features are the theme browser, improved screen options and some speed optimizations.

The only problem I encountered was when making a post, specifically saving it (even as a draft). It dumps the following error: Fatal error: Call to undefined method SearchSpider::_weak_escape() in /some_path/here on line 478. After Googling the problem, I learned that it was caused by the Search Unleashed plug-in. I had no other choice but to disable it.

Yesterday, my WordPress for this blog went problematic after the server reboot at my web host’s end. The first problem I encountered was the corruption of the table wp_options of my WordPress database which resulted to WordPress asking me to reinstall the blog. I fixed it using the Repair DB functions of cPanel.

The next problem I saw was that I can’t post or edit any page. It keeps on dumping “Your attempt to edit this post [post title] has failed. Please try again.” I tried searching for the problem in the Internet and learned that it is caused by the WordPress autosave function.

To fix it, you should have access to your WordPress blog from cPanel file manager or FTP. Browse to [blog_root]/wp-admin/ and locate the file post-new.php. After locating the file, edit it directly thru your File Manger (cPanel) or download it thru FTP. Edit the file using your favorite text editor such as NotePad if you downloaded it thru FTP.

Locate the following section of the code:

The function wp_enqueue_script(‘autosave’) should be commented or escaped. To comment/escape it, put double slashes (//) before the line. After doing so, the section of the file should look like this:

Save the file. If you downloaded it thru your FTP, reupload it on the same folder.

Publishing should work well now. If you still encounter problems, feel free to leave a comment to this post and I’ll try to look for other solutions.

If you found this post useful, you may want to subscribe to my feeds.

Here’s it.

Requirements

• Patience. Patience is a virtue.
• Preferably an FTP client. An online FTP client would do.
• Access to your mySQL server; I recommend using PHPmyAdmin in managing your database although using the console would do.
• Basic knowledge on mySQL.

Back-Up

First of all, you have to backup your blog’s files. Access your blog’s root thru your FTP client. Copy all the files in your blog’s root to a hard disk destination of your choice.

After backing-up all the files, the next move would be backing up the entire database. Thru your SQL interface (PHPmyAdmin is again recommended), access your SQL server then your blog’s database.

If you are using PHPmyAdmin, just click the Import button at the top, then check the tick box below that says something like “Download File”. Save the imported SQL file to a hard disk destination of your choice.

But if you’re not using the nifty tool, you have to do it your own provided you have knowledge on it. You may also ask your web host to do it for you.

Copying the Data to New Host

Then, we’ll be making something senseful. Access your new SQL server (your new host’s SQL) thru PHPmyAdmin or console. If you’re using PHPmyAdmin, just click the Export button above, then upload the file you just saved on the hard disk destination of your choice to your SQL server and have it copied there by itself. Again, if you’re not using PHPmyAdmin, you may ask your new web host to do it for you.

Yey, you already have a copy of your database on your new host. Then, we’ll be copying the blog root files you saved in the hard disk destination of your choice. Using your FTP client, upload it to your new host. On some modern FTP clients, drag-and-drop would do the entire job.

CHMOD Time

Ooops. we’re not that done yet. You still have to set the chmod of the following folders and its folders and files to 777:

• /wp-content/themes/
• /wp-content/uploads/
• /wp-content/plug-ins/

To change a folder’s chmod, you may use your FTP client. If you’re using FileZilla, just right-click the folder and click file attributes. Type the value ’777′ on the textbox then check Recurse in files and subdirectories then click okay.

Before I forget

I almost forgot this one. Using your favorite text editor (Notepad’s one), modify your local copy (the one on the hard disk destination of your choice) of wp-config.php.

The file looks like this:

/** WordPress's config file **/
/** http://wordpress.org/   **/// ** MySQL settings ** //

define('DB_NAME', 'yourdbname');     // The name of the database
define('DB_USER', 'yourdbuser');     // Your MySQL username
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'yourdbpassword'); // ...and password
define('DB_HOST', 'yourdbhost');     // ...and the server MySQL is running on

// Change the prefix if you want to have multiple blogs in a single database.

$table_prefix  = 'wp_';   // example: 'wp_' or 'b2' or 'mylogin_'

// Change this to localize WordPress.  A corresponding MO file for the
// chosen language must be installed to wp-includes/languages.
// For example, install de.mo to wp-includes/languages and set WPLANG to 'de'
// to enable German language support.
define ('WPLANG', '');

/* Stop editing */

$server = DB_HOST;
$loginsql = DB_USER;
$passsql = DB_PASSWORD;
$base = DB_NAME;

define('ABSPATH', dirname(__FILE__).'/');

// Get everything else
require_once(ABSPATH.'wp-settings.php');
?>

Now, you have to change the values in bold to your new hosts’ configuration.

Last Step?

Uhm, the last step. You have to login to the place where you bought your domain aka domain registrar. Change your nameserver settings (steps differ from a nameserver to another) to your new host’s nameserver. It usually sounds and looks like ns1.yourhost.com, ns2.yourhost.com and in some cases ns3 to ns4.

After setting, wait for at most three days for the change in DNS info to propagate around the world. Your blog at your old host will be the one displayed when the viewer’s ISP’s DNS server hasn’t received the DNS update.

Enjoy.

Ooops, the lastest step.

Check your blog once it propagates around the world. If you experience problems, try rechecking your wp-config.php. You may also try disabling some plugins. My PHP Speedy plugin caused me some problems in migrating.

It was painless with the help of WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin. The upgrade clocked to 52 seconds; fast and furious rather than upgrading manually thru FTP.

All my plugins worked after the plugin. I tried to explore the brand new interface; it’s a lot more brighter and better. The dashboard gives you the sufficient data you need. I’ve read that you can embed some plugin pages to your dashboard; such as the WordPress Stats plugin.

The Write Page and Write Post pages are still powered with TinyMCE, but now with a cleaner theme. I’ve noticed that it loaded faster than the old one using our slow dialup connection.

The Plugins page, also offers an automatic upgrade link for outdated plugins. It seems that they want to have a WordPress that’s a lot easier and user friendly!

On the Comments page, there you can see the Gravatar of the person who commented. Weeee, so slick! Unfortunately, most of my commentators don’t have a Gravatar yet. If you still don’t have one, you may get one at Gravatar.com.

Good job WordPress coders, developers, designers and supporters! I’m liking it!

You may take a look at it; it’s on my sidebar at the right, just beside the categories. (feed subscribers, you really have to open my page )

On my example on this blog, I chose the 30 top commentators who commented in the last 30 days. The top commentator gets a font size of 16 while the lowest among the 30 gets a font size of 10. Nofollow attribute is given to URLs with font size of below 16. Growth of your name is not based on ranking but instead number of comments. This means that for example there are 3 commentators listed with 3, 4 and 15 comments respectively; the one with 15 comments will get a much bigger font size than those who had 3 or 4 comments.

Neat, huh? If you want a copy, just contact me through my contact form. I still have to ask permission to Nate Sanden if I can release a modified version of the plugin; of course with due credit to Nate.

You may also suggest other plugin modification ideas by commenting on this post.

Hey guys!

Loyal visitors of this blog must have noticed the sudden decrease of my blog’s load time. No, I did not switch to a new webhost. This speed-up is attributable to a new WordPress plugin – PHP Speedy.

PHP Speedy is a plugin that joins your JavaScript and CSS files before loading it to your browser. It also removes unnecessary line breaks to your rendered PHP or HTML files to save file size thus shortening load times.

Try it now and feel the change.

Here at Build that Geek, I can help narrow down the choices by posting top 5 WordPress themes according to genre. Not only that, I also give out at least a link of a live blog (not a demo site) using the theme.

Our spotlight for the moment goes to Neat WordPress Themes.

Blogging Pro by Design Disease
[theme (requires plugins)] [required plugins] [theme w/o plugins] [live preview on a real blog]

Blogging Pro is a neat three-column WordPress theme. It uses light colors; blue and orange. It’s typography is at par; very readable and has enough whitespace.

You can see Blogging Pro in action at J. Angelo Racoma’s The J Spot.

Swiss Cool by Desperate Curiosity
[download] [live preview on a real blog]

Swiss Cool is an authentic Swiss-inspired theme with its dark-but-appealing red color. The theme has two-columns, the main content and sidebar. It also has a footer bar for your other stuff. Really neat and red.

You can see Swiss Cool in action at Blogie Robillo’s IT talks!

Vertigo Blue by Brian Gardner
[download 2-column] [download 3-column] [live preview on a real blog]

Vertigo Blue is a part of the Vertigo series. It is available in two and three columns. The two-column version gives you a nifty uber-neat layout while the three-column one gives you more sidebar space without compromising neatness. It’s highly customizable. Has very readable and nice text.

Live preview at kuya James’ Pinoy Money Talk.

Dropshadow by Brian Gardner
[download] [live preview on a real blog]

Dropshadow is a really simple and neat WordPress theme. The use of graphics in the theme is minimal; thus making it fast to load. The theme is not that highly-appreciable when viewed in demo sites; but looks great when customized.

Darwin of Juicelog customized modified this theme to fit his blog.

And finally the last but not the least…

Pure by Melfina
[download] [live preview from a real blog]

Pure. Pure is a clean and slick WordPress theme. It uses light pastel colors. Has a good built-in header graphic and is widget-ready.

Ate Gwing of Bloggwing uses one.

——————————————-

Woah, that’s two Brian Gardners. He must be very good in making neat themes.

That’s all for now and watch out for other genres.

Hey folks.

I just finished my first ever xHTML 1.0 Transitional Theme, the unDirty. It is currently on its 1.0 stage. I’m planning to develop the theme in the next few days.

Specifications

Here are the specifications of the unDirty WordPress theme:

• xHTML 1.0 Transitional valid.
• FeedBurner API integration by me.
• NO Widget Support.
• Search box.
• custom 404 page.
• seamless Twitter integration with help of Twitter Tools.

Please bear with its bare design as it is still on development stage.

Changelog

v1.0 @ March 2, 2008. First stage of development.

Download

The WordPress theme is still not available for download.