WP reinstall

I upgraded to Wordpress 2.1 today and most of it failed. I followed the detailed upgrade instructions but one of the tables that was supposed to be created in MySQL wasn’t. Plus, the theme I was using, Tonus, doesn’t play well with WP 2.1 so there were several SQL errors.

I decided to just wipe the install of WP and start fresh. Once that was finished, I searched for updated plugins and installed them. The theme I’m using now is ok but I’ll probably change it within the next day or so.

One thing that didn’t work after the upgrade was that my links weren’t showing up. I checked in the WP Admin page and found that it dropped every link/category relationship. I had to go through each link in my blogroll and set it to the appropriate parent category.

I wasn’t going to upgrade to WP 2.1 until I read a security warning concerning 2.0.x and lower releases of WP. The flaw is pretty severe and is only corrected in WP 2.1.

The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none. – Thomas Carlyle

27.Jan.07 WordPress Comment (1)

Wiping WordPress

Got a WordPress blog and want to start over? You could also use phpMyAdmin and run DELETE statements against all the WP tables but that, too, would take a long time and require you to have some working knowledge of SQL. You could also manually delete all your post/categories/links/etc. but that would take a really long time if you have a lot of entries.

An easier way would be to use the WordPress Suicide plugin.

by default, this plugin will delete all content associated with your blog except users and settings. That way you’re left with a functional, though effectively empty blog. Consider backing up your blog before committing using WordPress Suicide. I assume no liability for data loss suffered through the use of this plugin. Use at your own risk!

You do have the option of emptying all tables and starting completely from scratch.

An inability to stay quiet is one of the most conspicuous failings of mankind. – Walter Bagehot

21.Sep.06 WordPress Comment (1)

Theme change

After over a year, I’ve decided to try a different theme. The current theme you (may) see, tonus, seems to be the one I’m going to go with. It’s so hard letting go of the Darkfire theme but I wanted to try one made for WordPress 2.0.

If you see some weird things going on, don’t worry. It’s just me messing up the theme/template. :)

06.Mar.06 WordPress Comments (10)

They like it

I showed everyone at work the WordPress site I had running on my local system (WinXP Pro, Apache 2, MySQL) and they liked it. A lot. Some of the comments I got were:

Good job
Nice work
About freakin’ time

Two out of three positive aren’t bad. :)

I ended up having to dump the Pool theme. For some reason, I could log into the admin panel once but not any more after logging out of it. That’s not good because I can’t manage the site without being able to log in to the admin panel. In order to get around that, I had to rename the theme folder. WordPress will use the default theme if the one you have set for use can’t be found. I decided to just use the default theme with a few modifications (mostly the header).

Today marks the day I got over a big hurdle at work. I got the ACT file import to work on the data warehouse. I ended up having to design the DTS package to run three update scripts to assign the student number.

The reason I only use the first four characters of the first name is because of where I pull my information from, the student information database. We have some foriegn kids and let’s say their first name should be Sang Ho. On the ACT test, that is what they would put as their first name. Unfortunately, in the student information database, the school personnel put their first name as “Sang” and their middle name as “Ho”. So, I had to substring the first name and only use the first four characters.

During the final test today, it ran without a hitch. Over 2,000 student ACT records from 19 files were pulled into the warehouse in under seven seconds. Best of all, I found out that four out of the next five test that I have to pull in, via flat files, will basically use the same DTS package! All I have to do is change how the files are parsed and what tables/columns the values go into but that’s a lot better than having to create a DTS from scratch. Code reuse is a good thing.

One thing you might find amusing. The ACT scores are sent in flat files with either a “.txt” or “.001″ extension. What is the extension on the flat file for the SAT? “.SCR”! That’s right, they gave it the same extension as a Windows screen saver file. I thought something might be wrong with the file, they send them on floppy disk(?), but I opened it with WordPad and it had all the data in it. Weird.

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal. – Henry Ford

23.Feb.06 General, Microsoft SQL, WordPress Comment (1)

WordPress in the business

Earlier today, I posted a question requesting suggestions for a web based project management solution on a couple of message boards I frequent. I thought it was something I could use at work so that people that need to know where I’m at with the data warehouse project would have that information. I’ve decided to go another direction. I’ve decided to try and use WordPress to serve up the information.

This will work out because the system I’m going to run it on is:

You’re probably thinking “Why are you running it on a desktop system?”. It won’t be getting hit frequently so, for now, it will be fine. The most hits I’ll probably get at one time is 10 (+/- 2).

The way I see it, I only need something to give people a status report. No one ask me what my plans are for the development (I’m the only one on the project). All anyone ever wants to know is where I’m at and what I’ve done. That’s cool because pressure is light as long as I’m getting something done.

I did have to make a few changes on the template, Pool. Everything that had the word “Blog” had to be changed to either “Site” or “Main”. The word “Blog” seems to have a stigma of being just a personal site. I also changed it so that my name and the publish date appear under the post title. Before that change, it would just show “@” and the publish time (i.e. @ 5:00 p.m.).

This will also take the place of the static page used to inform people when scores are imported into the database. I can create seperate categories for ACT, SAT, etc. file imports as well as maintenance and upgrade news. Taking the SQL Server down for a service pack install? Post news under the “Maintenance” category.

If it doesn’t work out, no big deal. It’s not like I’ll be out any money. :)

The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones. – Chinese Proverb

19.Feb.06 General, WordPress Comments (2)

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