By Jeffro on March 25, 2011
First, let me start off by saying hello to everyone who has arrived to this post via the dashboard of their WordPress installation. Secondly, I’d like to personally thank Matt Mullenweg for not only adding WPTavern to the Planet WordPress Feed but for adding WPCandy as well. It’s funny because I remember in 2009 when WPTavern was just getting started, I wrote an article explaining why this site would never make it into the dashboard. Needless to say, my attitude and the times have changed.
We Finally Made It In!
For those of you brand new to WPTavern.com, my name is Jeff Chandler and this is a site focused on all things WordPress. On top of that, we also cover BuddyPress, bbPress, any project under the Automattic umbrella. You can get a sense as to what this site is about via my About page but to make a long story short, this site exists as a place to find out what’s going on throughout the WordPress ecosystem. On this site, you’ll see interviews, links, quotes, and all sorts of content related to WordPress as well as Automattc. It’s a fan based website with no affiliation to WordPress or Automattic.
There are three things I encourage you to do. The first is to register an account with the WPTavern forum which is used for support and general conversations about all things WordPress all the time. The second is to check out the WordPress Weekly podcast which is something I’m trying to get back into producing on a regular basis.
Last but not least, the third thing I’d like you to do is introduce yourself to me.
Posted in WordPress | Tagged dashboard, wordpress, wptavern |
By Jeffro on March 23, 2011
It all started with a couple of tweets by Bradley Potter when he mentioned a HostGator specific bug to Andrew Nacin. Since WPTavern.com is also hosted on HostGator, I decided to try and replicate the bug. Following his instructions I was able to replicate the error pointing towards the possibility of something on HostGator not configured just right.
While testing another plugin by Trevor Fitzgerald that ties into his website PressTags.com, I noticed that the Reblog feature didn’t work. It provided the same error as the Comment Trash link bug that Brad had mentioned. The reblog feature uses the built in PressThis bookmarklet in WordPress to republish an article. After going back and forth with Trevor as I thought his plugin was the one causing the error, I decided to install a fresh copy of WordPress within a subfolder to see if I could recreate the PressThis bookmarklet error. Sure enough, even on a fresh install, I would receive a 404 error each time I tried to use it. However, the raw URL for the bookmarklet worked just fine. Thinking that it was an HTACCESS problem, I got with Peter Westwood on Skype to perform some more troubleshooting but we discovered that even with an empty HTACCESS file, the error still occurred.
Trevor and I finally came to the conclusion that there was something wonky with HostGator and the way it treats URLs that had the following in it: _wp_original_http_referer. Both the move comment to trash link and the PressThis bookmarklet utilized this text and from what I can tell, adds the URL to my site twice within the link. Trevor then discovered a thread on the HostGator support forum from 2008 that mentions an Apache upgrade that broke someones site. More specifically, the PressThis bookmarklet.
It looked as though mod_security had something to do with the breakage and in order for it to work again, the URL had to be whitelisted by HostGator. After I created a support ticket with HostGator explaining the situation and linking to the thread, they were able to tell me that some of the things I had been doing were definitely triggering some mod_security rules. They whitelisted those items which ended up fixing my problem not only with the PressThis Bookmarklet but with the Move Comment To Trash link as well.
So if you’re running on HostGator and the same thing is happening to you, create a support ticket and request that you be whitelisted for those mod_security rules. One of the questions I had received after publishing the answer to this support question is whether the whitelist for mod_security opens up the site to any security vulnerabilities. I have no idea. But if you do, please share those within the comments.
Posted in WordPress | Tagged hostgator, pressthis, wordpress |
By Jeffro on March 9, 2011
When I think about enterprise, I rarely think about WordPress. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I heard WordPress and Enterprise used in the same sentence. Based on an article from CIO.com.au, IT managers still prefer using SharePoint as an enterprise CMS compared to WordPress.
Cogan addressed a room of web developers and IT managers and said that while there are a large number of free or low-cost CMS options available, enterprises using Microsoft products will generally choose SharePoint.
“There’s a lot of competition out there… but companies still choose SharePoint,” he said. “… It doesn’t matter how good the other ones are, they don’t have Office integration.”
Posted in WordPress | Tagged enterprise, managers, sharepoint |
By Jeffro on March 8, 2011
Here is the tale of two individuals that upgraded to WordPress 3.1 only to realize that their sites became broken after the upgrade. Two things that should immediately be learned by anybody using WordPress. The first is that even though it’s as easy as clicking a button to perform an upgrade, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t create a backup of the site before the button is pressed. The second point is illustrated by Keith in his story:
The recent 3.1 update changed my thoughts about that and taught me that even a hobby WordPress blog isn’t entirely automated and it is a good idea to know how it works, if you care about it. If you are passionate about your blog, there is even more reason to anticipate disasters and know how you react to them accordingly.
If you’re going to pour your heart and soul in to your site and it’s running WordPress, you would do yourself a lot of good to learn the basic ins and outs of the platform to not only help yourself, but to understand some of the underpinnings that allow WordPress to do what it does.
The one other piece of advice I can provide is to wait a few days after a major version of WordPress has been released. Keep an eye on the WordPress hashtag on twitter and the How-To and Troubleshooting section of the WordPress.org support forums to locate the issues people are having once they make that upgrade so that if you run into the same issue, you’ll know how to deal with it.
As an aside, my streak of problem free upgrades continues as I had zero issues with 3.1.
Posted in WordPress | Tagged backups, upgrades, versions, wordpress |
By Jeffro on March 7, 2011
WordCamp Miami was held this past weekend and based on the schedule I saw, quite a few awesome sessions took place. Thanks to sponsorship from WooThemes, the WPCandy crew was able to attend the event and live blog most of the festivities, including a few of the sessions. For a bite sized view of of their experience, check out their Live Blog of the event. I stopped by on Saturday and thought the team did a good job not only with live blogging but sprinkling in photos from the event as well.
Posted in WordPress | Tagged liveblog, miami, wordcamp, wpcandy
By Jeffro on March 5, 2011
WordCamp Columbus, Ohio will be taking place this year between June 17th and June 19th. The event has a new organizer this time around in Angie Meeker who is an experienced WordPress designer and intends on making the event squarely focused on WordPress. Friday, June 17th, will be dedicated to the topic of Businesses and Beginners. The event is still looking for presenters that can talk to guests in a way that is simple and easy to understand, (Kim, you should do this :). June 18th will be dedicated to more in-depth topics concerning WordPress that developers and designers should find useful. In fact, some of the crew from Automattic will be in attendance as well as presenting on a few topics.
The last day of the event, June 19th will provide a genius bar where anyone that has any questions concerning WordPress can have them answered by knowledgeable WordPress users. There will also be a session dedicated to non-profits, specifically, Ohio based non-profit organizations, something Angie definetly has experience with herself.
The event is still looking for more speakers, sponsors, or volunteers to help. If you’re interested, please get in touch with Angiemeeker on Twitter or send her an email.
WordCamps will be few and far between for me this year but I’d be remiss if I didn’t find a way to make it to the one in my own back yard. The first WordCamp Columbus event went off pretty well for a first but I didn’t even bother attending the second one due to changes in the events structure. I’m hoping that Angie and the team can make WordCamp Columbus as respectable and fun as the others across the world. Please consider coming to the buckeye state to see me.
Posted in WordPress | Tagged event, ohio, wordcamp, wordpress |
By Jeffro on February 10, 2011
Well, here is something you don’t get to read every day. Byrne Reese who was the former product manager of Movable Type and TypePad as well as an employee of Six Apart from 2004-2008 wrote a great article outlining the various facets that have contributed to the success of WordPress. It’s a great post because it comes from someone that was in the trenches for the competition.
I’ve been involved in the WordPress community since 2007 but in reading the Codex as well as various articles from the past, it seemed as though one of the biggest reasons that WordPress was able to generate a strong nucleus of developers and an exponentially growing user base was because of the licensing fiasco that took place in 2004. It was one of those events in time that if it didn’t happen, who knows if WordPress would still be in existence today. Since then, WordPress has become the cream of the crop for web publishing. However, the article is a good read because of the insights that are learned from the mistakes that were made by Six Apart which played a role in their demise as a market leader.
I also recommend reading Mark Jaquiths comment on the post as he said something that I think more people need to realize.
It is worth distinguishing between Automattic/WordPress.com vs. Six Apart and WordPress/WordPress.org vs. Movable Type. Movable Type is a Six Apart product, but WordPress is not an Automattic product. It is an independent project that Automattic contributes to. But the community is much bigger than that (take me, for example, an independent). The rivalry between Six Apart and Automattic is a run-of-the-mill business rivalry, and one I’m glad I could sit out. The rivalry between Movable Type and WordPress was different. It was about a product versus a project.
Remember, at the end of the day, choose and use the best publishing system for the job. WordPress can do many things but it can’t do everything which is why it’s great to know there are alternatives available.
Posted in WordPress | Tagged community, movabletype, projects, wordpress
By Jeffro on February 9, 2011
WordPress 3.0.5 was released the other day to address a couple of issues dealing with security and untrusted user accounts. While those issues were addressed, it was soon discovered that one of the security fixes for 3.0.5 created another problem of stripping HTML on display from people with the unfiltered_html capability. Instead of fixing that minor problem and releasing 3.0.6 which would have been embarrassing to say the least, a hot fix was applied to the latest version of Akismet which was also due for an upgrade. This solved the problem for at least a few users but not everyone.
Mark Jaquith then created a plug in which contains the hot-fix but also mentioned that the plug in could be used in the future to fix selected bugs as well. If a number of WordPress powered sites would have this plug in installed, it would be a handy way of pushing out fixes.
I’m not quite sure I understand the reasoning behind this. 3.1 is right around the corner and that branch already has the fix applied while those who know how can simply update their sites via SVN through the nightly builds. In the comments, Ozh also raises a good point in that how do you explain the difference between a hot fix versus an update for WordPress? It’s an unnecessary process that I don’t want to go through. There was also the suggestion of perhaps bundling the Hotfix plug in with WordPress like Hello Dolly or Akismet which is a bad idea. There is a strong contingent of people (I’m one of them) working hard to try and de-couple Hello Dolly and Akismet from the core package of WordPress and the last thing we need is yet another bundled plug in with core.
The best recommendation came from Andrew Nacin in the comments of strengthening the update procedures of WordPress. By the way, one tidbit of information to keep in mind throughout all of this is that somewhere around WordPress 3.2, the goal is to stop updating over the wp-content directory which I know will make some people happy.
Posted in WordPress | Tagged hotfixes, Plugins, updates |
By Jeffro on November 13, 2010
What’s that sound? It’s a cannon ball being shot over the bow of Tumblr. The big discussion point over the past two days has revolved around a new feature slated to hit WordPress 3.1 called Post Formats. Otto as well as Mark Jaquith do a great job explaining what these are. To make a long story short, Tumblr has different ways of displaying content depending upon which format is being used. Matt Mullenweg has actually been doing something similar with his own site at Ma.tt which Otto shows screenshots of. While the notion of displaying content differently based on the type of content being published is not new, the way of doing it currently does not lend itself to data portability.
This is why the core developers have decided to settle on a standard set of post formats. A standard set of formats enables users to switch themes without losing the way in which those post formats are displayed. It’s also been decided that there will be no API calls or hooks available to extend or modify the standard set of post types which is a rare thing in WordPress considering there is usually always a way to modify or extend a feature set. I was against the idea of post formats until I figured out that they are different from post templates, which I use for content that is the same but with different values. Instead, I’m getting excited about the ability to be able to post just a link or maybe just a quote from an interesting piece dedicated to WordPress. Post formats will simply make it easier to publish short-form content and display that content differently than regular posts.
Another thing that interests me regarding the inclusion of post formats is that WordPress.com will most likely see this same feature added to the service which would basically empower WordPress.com users to publish posts just like those on Tumblr with the only thing missing being a slick Bookmarklet. If both WordPress.com and WordPress the open-source project both have this feature set, what will this do to disrupt Tumblr? Considering the strength of Tumblr will essentially become a feature of WordPress, what drive will there be to continue using the service? Granted, perhaps the WordPress implementation won’t be as pretty as theirs but still, I’d be somewhat worried if I were Tumblr. This addition to the software could possibly contribute to a sizable chunk of the Tumblr audience migrating to WordPress.com.
On the flip side, both WordPress and Tumblr continue to co-exist and nothing much really changes. What do you think?
Posted in WordPress | Tagged formats, posts, tumblr |
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