Steps to Upgrading Wordpress

Since I have spent all evening upgrading Wordpress and trying to add my websites to my profile on http://dashboard.wordpress.com, I thought I would offer advise. That advise is: tired kids, a distracted husband and a late hour are NOT good components of a painless update (which updating wordpress normally is).

Pre-reqs:

• You’ll have to google any acronyms you don’t understand, I no longer care for clarity.
• Wordpress.COM has free, hosted blogs. Wordpress.ORG has the software (also free) so that you can host your own blog on your server. They are different, but connected.

Steps:

• Deciding to put my wordpress.com blogs, which I don’t use (because of UI issues) onto one account. This required a brand new account of course.
• Reading the Wordpress FAQ (Great job to them for putting the link right where I needed it).
• Learning that CLI still triumphs GUI for getting the job done (if you don’t know what those are, google them, I’m to tired to explain acronyms). Oh and the issue was that the GUI skipped some files. Super-important ones, not the readme.txt.
• Looking up how to get rid of locks on SVN.
• Telling the kids that yes, Mommy loves you, she is just in a 20+ step process (that must be done correctly and in order) for 4 separate blogs (normally 6, and she can’t lose track of where each is in the process). So Mommy is busy, and she can’t cuddle or play even though she wants too. And that its late, children should be sleeping anyhow.
• Having to checkout new copies of my SVN repository TWICE, because I screwed up and was to tired to fix my errors.
• Glad that the first three blogs didn’t cause as much trouble as the last one.
• Goggling a nice, vague error (which turned into one of the previous support requests).
• Wishing I had a nice adult beverage.
• Wishing a genie would do this for me.

So now I’m trying to decide if I like the new WP dashboard. I like the quickpost anyway. It needs more AJAX – having to click twice to get to my destination is SO 2006.

I’d like to add that the issues were not the fault of wordpress.org (great software), wordpress.com (great service), subversion (my best friend), google (my other best friend), my kids (who are finally asleep) or my cat (who was absent the whole time). And it’s not my fault either. Hmmm, does that make it YOUR fault???

I’m going to pull up YouTube and watch cartoons now.

P.S. Happy Friday the 13th!

Google Fails Math

My oldest is learning greater than, less than. Maybe google should join in.

Ha! I replaced “spreadsheet” with “excel” and searched again – now it says:

Results 1 – 5 of about 2

Solving the Puzzle

I caught Tana while she was loose outside.

If that statement doesn’t amaze you, nothing will (or you don’t know my dog).

Oh, and Tana is a brittany, a small pointer (aka a bird dog). Remember that, its important.

It started on one fine Thursday, the kids were all suffering from I-have-to-open-the-door-but-I-can’t-shut-it-itis, Tana had gotten out at least three times already. She was in the house when I decided to let the chickens scratch around in the garden. About 30 minutes later she got out, and I didn’t think about the chickens (only buying her a remote collar). Then the neighbor kid shows up, “You’re chickens are lost, one is in the pen but the others are gone.” I assumed he meant they were in the garden (the rooster got left in the coop because he is dumb).

Houston, We Have a Problem

I look out the window and see red (chicken) and white (my dog) OUTSIDE my yard. So I go running out, get to the fence (yelling at the dog). As I stepped over the fence Tana had stopped, so I reached down and grabbed her. I’ve caught her when she ran past, but never had she stopped. So I put her in the pen and went looking for chickens. She is a bird dog, and has a soft mouth, I was hoping she hadn’t damaged my hens.

The black hen (Dominiker) was in the coop …. which is odd because she doesn’t fly. I am suspicious about HOW she got into the coop and my two red hens had both flown out of my garden and yard, but it isn’t relevant. I have Taekwondo very soon, and I’m out looking for my animals – which I detest.

There aren’t many red feathers, and no signs of blood, so I was hopeful. It occured to me the chicken had probably stopped running, which is why Tana wasn’t still chasing it. I finally found one of the red hens hiding near where I stepped over the fence. While carrying her back along the path, I noticed a few more red feathers. The second red hen is the one that can fly out of the coop, but I think she can also find the coop, so I look outside the fence. I called the chickens (yelling “here, chick, chick, chick”, feeling like an idiot). The rooster answered, and his noise brought the second red hen out of hiding. I caught her with difficulty, put all the chickens back in the coop and made it to Taekwondo on time.

I must confess, the main motivator for finding both chickens was the thought of telling Jonathan they were gone – he really likes them – especially the red hens.

Puzzle Solved

Later I think I figured out WHY I caught Tana. She was pointing at the hen, who was cowering about a two feet from where I stepped over the fence. Weird.

Happily Ever After

Anyway, the chickens were fine, the dog was put into the kennel (or on leash) until the kids learn to shut the door, or I get a remote collar and teach her “come” means get over here now or else.

Ginger Spam Salad Anyone?

I didn’t click it.

Linux Web-based Accounting Software that Works!

So I spent hours today chasing my tail trying to install an accounting program on my home server. I recently switched it from Slackware to Gentoo, and hadn’t reinstalled my accounting software (I was using LedgerSMB). Note that I do not like accounting. I know just enough to be dangerous, and rely on my accounting book for almost everything.

My Requirements

1. It works on Linux.
2. It is web based so I can use it from my home and office PC’s.
3. It makes invoices.
4. It has clear, easy to use navigation so I don’t get lost.
5. It is (preferably) still developed.

The good news is there are more options than a couple years ago, but the bad news is that most of them failed on 4 or 5. I looked at several, including my recently used LedgerSMB, NolaPro, and many others from freshmeat.net (including BlueErp, Front Accounting, XIWA, SQL-Ledger and webERP). Many had confusing navigation and too much clicking to do the simplest tasks.

The First Try: LedgerSMB

I tried installing the current version of LedgerSMB. Multiple times. I upgraded and downgraded Postgresql, tweaked perl, modified the source code and got nothing but errors, mostly having to do with perl’s @INC path.

Second Attempt: NolaPro

So I gave up, and looked at alternate programs. I stumbled across NolaPro. Wow! The interface looks so much better than before. Even the demo is fast and responsive. So I tried installing it. After conquering the problem of ZendOptimizer being installed but not working, I was logged in. Unfortunately, the company setup screen is the only page I ever saw, since it errored everytime I tried to create a company. Searching failed to return any results, and it’s closed source so I can’t change it.

The Third Time’s a Charm: LedgerSMB

So I have now wasted about five hours, and OpenOffice is looking like a good way to create invoices. I decide to try one more thing, a previous version of LedgerSMB (which is a great program, based on SQL-Ledger, that fills all my needs). It worked. I am SO happy. I was unable to restore my previous data, but I can fill it in later. (Note to self: SQL and subversion prefer their own dump utilities over tar). So tomorrow I will be printing some invoices.

So that was my day. Hope everyone else had a better day.