Category Archives: Website Tips

WordPress 3.2 has been released!

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WordPress version 3.2 has finally been released with a plethora of great features.

You can see the official release note here: http://wordpress.org/news/2011/07/gershwin/

Here is a key snippet of text from the release note that you should keep in mind before upgrading:

Under the hood there have been a number of improvements, not the least of which is the streamlining enabled by our previously announced plan of retiring support for PHP4, older versions of MySQL, and legacy browsers like IE6, which allows us to take advantage of more features enabled by new technologies. The admin bar has a few more shortcuts to your most commonly-used actions. On the comment moderation screen, the new approve & reply feature speeds up your conversation management. You’ll notice in your first update after 3.2 that we’ll only be updating the files that have changed with each new release instead of every file in your WordPress installation, which makes updates significantly faster on all hosting platforms.

It is always a good idea to upgrade for security releases and better functionality and speed. As stated that PHP 4 and MySQL 4 and some web browsers are not longer supported, this is no reason not to upgrade, just make sure your server and web browser works before doing so.

Enjoy all the new features and the new look of the back-end!

List of all new features: http://codex.wordpress.org/Version_3.2

Sick of Annoying Websites

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Today’s sites are annoying

As a web developer, I have added annoying items to websites of my clients per their needs: popups, auto playing audio/video, a bunch of ads. A website needs to at least pay for itself for people to keep creating them; however, with the internet being a web of free content and software it can be difficult for site owners to regain their investment.

What bothers me

When I’m researching or simply just browsing the web I find these elements I once added to be very annoying, even more so than the ones I’ve added in the past. The worst for me is when I’m reading an article then 10 seconds into it, BAM!, a pop up ad telling me to sign up to a mailing list. I understand the need to pay for the site, but why does it have to be so in-my-face and annoying? Rather than clicking or even reading what the pop has to say, I look for the close button. I then leave the site looking for a less intrusive site. The web used to display what I wanted and searched for, now it seems that owners like to toss too much into my face.

Is there another way?

What else is the site owner to do? Installing these annoying ads have to make them money to pay for their server cost and the development and maintenance of the site. What are other alternatives to forcing information on their visitors?

Subscription sites

Site owners will only display content or desired product of their site with a monthly fee. Users pay a rate each month to have access to the site. The site will most likely not have any ads, it will look and flow well. But, you will have to pay for it.

Sold products or services

Some sites are simply trying to sell a product or service. My business site sells a development service, I have little need for ads. Every once in a while I’ll add one to see if I can get some affiliate sales. But all and all, I do not need to fund my site or service though ads. Other sites do the same, like Microsoft and Apple; they simply sell a product and it pays for all their site cost.

Donations

Sites like wikipedia.org pays for it’s cost through donations. Given that the site is ranked #8 on traffic in the world they must have some pretty strong and expensive servers. All the content is provided by the sites visitors so they save cost in that aspect. But for the cost of the site and it’s team, they need to make money. The site is kept ad free each year by a single donation drive and random user contributions.

So what annoys you?

Here is a small poll to help gain an idea of what the most annoying thing you see on a website. Don’t see it in the list? Leave a comment!

What is the most annoying website element?

View Results

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How to uninstall WordPress Multi-Site

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Here are the instructions for uninstalling multi-site on WordPress 3.0+:

  1. Remove the constants from the wp-config.php file. (Should look similar to this if you used my plugin)
    • /* This site was made multi-site enabled by @link http://jgwebdevelopment.com */
    • define (‘MULTISITE’, ’1′);
    • define (‘SUBDOMAIN_INSTALL’, false);
    • define (‘DOMAIN_CURRENT_SITE’, ‘localhost’);
    • define (‘PATH_CURRENT_SITE’, ‘/wp-multi/’);
    • define (‘SITE_ID_CURRENT_SITE’, 1);
    • define (‘BLOG_ID_CURRENT_SITE’, 1);
    • $base = ‘/wp-multi/’;
  2. Delete the htaccess and let WP create a fresh single-site one.
    • You can have it create a new one by simply going to your permalink settings page and click save again.
  3. Remove the extra tables from the database. (The “wp_” will be replaced with whichever prefix you made during installation”)
    1. wp_blogs
    2. wp_blog_versions
    3. wp_registration_log
    4. wp_signups
    5. wp_site
    6. wp_sitemeta
  4. Remove the two extra fields added to the users table.
    1. spam
    2. deleted

!!!! If your Super Admin is Missing… READ THIS !!!!

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In WordPress 3.1, the “Super Admin” bar has been taken away for Multi-Site Networks.

Now in WordPress 3.1, when you create a Multi-Site Network, a “Network Admin” dashboard is now created.

In the “Network Admin” dashboard you will:

  • Enable/disable Network Plugins.
  • Create, Edit, Delete child sites.
  • Edit Site-Wide and Network Settings.

There is no longer a mixture of blog Dashboards and Network Settings.

To find the new “Network Admin Dashboard”, just locate the new link in the upper right corner of all blog dashboards. This new link is located next to the “Logout” link. See the image below.

Network Admin Dashboard Link Location 

Click to view full size image.

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