How I move a WordPress blog to a new host

Aaron Brazell described how he moves his WordPress blog to a new host and it’s very familiar since I’ve done something similar a few times over the last few months.

I’ve figured out a few things from those moves which you might find useful if you get sick and tired of your hosting:

  1. If you’re self hosted and have a domain name, set the “time to live” (TTL) to as small as possible, say 15 minutes. You should do this about 24 hours previously. Doing this will mean that visitors to your bog will start seeing your new host sooner!
  2. Just after you dump your database to a file for export close all your posts to comments. I do this with the SQL, UPDATE wp_posts SET comment_status='closed'. Now quickly transfer your db over and get your site up and running in the usual manner. Your old site will still get traffic for a while yet. Googlebot will still visit too, but nobody will leave comments there so you don’t have to worry about synchronising your comments table. You could do the same with ping_status too if you get a lot of pings.
  3. For extra brownie points add a small message in the comment area informing the visitor that, “Comments are disabled. This site has moved to new hosting. Please check back later to leave a comment.”
  4. If you fiddle with your hosts file make sure there isn’t an entry for your domain pointing at the old site. That happened to me on my Macbook and even after updating /etc/hosts it still didn’t work right. I had to reboot the laptop!
  5. Say “Thank You” to anyone who helps, especially support staff!

Good luck moving, it’s not as hard or as daunting as it might be. ssh, scp/rsync, mysql/mysqldump and tar/gzip are your friends when moving!

Further Reading:

PS. Thanks to Linode for hosting, Blacknight and Michele for DNS, and you for WordPress.

WP Plugin: Import your Flickr comments

I have had a plugin running on my photoblog In Photos for quite a while now that imports comments on my Flickr stream into my blog posts. It prefixed “Flickr:” to the username and linked back to the Flickr comment.

Due to overwhelming demand (two people asked!), I cleaned up the plugin a bit and put a configuration page on it and called it the Flickr Comment Importer. There are a few things to consider if you want to use this plugin but it’s straight forward to install and configure and it’s all documented on the plugin page.

Download it now!

Harney forces Cork midwives to resign

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The Minister for Health, Mary Harney, has a lot to answer for. Nurses, midwives, consultants and other staff in the newly opened Cork University Maternity Hospital (CUMH) are stretched to the limit coping with the pressure of expectant mothers and babies from the original three maternity hospitals in the city.

Cork University Maternity Hospital

We spent over two hours in a stuffy, crowded and very warm waiting area to be seen by a midwife and a consultant this morning. It was in stark contrast to the empty hallways and calm of the hospital just two weeks ago when we were given a tour of the facilities and offered a glimpse of a gleaming high-tech maternity environment. Pregnant women, partners and children waited in the sweltering heat while staff were run off their feet. The waiting area was unfortunately too small, there weren’t enough seats, and pregnant women had to make do by leaning against the walls of the corridors while waiting to be seen.

Despite the pressure, staff were as nice as always. Midwives were considerate, helpful and professional, but when asked about how things were going I heard that 2 had resigned and 4 had taken sick leave. As well as being short staffed to begin with, the remaining staff are even worse off now. Some workers are pulling 11 hour days.

Did I forget to mention that this 75 million Euro hospital doesn’t have air conditioning? Can you imagine the heat and mood in a small area where the only air comes from 2 slightly ajar windows and from internal corridors? It wasn’t nice. At least the two expensive flat screen LCD screens on the walls kept us occupied with day time TV courtesy of TV3. Oh yeah, that’s what we need.

Thanks to Mary Harney’s bullying tactics last week the hospital opened a week late on Saturday last. She had threatened to find a different use for the building if midwives didn’t accept her terms and move to the new hospital. Midwives and consultants protested that staffing levels weren’t high enough and I bore witness to that shortage this morning. Even the computer system there is broken and not expected to be working until this evening. No appointments could be made so women had to come on a first-come-first-served basis to the morning clinic. One woman we met there had been there since 8.30am. We arrived at 11am. Apparently it was even worse on Monday.

Teething problems with a new hospital? Perhaps, but if Mary Harney wanted the hospital opened a week previously shouldn’t those problems have been sorted out then?

Truly, healthcare is a vocation. I couldn’t do it. The midwives and staff deserve all the support they can get.

Office space for the single worker

Do you work from home? Do you wish you could share the cost of an office space with like minded individuals?

Coworking.ie was launched a few days ago by Jason Roe and whose goal is to, “promote coworking in ireland, to provide a community space for coworkers to team up and to serve as a guide to people who are looking to go out on their own.” I love the notion of a “community of cafe-like collaboration spaces for developers, writers and independents”.

It’s a great idea and I for one will be subscribed to the blog and keeping an eye on developments. I’m not the only one: James and Justin have both expressed an interest in the venture.

This wiki page has more details on what coworking is with a long list of posts on the subject and links to coworking initiatives all over the world!

Ireland.com uses WordPress MU

Damien alerted me to the fact that the new Ireland.com blogs are using WordPress, and so with much excitement I hit the site and browsed around. A quick look at the source showed that they are in fact using WordPress MU which is rather neat.

Ireland.com is the website of The Irish Times, a major daily newspaper here. It’ll be great to see journalists blogging there, but only if they are allowed free reign. If they pull it off, they’ll bring a lot more attention to the site.

So far, only two blogs are operating. On the Record is a music blog written by Jim Carroll, and Price Watch by Conor Pope. Conor’s first post is Window or aisle? €15 please, a short post exploring new charges by Aer Lingus. I don’t see a Trackback link there but hopefully they’ll allow trackbacks and pingbacks sooner rather than later.

Welcome to the ireland.com blog page. We have two blogs, one written by music journalist Jim Carroll, using his weekly column On The Record as its cornerstone. This blog will shed light on the machinations of the music industry at home and abroad. From today, the consumer-focused PriceWatch section will also be carried in blog form on the site. Written by Conor Pope, the blog will be updated throughout the week and will allow users to post details of rip-offs, ask questions and perhaps even highlight bargains they have spotted.

Update on Sep 8, 2009 They’re not using WordPress MU any more unfortunately. Looks like a Windows based system, with ugly urls. The links to the blogs above are broken as a result. Disappointing.

Islamic toilet etiquette

I half-heard an interview with a young Muslim woman on Today FM a few minutes ago and decided to find out for myself what Muslims really think of squat toilets. The first link is this Wikipedia page on the subject which states,

The Islamic faith has particular rules regarding personal hygiene when going to the toilet. This code is known as Qadaahul Haajah [1] and is extremely prescriptive. The rules were established during times before the invention of toilet paper or toilet seats. In many parts of the Muslim World, squat toilets are the norm and toilet paper remains rare and its use a matter of dispute.

It should be borne in mind that none of the following points is contained within the Koran and all are derived from hadith sources and the collected opinions of people throughout history. The Koran is silent on any of the issues below including issues of sidedness such as whether one uses the left or right hand, order of stepping into or out of toilet areas, or which foot stress is placed upon. The only issue which it does touch upon in relation to toileting, is the one of washing one’s hands especially following going to the toilet which is mentioned in verse 5:6 of the Koran.

I recall from the interview Ray D’Arcy asked the woman if the Koran said that squat toilets should be used. She artfully dodged the question by replying that Muslims use squat toilets all over the world, while also implying that it was in the Koran if I remember correctly.

As Islam is now the third largest religion in Ireland I think the sales of new toilets might be affected by future trends..

Boldly going where no 76 year old has gone before

William Shatner was interviewed by the Sunday Times for it’s In Gear section and in typical fashion it’s mostly about cars, but don’t let that put you off if you’re not a motorhead. He talks about his marriages, his future flight into space in a Virgin Galactic Shuttle (not looking forward to it), horse riding, and his hopes for good health which must play on the mind of an active 76 year old.

To lift the mood I ask what dreams Shatner still wants to fulfil. “Not to get sick,” he says. “I’m so healthy and I feel so strong and I jump up on a horse and I drive fast cars. And I’m thinking this has got to end soon, and I don’t want it to end. That’s my biggest dream.”

While on the subject of high achieving 35 year old septuagenarians, I want to congratulate my mother-in-law, Philomena Burns for winning “The James Stack Memorial Perpetual Trophy” and a gold medal in this year’s Feis Maitiu poetry and recital competition in Cork. She is of course delighted and we’re very proud of her! I hope to update this post with a photo of her and her trophy and medal next week.

Donncha vs the taxman vs the postman

How are you supposed to do business in Ireland when tax forms don’t come on time? Here’s a snippet from a form P30 I got from Revenue this morning.

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A form that should be filled out before February 14th arrived on March 30th. A form that warns that there may be penalties for late payment. Sheesh. Oh, and it arrived opened. Not the first time that happened either.

This morning I finally paid my motor tax. Instead of getting the nice simple online registration form and pin number I got a “final reminder” sometime in February warning that the police would be called if the tax wasn’t paid within ten days. I didn’t and they weren’t. I called the garage instead who sent me a form to get another vehicle registration form, which I already have. I have two of them now, one must go back.

We know for a fact that mail has been lost. A letter that Jacinta was expecting last year vanished without a trace. Maybe it’s in some sorting office somewhere stuck behind a bin.

An Post need to get their act together and stop losing mail and delivering late.

Edit: oh, and next time you buy a second hand car you’ll have to pay the motor tax for the time the car was in the garage. You’re not supposed to, but it’s happened to me on my last two cars. I’ve had to pay for the month previous to purchasing the car because the tax just happened to run out before I bought it. The garage is supposed to register the car as off the road but that obviously doesn’t work.

Edit: It’s April 4th. I just received a tax assasement from Revenue dated January 10th. It had no address on the form, but someone had hand written the address on a slip of paper which was stapled to that form. We got an awful shock until we realised the issue date because we’ve sent Revenue big fat cheques since January. gulp!

WordPress MU 1.2

Go grab the new WordPress MU 1.2 from the download page now. This is primarily a bugfix update but it also has a security fix and all WPMU site owners are encouraged to upgrade.

I’ll post to the MU forums in a few days time with details of the security fix. It’s a short one-liner that can be applied within minutes if you can’t upgrade.

Update: After you update, go to “Site Admin->Themes” and click Save. That will update the allowed themes list because it was changed a few days ago.

Edit: a few issues with themes and .htaccess rewrite problem appeared overnight. These have been fixed now. If you updated to 1.2 then download the new 1.2.1 version and copy these files into your install:

  • wp-admin/themes.php
  • htaccess.dist
  • wp-includes/version.php
  • wp-admin/admin-db.php
  • wp-admin/themes.php
  • wp-admin/wpmu-themes.php

Is this living?

Is this living?

I spotted this on a large advertising hoarding on the Western Road in Cork this afternoon and snapped it to remind myself to look it up. It’s right by UCC and in the perfect spot to attract the attention of webs savvy students. URLs on hoardings are like honey to a bee with me. I will snap off a few shots of the sign as a reminder and visit later. When I did visit thisisliving.ie I was presented with the following page.

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I have to ask, if I’m visiting thisisliving.ie what country do you think I’m in?

After selecting Ireland and hitting “Enter” I was brought into a nice animation of a resort or hotel which built up and zoomed away again, and then repeated with another 2 locations before being brought to a hotel reception. I signed in and clicked around for about 5 minutes before getting bored of all the loading. It reminded me of the days spent loading C64 games from datasette. At least then I had the cool Ocean or Thalamus loading music to entertain me..

The copyright notice at the bottom of page identifies “Sony Computer” and a quick search took me to this post which has the following tv ad for the Playstation 3. Apparently this advertising campaign has been running all over Europe since January. I’m sure I would have come across a games console somewhere if I had persisted!

Game footage in the above trailer does look pretty. Anyone bought a PS3 yet? Someone told me they’re going for about €600 or so. That correct? You could buy a reasonably specced “home PC” for that much! Supposedly Ireland has a less than healthy obsession with everything Playstation so I’m sure they’re selling like hotcakes!

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