I’ve been struggling with getting the new version of WordPress to auto-install. I have been getting a stalled upgrade with no error or feedback. The process would just fail at ‘Unpacking Files’ and nothing else would happen.
After a bit of searching I found a tip that finally worked. It seems to be due to php4 and php5 being enabled at the same time like my hosting company 1and1.com has. After updating the .htaccess file at the root of my WordPress installation with the following code the upgrade worked seamlessly!
Add
# Ensure PHP5 being used
# For WordPress auto upgrade
AddType x-mapp-php5 .php
AddHandler x-mapp-php5 .php
To your .htaccess file and you’ll be in business!
UPDATE: 8-3-2010 1:40pm
Either the upgrade to v3, or my hosting company (I suspect the hosting company)_ wiped out my .htaccess file. This prevented me from upgrading to v3.0.1. Once the settings were *back* in place I was able to upgrade as expected.
Today I was looking at my Google Analytics statistics and found it interesting how people come to find my site. The referral links from other sites are a decent traffic generator. This got me wondering about how many people follow links on my pages out into the wild.
Naturally I started by searching the WordPress plug-in directory for something that sets this up for me. I found many alternatives, but a few caught my eye right off. Some plug-ins can track the outbound clicks via the Google Analytics infrastructure already in place. Continue reading Tracking outbound clicks→
One of the things I was surprised about when looking around for a blog setup is the number of options you have. Nearly all of them are free, or can be found for free somewhere.
I wanted something that was mainstream, easy, affordable, and customizable. Being an IT guy I am comfortable running my own systems so I didn’t mind setting it up so long as the ongoing maintenance was low. One option early was Blogger.com which is now run by Google. This was attractive for most of the criteria accept the customizable one. The other frontrunner was WordPress.
My hosting company even offers blogs as part of my hosting package. I found them easy to setup and get running. This also met almost all of the criteria accept the customizable one. Yes I know you can customize WordPress easily, but the hosting company retained access to most of the system, and they had the versions several behind at v2.4 I think. After doing some research it became clear that the current version was vastly different and I like to stay as close to current as I can.
So the next option was running WordPress myself. My hosting package also allows for MySQL databases and so this option became quickly the best one. I was able to create a database, create a folder for the WordPress files, and begin the installation process withing WordPress within 20 minutes. Pretty slick and it has met all the criteria easily. Kudos to the WordPress crew.