Ashfame | Tech Blog

WordPress Multisite non-WWW forwards to Signup Page Problem Fix

Ashfame — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 17:32:05 +0000

If you have enabled WordPress Multisite on your domain and with at name such as www.domain.com then there is a problem that the non-WWW version (domain.com) will take you to a sign up page to add a new site to your Multisite install.

This is clearly not what we want and it arises due to the problem that technically WWW and non-WWW are different and hence this problem occurs.

I have a quite easy fix for this, you just need to edit a value in the database and everything would be fine. The non-WWW version will redirect to the WWW version.
Open your database in phpMyAdmin and go to wp_blogs table (as per what your WordPress table prefix is)

Look for the entry www.domain.com and edit it.

Change it to domain.com from www.domain.com and click on Go to save.

Now when you will try to access the non-WWW version of your domain, it will redirect to the WWW version of the domain. Good for SEO too.
Let me know if you face any issues.

We are on Facebook

Ashfame — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 18:31:06 +0000

Hello everone,

Today its just a quick note that you can connect with us on Facebook as we have got our own Facebook Fan Page – http://www.facebook.com/AshfameBlog

Just for the record, I would like to tell you that withing 60 hours of being live, we reached our first milestone of 100 Fans

So, incase if you want the latest of the blog on facebook, you can join us there where we will be sharing small tips n tricks which makes computing easier and of course a fun activity.

Please show us your love, care and support by like’ing our Facebook Fan page – AshfameBlog on Facebook.

WpWebHost launches Freedom & Buddy Saver Plans

Ashfame — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 19:08:12 +0000

My favorite webhost and the one I recommend to all my friends and clients just gave me another reason for recommendation. They have released two new offers which are super saver plans.

Its available for both Freedom Plan & Buddy Plan. The catch here is that they are offering a package lot bundled up with options every professional webmaster is looking for and bang the price down with a huge discount. Now, isn’t that great? Read on to check out the deal yourself.

Freedom Plan

	Original Price
Monthly Fee	$8/month + $10.00 Setup Fee
Annual Fee	$6.67/month ($80/year) + Free Setup
Bi-annual Fee	$5/month ($120/2 years) + Free Setup

Freedom Saver Plan	Price
Pay for 3 Months	$13.00 / month ($39 / 3 months) + Free Setup
Pay for 1 Year	$10.83 / month ($130 / year) + Free Setup * Best Value!

Buddy Plan

	Price
Monthly Fee	$16/month + $10.00 Setup Fee
Annual Fee	$13.34/month ($160/year) + Free Setup
Bi-annual Fee	$10/month ($240/2 years) + Free Setup *Best Value!

Buddy Saver Plan	Price
Pay for 3 Months	$19.67 / month ($59 / 3 months) + Free Setup
Pay for 1 Year	$16.58 / month ($199 / year) + Free Setup * Best Value!

WpWebHost is a really good webhost if you intend to run your WordPress based sites or blogs, their support is great (yeah technical too ) and provides overall good service at a competitive rate.

I totally recommend every one to take advantage of the Power Saver plans, so don’t just think over and over, go ahead and buy awesome webhosting from them now.

Paypal Indian Users can now resume Electronic Funds Transfer

Ashfame — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 11:18:03 +0000

Earlier we informed you that Paypal has stopped Wireless funds transfer for Indian users and now its time for a good news that they have again resumed their service back for Indian users and they are still refunding 5$ amount for cheque withdrawals till further notice.

This news is a great sign of relief for Indian users whose business transactions rely heavily on Paypal, like me working as a freelancer web developer, Paypal is my transaction hub.

Remove WordPress Multisite data

Ashfame — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 18:31:09 +0000

Lots of articles are written across the web about how one can use WordPress Multisite capabilities to power several blogs from one installation. This feature comes from WPMU being merged into WP. Recently I was working with a client, which was stucked in between of the process of setting up and wanted me to complete it.

Removing WordPress Multisite data was a new subject and Google search gave nothing useful, so I am sharing on how you can remove WordPress Multisite data completely incase you don’t want it or you want to re-install with a fresh state or whatever.

Remove all the lines added to wp-config.php
Revert back to older .htaccess file or delete it and regenrate it by going to Settings > Permalinks
Remove the two fields added to the users table that are multisite-only (deleted and spam columns).
Remove the following tables in database (prefixed by your DB prefix which is generally wp_):
- wp_blogs
- wp_blog_versions
- wp_registration_log
- wp_site
- wp_sitemeta
- wp_signups
- wp_sitecategories (if you have global terms enabled)

Now you have a clean WordPress install without any trace of Multisite data. Let me know if you have any questions

Google Code Project Hosting Commit 500 Internal Server Error Fix

Ashfame — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 18:31:25 +0000

I was trying the Google Code for hosting one of my projects the other day and found it pretty useful that services like these motivate open source developers to conc on what is important i.e. developing open source projects and leave the hosting cost and concerns on Google. they also provide SVN access with bug tracking support.

If you don’t want to pay for setting up a SVN server, then you should make sure you check out Google Code.

I started with Google Code a few days back and when I tried to commit, I was stuck with an Internal Server 500 error, I searched and read a few threads and then found out how it can be fixed.

How to Commit?

svn checkout https://projectname.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ projectname

If you used the above command, then you will get an Internal Server 500 Error.

Instead of checking out like this try checking out with your username too

svn checkout https://projectname.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ projectname --username google-acc-username

When the SVN will ask you for your password, don’t give the password of your google account, instead provide the one you have on your Google Code profile.

GoogleCode.com Password

Google Code Profile – Go to http://code.google.com/u/username/
Click on Settings and there you will see your password with which you can commit SVN changes.

If you have any questions, then feel free to ask in comments.

Basics about using Subversion

Ashfame — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 18:31:47 +0000

I just learned the basics of using Subversion (SVN) and would like to share the same with anyone in need.

Subversion terminology

All the files are stored centrally on a repository on the server running SVN. From that repository anyone can check out a copy of the source code files onto their local computer but only the owner has the authority to check in.
This means that everyone can have a copy of the source files to use but only the owner has the authority to submit changes to the source code files which will be available to everyone else.

Every time the owner makes a change in subversion, it is marked as a change and assigned a number so that anyone can view this change directly or compare it with a change at a different time by its respective assigned number. This is how subversion keeps track of the changes.

Basic maintenance hierarchy consists of the following:

Branches
Tags
Trunk

The latest version copy is kept in the trunk folder and the releases are stored under the Tags and Branches folder for accessing a particular state of the ever changing source code. Like when you have made enough modifications on your files which were under version 1.7 to call it as version 1.8, then you can just tag it as 1.8 version and copy the files in a sub-directory 1.8 under Tags and similarly when the version change is a major one, it can be copied to a sub-directory 2.0 under Branches.

SVN Commands

On Windows, you can use Tortoise SVN to work with SVN in a graphical interface and doesn’t need any commands as such.
And if you are on linux (I am on Ubuntu), you can use a terminal to work with SVN (the most powerful way, in my opinion).

Create a local directory on your computer to keep a copy of the repository.

$ mkdir project1

Check out the repository.

$ svn co http://svn.ashfame.com/project1 project1
> A	project1/trunk
> A	project1/branches
> A	project1/tags
> Checked out revision 12.

(“A” in front of output indicates “add”) All of the directories from the central repository has been added to your local copy.

Put everything in the trunk/ directory for now.
If you want add more files to the repository, then you can just copy them over.

$ cd project1/
project1/$ cp ~/plugin.php trunk/plugin.php

Tell subversion to add those files (new) back into the central repository.

project1/$ svn add trunk/*
> A	trunk/plugin.php

Now check in the changes (also known as commit) back to the central repository.
You can use -m switch to specify a message to the commit.

project1/$ svn ci -m 'Adding plugin file'
> Adding	trunk/plugin.php
> Transmitting file data .
> Committed revision 13.

Let’s move forward with some more commands

Generally the case is that more than one people has access to commit to the project, so its necessary a bit to keep track of things.

To make sure you have the updated copy, just issue this command when you are inside the directory where SVN is setup.

$ cd project1/
project1/$ svn up
> At revision 16.

If there had been changes in the central repository, they would have been downloaded and merged into your local copy. Notice the revision number here, this will be different than your last commit if someone else has committed to the project since your last commit.

Anyways, make changes in your file

project1/$ nano trunk/plugin.php

To check different between your local copy and the central repository, you can issue this command

project1/$ svn stat
> M	trunk/plugin.php

( “M” for “modified”) This indicates that the file is different from the copy from the central repository.

You can even see what exactly has changed in that file, so we can check it over and make sure things look right.

project1/$ svn diff

To commit those changes in the central repository, issue this command

project1/$ svn ci -m "added support for X feature"
> Sending	trunk/plugin.php
> Transmitting file data ..
> Committed revision 17.

Let’s assume you have made several changes and now would like to release it as new version, so lets tag it.
First we will copy it to a sub-directory under tags.

project1/$ svn cp trunk tags/1.5
> A tags/1.5

Now, finally commit it.

project1/$ svn ci -m "tagging version 1.5"
> Adding         tags/1.5
> Adding         tags/1.5/plugin.php
> Adding         tags/1.5/main.php
> Committed revision 18.

All set! I hope you enjoyed the SVN experience by now and if you need any help then you can read the SVN book for comprehensive SVN instructions.

Paypal Indian Users can only withdraw money by cheque from August 1,2010

Ashfame — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 10:30:25 +0000

Today in the morning, I got an email from Paypal stating that they Indian users will now only be able to withdraw money by Cheque from August 1,2010.

Its very disappointing news for Indian Paypal users who used to carry out wireless fund transfer directly to their bank account and now will have to wait for a cheque and will have to deal with the hassles of cheque reaching late, lost cheques, depositing cheques in bank accounts etc.

Anyways, what has to happened, have already happened. The good thing is that the paypal will refund the 5$ charge for issuing a cheque till it is the only option available for withdrawal.

To request a cheque for withdrawal

Step 1: Log into your PayPal account, click on ‘Withdraw’.

Step 2: Click on the ‘Request a cheque from PayPal’ link. It usually takes 4 to 6 working days
to process the cheque, excluding the delivery time.

Step 3: Enter the withdrawal amount and select your mailing address, then click ‘Continue’.
Please note that a monthly withdrawal limit of $2,500 USD applies.

Step 4: Click ‘Submit’ to confirm your request.

So, what are you going to do now? Are you going to use Cheque withdrawals or transfer to another service and then carry out a wireless fund transfer?

UPDATE : Paypal has resumed the Wireless Funds Transfer service.

Display posts from another WordPress installation

Ashfame — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 18:31:17 +0000

Another Addition to my WordPress as CMS series is how you can display posts from another WordPress installation but residing in the same database.

I know you would say it can be done by custom SQL queries and then spitting out content in the manner you would like but there is a better technique of doing this with which you can use the regular inside loop functions and the credit goes to setup_postdata() function.

Display posts from another WordPress installation in the same database

Lets take a look how I did it :

posts wposts, $wpdb->postmeta wpostmeta
    WHERE wposts.ID = wpostmeta.post_id
    AND wpostmeta.meta_key = 'tag'
    AND wpostmeta.meta_value = 'email'
    AND wposts.post_status = 'publish'
    AND wposts.post_type = 'post'
    AND wposts.post_date < NOW()
    ORDER BY wposts.post_date DESC
 ";

 $pageposts = $wpdb->get_results($querystr, OBJECT);

?>
 
  
    

    
      
      
       
      
         
      

      Posted in  | 
      
    
  

  
    Not Found
    Sorry, but you are looking for something that isn't here.

The above code has taken from the Codex as an example, I just modified the query and the in loop contents as per need but for reference the Codex example is a good example.

We executed a query to fetch results from database using $wpdb class and store the returned object in $pageposts and then with the help of foreach loop we can iterate it.

Inside the foreach loop we used the setup_postdata() function which will populate all the fields and then we can use the code to display out the content as we do inside a WordPress loop.

The above code looks similar to the regular WordPress loop with the difference that instead of using the WordPress loop, we had to fetch the data by a query ourself and iterate through it.

Display posts from another WordPress installation in a different database

If you are trying to fetch posts from another WordPress installation, then either you can do it by custom PHP-MySQL query interacting with the database and then iterating it like shown above but the disadvantage associated with this method is that this query will not be cached because we are not using the $wpdb class or another method will be to create a new object of $wpdb class with the connection details to the different database and then using the same procedure like above.

What do you think? Do you have any other or may be an easier way of doing this? Let me know through the comments or if you have any question, feel free to ask.

Download Skype directly

Ashfame — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 17:58:01 +0000

A reader just enquired me how Skype can be downloaded directly on the post Download Yahoo messenger directly.

Skype Direct Download Link

Here is a direct link of downloading Skype – http://www.filehippo.com/download_skype/download/08a276493ca86f0de93c85b28039e294/

And for future versions, you can go to this page and directly download from there.

Show RSS feeds inside WordPress pages through PHP

Ashfame — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 18:31:52 +0000

Here is an another addition to my WordPress as CMS series, I was working for a client and there was a need that I fetch RSS feeds and then output the items in a certain fashion.

I was aware of the wp_rss() function but when I checked it on Codex, I found out that the function has been deprecated and the Codex suggests to use fetch_feed() function instead. Using feed_fetch() function also caches the feeds fetched so that successive loads can be generated faster by taking advantage of the cache.

Without any further delay, here is how I used it to parse the feeds and then displayed the needy items in a list →

get_item_quantity(5); 

	// Build an array of all the items, starting with element 0 (first element).
	$rss_items = $rss->get_items(0, $maxitems);
	unset($rss);
}

echo '';

	if ($maxitems == 0)
		echo 'No items.';
	else
	{
		foreach ( $rss_items as $item )
		{
			// echo ''; print_r($item); echo ''; break;
			echo '';
			echo $item->get_date('H:i');
			echo '
'.$item->get_title().'';
			echo '';
		}
	}

echo '';

unset($item);
?>

Here we include the feed.php from the includes folder as it is necessary, then we call feed_fetch() function by passing the feed url as argument and it returns a object containing our feed items.

We check if the object was created correctly with the help of is_wp_error() function. In case some error has occurred then the error code will be stored in the variable instead and by this method we can check for errors.

We limit the maximum number of items we want and then store them in a different variable which can be iterated via foreach loop.
Here is a list of what all you can extract out of your feeds – SimplePie Documentation

You can style it further by adding CSS classes and then style it via CSS in your theme stylesheet. If you need any help, then leave a comment here and I will try to help

WordPress ending support for PHP 4 & MySQL 4

Ashfame — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 08:28:46 +0000

WordPress needs the following versions of PHP & MySQL to be able to run on web hosting:

PHP 4.3 or greater
MySQL 4.1.2 or greater

But WordPress developers has decided to end support for PHP 4 & MySQL 4 and move on to newer versions of PHP & MySQL in WordPress 3.2 so as to take advantage of the newer versions of code available which will yield better performance.

The new requirement for running WordPress from version 3.2 will be the following:

PHP 5.2 or greater
MySQL 5.0.15 or greater

The change comes as a no surprise as sooner or later they would have to move on taking their code to a level where it is more secured and yields performance gain dealing with the issues that will arise and testing needed for the new version. I think it will be one of those releases which will require a lot of testing.

The WordPress team is confident that the change in requirements will be relatively inconsequential. According to Mark Jaquith, “Only around 11 percent of WordPress installs are running on a PHP version below 5.2 [and] fewer than 6 percent of WordPress users are running MySQL 4.” Mr. Jaquith adds that most users running a PHP version less than 5.2 belong to hosting providers which actually support PHP 5.2 or higher. These users may have the ability to enabled PHP 5 via their hosting provider’s control panel or request to be moved to a server with PHP 5.2 or higher and MySQL 5.0.15 or higher.

And now WordPress can also be listed on GoPHP5.org.

A new plugin Health Check plugin will take care of checking your hosting compatibility with WordPress 3.2 upon activation.

In summary: WordPress 3.1, due in late 2010, will be the last version of WordPress to support PHP 4 and MySQL 4. WordPress 3.2, due in the first half of 2011, will require PHP 5.2 or higher, and MySQL 5.0.15 or higher. Install the Health Check plugin to see if you’re ready!

WordPress dashboard in different language

Ashfame — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 09:33:29 +0000

I am a freelancer and build sites powered by WordPress, bbPress & BuddyPress.

Recently I took work from a client who operates a WordPress installation in a language other than English and it was a productivity killer for me as I wasn’t able to browse it quickly.

I searched something and found two plugins which are worth sharing – Admin in English & WP Native Dashboard

WordPress Dashboard in English language

For me Admin in English plugin does the job after installing and activating it, the WordPress dashboard was back to English language keeping the original language intact on the rest of the WordPress install i.e. the front end of the website / blog (what user sees).

WordPress Dashboard in different language

In case you want more control and also wish to provide user the preference to chose their preferred language, then you can try WP Native Dashboard plugin.
This plugin enables you to give users the option to select a preferred language. Pretty cool!

Happy developing!

How to switch torrents between different torrent clients

Ashfame — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 04:06:54 +0000

Alright, here is a quick post on how you can move your torrents file from one torrent client to another. Or you may need to shift your old torrents to new torrent client to continue seeding them. Whatever be the case, the procedure is very simple and easy. Before we proceed, I want you to understand a few things.

Open the download location of the torrent, how is the file being downloaded? Does it have any other extension such as .part being suffixed to it? And what is the current size of the torrent? Is it the size of the whole file or a part of it?

Pre-allocation : Torrent clients have an option of pre-allocating space to the torrents files which means that the file occupies the space that of the original file size and its modified as parts of it are downloaded. If files are not pre-allocated space, they grow slowly to their size as file is being download.

Save incomplete torrents with a suffix : Adds a suffix such as .part to the file which means that file is incomplete right now.

Force Recheck : This checks the downloaded file once again that how much and what parts of it are already downloaded and then resume the download from that state of download.

How to Switch?

Make a note of the pattern of size and suffix as explained.
Make a copy of the downloaded files in case the downloaded files get screwed up for some reason.
Now open the torrent file in the new client and specify the same download location as in the old client.
Make sure the pre-allocation and suffix settings are same for both the clients.
In the new torrent client, right-click on the torrent file and select Force Recheck (or something similar).
It will recheck and found previously downloaded files and then update itself to the status of download to that of the old torrent client.
Now you can resume things in your new torrent client and ditch the old torrent client.

I admit the guide was pretty generic but I wanted it to be this way so that anyone can make it to work with all the torrent clients available irrespective of what they use and to which they want to switch.

If you need any help, then leave a comment here and I will try to help you

BSNL doubles up speed on BB Home and Combo plans for free

Ashfame — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 06:09:50 +0000

BSNL has announced that they have double up the speed for the BB Home and Compo plans for free. The announcement was made on June 2, 2010 but now it’s confirmed that everyone is actually enjoying double the bandwidth. I am myself a user of BB Home UL 750 plan and I am getting speeds of 512 Kbps. People from various parts of country are also reporting the same, so it’s not any spoof or fake news, it’s here for real.

Here is the table for the affected plans and the new speed being offered :

Broadband Plan Name	Existing Speed	New Speed
BB Home UL 750	256 Kbps	512 Kbps
BB Home Combo UL 750	256 Kbps	512 Kbps
BB Home Combo ULF 1350 OR BB Home Combo UL 1350	512 Kbps	2 Mbps up to 15 GB,512 Kbps beyond 15 GB

Earlier they double up the speed some time back till April 26,2010. I guess they were testing that if they can really provide that much bandwidth to the whole country without charging more than the existing tariff. MTNL users were promoted to a similar plan a little time back (512 Kbps for ~750 INR) and no BSNL has moved forward too. They definitely provide the best in terms of broadband in India.

Here is the link to official announcement – http://bsnl.in/newsdetailed.php?news_id=535