Matt Kern dot com

Installing forums in Buddypress without sounding like a sailor!

Matt Kern — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 03:17:18 +0000

Finally there is a compatible bbpress version to go with buddypress. I was having no luck before getting forums integrated into buddypress so I did the only smart thing I could think of. I walked away.

Now here we are about 2 months later and things are looking good. And even better, someone wrote up some detailed install instructions.

http://theeasybutton.com/blog/2009/07/17/integrating-buddypress-wordpress-mu-and-bbpress/

I have only installed the forums once since returning but it only took 10 minutes and I got the cookie integration fully working. Lets hope installs 2 thru X go as well…..

Blank screen when installing Wordpress 2.5 As I said I am slowly moving a few of...
Main Buddypress environment object I was looking for the cleanest way to reorganize some...
Install WPMU on localhost with Xampp I recently wanted to install WPMU (thats WordPress Multi User)...

A Tale Of Two Tribes

Matt Kern — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 19:20:27 +0000

Exactly one year ago Seth Godin started his triiibes.com network for the launch of his book “tribes”. We will call this Group A.

At the same time, I joined another social group that was also new and building its membership. This is Group B.

Looking back one year later, this is what I see they had in common:

both were an excited group of people that wanted to connect and grow with other similar people.
in each, the the tribe building came with moments of differences and disagreements.
in the beginning, I visited both frequently and looked for ways to contribute in an ongoing manner.

One year later this is how I see they differ:

I don’t frequent either as much but for different reasons. Group A taught me valuable lessons and enabled me to go off and try some things on my own. Group B just pissed me off.
Group A had a very open giving environment. Participation was almost a requirement. Group B talked about participation but was actually mired in secrecy.
when I log in to Group A these days, I see old friends and future acquaintances. Group B is filled with strangers and blank stares.

Guess which one I emulate when running my own tribe?

Thanks to Seth and everyone else in Triiibes! I look forward to another great year. And if you haven’t read it yet, pick up a copy of “Tribes: We Need You To Lead Us”.

Especially, if you run Group B.

The next story in the blog ring is from Trish Lambert: Triiibes, One Year On

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Warning: fsockopen() [function.fsockopen]: unable to connect to submissions.ask.com:80 (Connection refused) in

Matt Kern — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 17:50:31 +0000

Here is a new error I just found when updating a post:

Warning: fsockopen() [function.fsockopen]: unable to connect to submissions.ask.com:80 (Connection refused) in ……/class-snoopy.php on line 1142

turns out the fsockopen is trying to connect to ask.com and failing.

The XML sitemap generator is the guy trying to make this connection so go to the settings for that plugin and deselect “ask.com” from the list of engines it submits to.

the second error:

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at … wp-includes/class-snoopy.php:1142) in … wp-includes/pluggable.php on line 770

is just a symptom of the first so you can ignore it.

I am going to try turning mine back on in a few days to see if the situation has resolved itself.

Please leave a comment if this was helpful!

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I HATE spammers! Or… do I?

Matt Kern — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 14:39:14 +0000

I run a social group that has about 100 members. The site averages about 20 hits a day and every few days a couple of people pop in and write a post or 2. It is active but it can go for a few days with no action.

Well, the other day I got spammed! Someone joined, put up a seductive avatar and then about 20 hours later added comments for everyone on their profile page. Something about viagra, I am sure. I actually forgot what the message was.

So of course, I am annoyed and log in and delete the member and go about the business of cleaning up after my spammer. But what happened next was interesting.

100 members were left messages on their profile page and half of those checked in to see what was going on.

Thats a 100 to 200 % increase over the normal daily traffic.

What an opportunity!

Now, I am not saying to intentionally spam your members, but the next time “Nora Saunders” visits my site, I am going to be prepared and maybe use that as a time to engage members that might not have stopped by for awhile.

That’s turning spam lemons into lemonade.

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Main Buddypress environment object

Matt Kern — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 06:31:20 +0000

I was looking for the cleanest way to reorganize some menu items and I happened across the core buddypress environment object: $bp.

To access this you will have to make it a global first.

global $bp;
echo $bp->loggedin_user->fullname;

This echos ‘admin’;

There are lots of good tidbits in there so if you are going to be doing some major altering of buddypress, you will probably want to become familiar with this guy.

Check it out.

echo ‘

’;

var_dump( $bp);

echo ‘<\/pre>’;

Installing forums in Buddypress without sounding like a sailor! Finally there is a compatible bbpress version to go with...

Fun with the windows host file

Matt Kern — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 17:20:49 +0000

Does apple.com use apache? It does on my PC.

If you want to use a domain on your PC instead of localhost, your windows host file is the key.

On XP or Vista, go to c:windows\system32\drivers\etc and open the host file. This file has no extension so don’t let that trick you. With vista you will have to edit this file with admin privileges.

At the bottom of this file, it should look like this:

127.0.0.1 localhost

On the next line, simply add:

127.0.0.1 apple.com

Now any url on your local xampp or apache install can be accessed by your new url.

Since it starts with 127.0.0.1 your environment does not try and find the real apple.com.

This is great for screencasts where you want to emulate running in a live environment.

Pass this tip onto a friend!

Install WPMU on localhost with Xampp I recently wanted to install WPMU (thats WordPress Multi User)...

“More Fun Than A Sharp Stick In The Eye”

Matt Kern — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 16:42:51 +0000

We just got finished with the video for my companies new Lanwndart game. Its pretty fun.

Wish I could tell you where the game is but we don’t have those mechanisms in place for some reason.

I am trying to change that.

Why Good Help Is So Hard To Find Cruise thru the help wanteds and you are sure to...

WPMU Manually Approve New Members on Local Install

Matt Kern — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 17:05:18 +0000

We had the conversation yesterday about local installs of WPMU and the problem with activating new users since email can be difficult (impossible?) to send out from your local pc.

First, the 2 reasons for wanting a local install are:

For local development of a site that will eventually made live
For a company intranet. Stuff that you would not want people outside your local network to see

Will had the good idea to manually approve people, but it did take some digging thru phpmyadmin to find the right tables.

This plugin solves that by displaying all pending approvals so to manually activate an account, just click on the “approve ” link.

This is a pretty quick plugin so not too many features. Please note: once a member is approved, the thank you page shows with the user name and password the person needs to login. This will have to be manually sent to them.

The plugin shows up in your tools section under “Manual Approve”

Please let me know if you think this plugin is useful.

Plugin Download: manual-member-approve-wpmu

Install WPMU on localhost with Xampp I recently wanted to install WPMU (thats WordPress Multi User)...

Install WPMU on localhost with Xampp

Matt Kern — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 20:27:12 +0000

I recently wanted to install WPMU (thats WordPress Multi User) locally and had a tough time in the process.

I finally got it worked out and like most things, it is actually quite easy if you leave out all the stuff that gets you in trouble.

I use Xampp to run apache locally, but I assume this will work with any out-of-the-box localhost server installation.

Here we go…

1) If you are a veteran wordpress installer, what is the first thing you do when installing a fresh version? Mess with config.php, right? Well, turns out, for WPMU this will cause you all sorts of headaches. DO NOT edit the config file. Let the installer do it for you. So step one is “do nothing”.

2) WPMU can’t be run on localhost. It needs to run on something like localhost.localdomain. To make this happen, go to windows/system32/drivers/etc/ and open a file called host. This file has no extension so don’t let that fool you.

3) At the end of the host file add the line: 127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain and hit save.

Thats it. no apache reboot or anything. Now go to your wpmu install folder and the config window should open. Plug in your db values, select the “new blogs as sub folders” option and hit submit.

I have only installed this on a few pcs, never a mac so I can’t tell you how to add localhost.localdomain

Thats about it. Pretty easy, right?

Let me know if this is helpful for you.

Fun with the windows host file Does apple.com use apache? It does on my PC. If...
Blank screen when installing Wordpress 2.5 As I said I am slowly moving a few of...
WPMU Manually Approve New Members on Local Install We had the conversation yesterday about local installs of WPMU...

Helpful Twitter searches

Matt Kern — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 03:33:16 +0000

I have recently discovered some useful twitter search parameters.

Search within a date

To find all searches from some date until now, go to twitter.search.com and type in:

@mattkern since:2009-01-19

The “since” syntax gives you a nice date parameter in the yyyy/mm/dd format. You can also add “until” to get a particular time frame.

@mattkern since:2009-01-19 until:2009-01-26

This returns everyone that has referenced in that time span. A good way to measure if you are getting the responses you want from tweeples.

Measure your RT’s

Next type in:

RT from:mattkern since:2009-01-19

These are all the RT’s you have initiated. Now you can see if you have been a diligent RT’er or not.

If you enter:

RT @mattkern

This returns all the people that have seen fit to re-tweet something that you wrote. Now that is a true measure of twitter effectiveness.

What are some other helpful twitter searches?

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