There are some rare cases that I do need to have more than 1 FTP account and while you can’t do anything about it with Plesk, fortunately by SSHing into your (dv), you can create multiple FTP accounts. I found these directions on Marc Grabanski’s website who found the directions on Parallels’ knowledge base and I’m going to reproduce the directions here on my website for my reference (and others). And in case it isn’t obvious, you replace USER_NAME with the actual user name you wish to use.

ssh domain.tld -l root
/usr/sbin/useradd -d /your_domain/some/location -s /bin/false USER_NAME
/usr/sbin/usermod -G psacln USER_NAME
chmod 755 $HTTPD_VHOSTS_D/your_domain/some/location
chown USER_NAME:psacln $HTTPD_VHOSTS_D/your_domain/some/location
chmod 751 $HTTPD_VHOSTS_D/your_domain/httpdocs
passwd USER_NAME

Also one user, Dan, noted that if you don’t set the user password first, it chowns it to the user without a password and won’t allow you to connect, so he recommends this:

ssh domain.tld -l root
/usr/sbin/useradd -d /your_domain/some/location -s /bin/false USER_NAME
passwd USER_NAME
/usr/sbin/usermod -G psacln USER_NAME
chmod 755 $HTTPD_VHOSTS_D/your_domain/some/location
chown USER_NAME:psacln $HTTPD_VHOSTS_D/your_domain/some/location
chmod 751 $HTTPD_VHOSTS_D/your_domain/httpdocs

Barry has a number of great posts on his blog that might be helpful for the WordPress developer such as:

• How to make a more stylish search widget
• Hacking KSES
• How To: WordPress 2.3 upgrade via SVN on Media Temple Grid Server
• Snippet of the day: Selective code loading for plugins

So if you get a chance, check out Barry’s blog at http://blog.clearskys.net and be sure to bookmark it for future reference, I did.

With a little Google magic, I stumbled upon this post by Perishable Press which details how you can use WordPress built-in function, wp_rss(), which negates the need for another plugin. On their site, they show you how you can do it in three ways: the easy way, the advanced way, and a way with SimplePie. I chose the advanced method and this is what I used, copied verbatim from Perishable Press’ post, that worked great for my needs:

<?php
include_once(ABSPATH.WPINC.'/rss.php'); // path to include script
$feed = fetch_rss('http://domain.tld/your-feed/'); // specify feed url
$items = array_slice($feed->items, 0, 7); // specify first and last item
?>

<?php if (!empty($items)) : ?>
<?php foreach ($items as $item) : ?>

<h2><a href="<?php echo $item['link']; ?>"><?php echo $item['title']; ?></a></h2>
<p><?php echo $item['description']; ?></p>

<?php endforeach; ?>
<?php endif; ?>

I changed the $feed to match my website’s feed. I also changed the $items to 0, 3 because I only wanted the latest 3 posts. I removed the <?php echo $item['description']; ?> because I only wanted the titles to show. With that, I had the latest three posts coming into my front page which is a WordPress page designated as the home page and uses a custom page template. I definitely recommend visiting Perishable Press’s post to see all the different ways you can call a post using the wp_rss() function.

You can also try this solution by Corvid Works which is meant for non-WordPress pages.

So now I’ve been frantically working to transfer over all the sites that have been hosted on Autica to Media Temple and that has been a slow process because of DNS propagation and my learning curve with Media Temple’s AccountCenter and Plesk. The good thing is that transferring all my data from the sites are very pain-free and easy because of the WordPress Import/Export feature; another great reason to use WordPress.

I signed up for MediaTemple’s (dv), or Dedicated Virtual, with upgraded RAM and it has been a bit of learning experiencing getting adjusted to how Media Temple works. For the most part, I definitely find their Account Center and Plesk interface to be intuitative and relatively simple to use after you figure out what does what and where it is. With Autica, I had Plesk to the extent that I could shutdown/start/restart the VPS and do the same for the individual services whereas with Media Temple, the Plesk is the entire control center for the (dv).

One of the biggest advantage is the 24/7 online and telephone support. Let me tell you, the 24/7 telephone support has made the my monthly cost of the (dv) worth every penny. I’ve had to call Media Temple’s support no less than five times in the last few days with each problem being resolved to my satisfaction. Each of the techs I spoke with were patient, understanding, and competent. With the amazing help of Alvaro, one of Media Temple’s tech gurus, I learned that if you want to run two instances of WordPress MU (WPMU) on a single (dv), you must have a single dedicated IP address for each WPMU instance. I had successfully setup domain1.tld with five or so blogs (e.g. sub1.domain1.tld, sub2.domain1.tld, etc.) and had successfully domain mapped them and then setup another WPMU instance, domain2.tld, and whenever I tried creating a new blog, it would reroute to domain1.tld wanting to create a new blog called sub1domain2tld.domain1.tld. Alvaro was very patient and instead of just saying, well WPMU is a third-party software, so we can’t help you, he spent time going through all the possibilities until he tried setting domain2.tld as the primary site to my IP. I requested another dedicated IP address of Media Temple and had it in like 5 minutes and everything is working great now. That’s service.

Media Temple has been serving my websites so much faster and more efficiently than Autica so far; I’m sure it helps that I have additional RAM. We’ll see how things go once I get all the sites migrated over to Media Temple. I’m also hoping that this isn’t just the honeymoon phase we’re in and that my relationship with Media Temple will continue to be as blissful as it already has.

On another note, I know I’ve been neglecting this blog and I plan to do some updates in the next coming weeks or so and hopefully roll out a new design. In the meantime, you can enjoy this simple, Minimalism theme by WP4-CH.

Why the change now? I’ve never cared that much for Bui4Ever and plus it sounds pompous, as if your name as a website URL is much better, I think RichBui.com is more descriptive. AndreaandRichard.com is our personal website for me and Andrea about our life and our cats in general and BuiPhotography.com is our business website, and RichBui.com will continue to be what Bui4Ever.com was, a site for me to ramble about everything else in between. Also be on the lookout for a new site design coming real soon.

I’m going to continue to keep Bui4Ever.com and for those who continue to type in the old URL, it will all redirect to richbui.com. Enjoy.

Image courtesy of CTV.ca.

So when I heard about a new possible Trek movie, I was excited. I was really excited when J.J. Abrams was revealed to be the director of the new reboot, having been a fan of his work since Alias and I definitely thought he could make this reboot successful. Then when I saw actual real trailers, I was sold. So Andrea was dragged accompanied me to watch the new Trek movie. How was it? Well when a movie grosses $79.2 million during opening weekend during a recession (movie tickets here are $10.50 for 1 adult)  for a sci-fi flick of a series that has been dying a slow death, I think it’s safe to say that the new Star Trek movie is going to do well; quite well. To see how it compares to previous Trek movies, check out E! Online.

A lot of die hard Trek fans were worried about the direction that Abrams would take with the new movie, but after having seen it, I am very impressed with his vision and direction of the series. For the most part, it holds up to Trek canon and Trek fans would have to agree it’s a refreshing look but also familiar feel which is good to draw in newcomers who may have heard about Star Trek but never watched it and also appease the fans.

I think the cast choices were great. Chris Pine definitely embodies Captain James T. Kirk and so does Heroes star Zachary Quinto as Spock, as well as the rest of the cast. Also I think the designers did a great job with the uniforms and the U.S.S. Enterprise. One of the biggest difficulties in doing a prequel, especially a sci-fi one, is that everyone wants to take advantage of the cool CG graphics that were unavailable when the original movie was made. Obviously for a prequel, the technology that exists can’t be better or sleekier looking or it throws off the believability. Take the case of Star Wars I, II, and III and the sleek ships they had. Sure it look cool, but it looked much cooler and more advanced than the original which makes you wonder what happened: did they go backwards in technology in the story? Fortunately they didn’t do anything radical with the Enterprise. It has the same saucer, body, and nacelle design that we are all familar with. Even the computers on-board have touch dials and knobs like the Original Series. I especially liked the part where they “polarize the viewer”. A simple, but cool effect that fits the timeline and series. Another thing I really liked was when the ships entered warp. With all the previous Star Trek movies and TV series prior, there was a disconnected feeling when the ship entered warp. In the new Star Trek movie, even as the audience, you feel what warp must feel like. A small, but touching addition.

So go out and watch it. It’s definitely worth it. Star Trek is rated PG-13 and runs for 127 minutes.

Furloughs have now hit me also. The City and County of San Francisco has been facing a $575.6 million deficit in its budget which is now down to ~$400 million. The situation is so bad now that San Francisco can’t even afford to pay all their employee’s salaries to the end of this fiscal year. Given the dire situation, if things continue the way they are, twelve people in our office alone will face immediate lay-offs so that we will have enough money to continue to function and pay our bills. No one is even sure of what will happen next fiscal year and if the lay-offs will continue.

Public Defender, Jeff Adachi, along with Chief Attorney Teresa Caffese are tirelessly (Jeff is even staffing the new Community Justice Center himself) in discussion with the Mayor’s Office and The Board of Supervisors on why our department should be exempted from the mandatory 25% budget reduction ordered by Mayor Gavin Newsom. The argument is that issuing lay-offs in the Public Defender’s office  is not a cost savings issue because the cases that our office would have taken on would be farmed out to private attorneys who would bill the City & County at a much higher rate than what it cost to have a Public Defender on the case. Here is another side of the argument: hiring private attorneys would mean cases could potentially be solved quicker and private attorneys would be more willing to take plea deals resulting in the reduced cost of not having to go to trial. The problem with this argument is that according to a 2007 study by Harvard economists (read the NY Times article) is that “lawyers paid by the hour are less qualified and let cases drag on and achieve worst results for their clients, including sentences that average eight months longer.” To me, after reading that article, I don’t understand how the Mayor and the Board of Supervisors believe that this would result in any significant cost savings. Longer sentences means increased costs to pay for more guards, food, medical expenses, and so forth for that additional prisoner. I’m not saying that we should release or reduce prison terms, if a person has committed a crime, they should serve a prison term that is deemed fair and not excessive. But that’s a whole different discussion for a different time.

So how does this budget crisis affect me personally and our office? We were offered a choice and chance to save twelve of our colleagues: take a voluntary 5-day furlough for the months of April, May, and June which amounts to a 10% pay reduction. This will help twelve of our friends/colleagues survive at least until the next fiscal year. The only catch, to save all twelve, the entire office has to opt-in. If only half the office opts-in, then six people will be spared. I gladly do my part. A reduction in pay is better than no pay any day of the week and any little thing we can do to help each other out goes a long way. I liked how our senior Senior Felony Attorney, Stephen Rosen, put it (I don’t remember the word-for-word quote), “I may not know all of you personally, but you all chose to be Public Defenders giving up more lucrative careers to be here and to help out our clients. That is enough for me.”