Category Archives: technical support

WordPress: Its been two years : a followup article

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Wow it has been 2 years to the day and I can’t believe what WordPress has been capable of in that time. There has of course been the introduction of the long awaited WordPress 3.0 which really brought things into this century. The developers have been on top of things and continue adding new features almost daily.

As learning goes, I have been really impressed with all of the improvements made in the last two years that I have been using WordPress. I set out two years ago with 2 goals:

Goal 1) To see if, pushed to its limits, WordPress could function as an independent website management tool or CMS and shed its skin of that “blog-like” feel that most WordPress sites had 2 years ago.

GOAL MET! I have had both the pleasure and the learning experience to develop some pretty complex sites built on the WordPress framework. Mind you, not without many a sleepless night. But what I have learned through those experiences only fuels the quest for greater knowledge of programming.

I started my web career about 10-ish years ago with the sole aim of being the best web designer out there. (Notice I said “aim” not goal). Its what I wanted. Its what anyone in the web world wanted ten years ago – to be able to say “I designed that” and have everyone look on with delight and cheer you on endless day.

SCRATCH – back to reality. My every attempt to design led me to a corner stall learning css and programming skills. You know, the back-end stuff. The stuff no one sees but you can’t live without. (What we might call grunt-work).

It took many years to hone that skill and well, much prayer. Most of my prayers were something like “God why can’t they see what a great designer I am?” But after much prayer and accepting where I was at the time – I grew to love what I did. I loved being in the corner stall. I love working with css. And out of that grew my love for coding.

Which now, brings us back some 10-ish years later to WordPress and why I think so highly of it. Mainly – it gets rid of a lot of the tedium of coding those things every site needs; those base, core functions that most people could do in their sleep. And instead frees up valuable time to code the more complex php applications which fit so nicely into the framework.

And speaking of framework: themes! Oh thats right Goal #2! Create a pirate theme.

GOAL NOT MET. Why? Well, plain and simple I’ve been too busy. Too busy working on other projects and too busy working enjoying time with my family. Thats right I said family. I know so many web developers find family as an afterthought. But in reality, why have a family if you don’t enjoy them? Important point coming up:

DON’T SET GOALS UNLESS YOU CAN ALSO SET LIMITS

You have to set limits of how long you are willing to dedicate to a project. Sometimes you have to extend those limits but if you set limits at the same time as setting goals, you’ll be much happier knowing that there IS an end to the tunnel.

That will be my next post: How to set limits in a goal driven world. (if you don’t see that article sometime around October 24 and you’re interested… feel free to post a comment below as reminder.

WordPress Get Posts with Custom Taxonomies [RESOLVED]

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$args=array(
//   avoid duplicate posts
‘post__not_in’ => $ids,
//   SPECIFIC CATEGORY (by name)
‘category_name’ => ‘specific-category-slug’,
//   HOW MANY to display
//’showposts’=>7,
//GET POSTS OF CUSTOM TAXONOMY
//#http://justintadlock.com/archives/2010/06/10/a-refresher-on-custom-taxonomies
//#http://wordpress.org/support/topic/custom-taxonomy-and-query_posts?replies=17
//   N E E D BOTH  >>> TO WORK
‘taxonomy’ => ‘allstates’,
‘term’ => ‘texas-state’,
//   PAGANATION FIX
‘paged’=>$paged,
);
query_posts($args);
if (have_posts()) :
echo
‘<div id=”mydiv”>
<ul id=”mylist”>’;
$count = 0;
while (have_posts()) : the_post();
$count++;
echo’<li id=mylist-’.$count.’>’;
$ids[] = get_the_ID();
?>
<span>
<h2><?php the_title();?></h2>
<p><?php the_excerpt(); ?></p>
</span>
<?php
echo’</li>’;
endwhile;
echo ‘</ul><!– //mylist –></div><!– //mydiv –>’;
endif;

This should give you a very very sweet and slick little loop to get posts with custom taxonomies.

Use as many loops as you want.

I also gave you some bonus code to prevent posts from duplicating.

What do you know, GoDaddy Support read my blog.

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Oh I’m sorry did my posts show up in google? Zoinks!

Well, I guess someone got the point that I was not happy about my site hosted on godaddy being slow.

My site went down on Friday and when I called tech support the immediate greeting at godaddy support was “if your site is down we are aware of the issues and are working to resolve them promptly”. It took a number of hours but it looks like godaddy support was on top of things. My site is finally back up and running.

And, imagine that, after my posts about my sites hosted with godaddy are slow; suddenly my blog is blazing along. That would make my previous posts irrelevant wouldn’t it? Well, I’m going to leave them in place. Why? Not because godaddy needs any more bad publicity over their slow servers. Nor so that when you visit my site you ask what slow speed I’m talking about. No. I’m going to leave those as a reminder to myself when it comes time to renew my hosting. Should I stay or should I go.

Well, I can’t say my mind is made up to leave godaddy because my site is running slow. Nor because my website has been down too many times. But I will put this out there: I’ve got my feelers out for a new host. And I think I’ve got it narrowed down.

If I don’t stay with godaddy (which would be more because of past experience and their distateful ads than it would be with their attempt to make things right after too long of waiting). So if I switch from godaddy, I’ll probably consider hostgator because of past success with other clients.

What do you think? Is godaddy running slow for your website? Is hostgator any better in terms of reliability and speed? I will admin I’m impressed that I was able to login into my site, write this post and publish it the first time I clicked each button. But we’ll see how long this new found speed lasts.

I eagerly await your response, suggestions and comments below.

My GoDaddy Site is Slow. Shared Hosting? Or Lazy Servers?

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As promised here is an update on my slow site issue. I apologize on behalf of godaddy, it appears they are all too busy in the bathroom after watching their own commercials to actually care about their customers.

I’ve contacted them several times to address my slow site. Each time I get canned response. Thats not too helpful. One actually recommended that I install a WordPress optimizer.

Well, guess what? My site is so slow that it times out before I can even install the plugin. Gee? You think we could do something about that slow site now? I’ve even asked about being moved to a new server, the supervisor said they only make that determination when its necessary.

Are there any Network Professionals out there who could confirm my suspicion? (If so please leave a comment below)

Okay so maybe its just me but I suspect that I am getting really high pings and slow loads. But maybe its just my own frustration. Maybe the world of the Internet really does run as slow as my site. And maybe the two seconds I wait for a huge website to load compared to the :49 seconds it takes to load mine is just a figment of my imagination.

To me my site is slow and my pings are really high. You be the judge:

Tracing route to myvideosnapshots.com [x.x.x.x]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1     3 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  myNetwork
2     9 ms    15 ms    13 ms  x.x.x.x
3    10 ms     7 ms     8 ms  x.x.x.x
4    14 ms    12 ms    24 ms  x.x.x.x
5    36 ms    12 ms    36 ms  x.x.x.x
6    18 ms    46 ms    17 ms  x.x.x.x
7    17 ms    17 ms    20 ms  x.x.x.x
8    52 ms    69 ms    53 ms  64.210.13.110
9    59 ms    55 ms    52 ms {x}.ip.secureserver.net [x.x.x.x]
10   127 ms   227 ms   240 ms {x}ip.secureserver.net [216.69.188
.81]
11    53 ms    62 ms   164 ms {x}ip.secureserver.net [x.x.x.x]
12    56 ms    53 ms    54 ms {x}phx3.secureserver.net [x.x.x.x] (now I’m not sure but I suspect this last hop is my actual site. Which would mean my site is fast but the godaddy servers are slow)
Trace complete.
C:\>
Well, I’m not ready to announce any changes yet. So please please be patient as I figure out a faster solution than godaddy which is just too slow for my tastes.
And a rant:

Seriously I don’t get their commercials. I had heard a bunch of hoopla before but never paid attention or watched a commercial. Well, I took the time to watch one of them yesterday. I was disappointed. And I will be moving my hosting away from godaddy servers which are entirely too slow and I no longer wish to contribute to poor taste and poor quality.

Maybe I’ll switch to hostgator, at least they spend their money on environmentally friendly servers. Plus I’ve heard hostgator is much more stable than godaddy which is unfortunately too slow to be acceptable.

GoDaddy is slow. Anyone else? Or am I the only one today?

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broadband speed test

Well. The first guy I talked to said I needed proof my site was running slow by having a tracert as proof that my site was running slow.

So I asked to file a complaint with his supervisor.

I do not feel that is good customer service. I should not have to have a tracert just to prove that my site and my ftp are running slow on godaddy when they are sitting on performance logs. All he’d have to do is pull them up.

Instead the guy told me that advanced tech support would laugh at him he didn’t have a tracert to prove my site was running slow.

Hmm???

Well, I nicely asked for his supervisor so I could file a formal complaint against their policies. Because if that is a customer – service oriented response, then I’m the kitchen mouse.

His response was, okay but the supervisor can only write down your complaint; he won’t be able to assist you.

After a few minutes on hold I spoke with the “supervisor” who was all too happy to assist me. I reexplained the issue to him.

Lo and behold, there was a heavy server load.

We talked a little longer to address all of my concerns.

Then I asked: What is a “high ping”?

He checked with the tech team and anything over 8 is high he said.

Well, I’m getting 1-13 ping before their server and 58 – 73 ping once I hit their server hops. Thats pretty large isn’t it?

He recommended I send the tracert log to support@godaddy.com.

I’ll post a followup once I have this resolved.

In the mean time, for the 28 people that visit my site each day, please. PLEASE be patient with me. I know you’re eager to read every word I write. (hahah) But I can only publish as fast as godaddy ‘s servers allow my posts to publish.

If you feel so inclined, click this link and let me know in the comments if it takes a long time to get to my site. broadband speed test

If things don’t speed up soon, I may just be switching to hostgator.

Oh and one more thing, if you’re in the customer service industry: BE HELPFUL.

GoDaddy vs HostGator : How they live in harmony in my world

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Let me start off by saying I am a customer and have clients with both GoDaddy and HostGator. So you’re already thinking, yeah this guy is going to try and sell us something or convince us for the millionth time why his host is better than any others. Well, you’re partly right. If you click my banner and signup for hosting on HostGator, I would receive a small fee.  That is true. However; this article is more about how I managed to save the most money with hosting and domain name registration.

Its a given we all want to save money. But what if you could help cut your carbon footprint at the same time? Hmm, now I’ve interested a few tree-huggers. But what about the rest of you; the average joe who just wants to save money on your website hosting?

Well, Mr. Average Joe you too should be concerned about the environment. You want it to be a clean fresh place to live when your children and their children are roaming the earth. (Thats not a question, that should just be understood). “So whats all the hoopla about saving the environment? I just want to save money.”

Well, the reason I mention the environment is that hostgator runs their servers based on wind-energy. Thats right, those giant turbine fans. (I might call them windmills, but then you might get an impression of something like this:

Chesterton Windmill, Warks 5 I have to admit the environment is not the first thing on my mind (and probably not on most of yours as well) when you are searching for an affordable hosting plan. I do however take consolation knowing that there such options exist.

Knowledge is useless without action

So what can you do? Well, you can choose your own domain name provider and you can choose your own website host. For me, I opt for being conservative in both my funds and my carbon footprint.

Now I’m getting to why I mention godaddy and hostgator!

I mentioned godaddy because that is where I find the cheapest place to register my domain names. $7.49 .com Sale! I mean you can’t beat that really, can you? Then of course we have the obvious mentions of hostgator for their “green” servers. But what about the cost?

Being green and environmentally friendly aren’t always easy on the pocketbook. The good news is, in this case – that is not true. See the banner below.

And that is how godaddy and hostgator peacefully co-exist in my world. Oh, just one more thing, this has nothing to do with hosting or domain names. But the photo to the right, was graciously donated by Michael Green. Thanks Arkle2 for sharing.

Green web hosting with HostGator. Host your site and help conserve the environment.

WordPress switched to Spanish after auto-update [RESOLVED]

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I did the automatic update to WordPress 2.9.2 today and suddenly everything in my dashboard admin was in Spanish. How did I resolve it? Simple… I went into my ftp and edited the wp-config.php file. In it was a line to choose which language. It had changed from en-US to en-PE.
If your WordPress ever switches languages on you, just change this line to read :
define ('WPLANG', 'en_US');

Visual Studio Cannot Preview Local Files [RESOLVED]

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I ran into issues today while trying to get Visual Web Developer 2010 Express working. Visual Studio Express 2010 was a fresh install so there should not have been any issues. But for some reason, even after a fresh install, I did the simplest of test only to be greeted by http://localhost unable to connect. I got nothing. I even tried the simplest of files. I typed the word “hello world” in the portion of a standard html document. Still errors. So what did I do to resolved this?

It was simple: Windows\System32\drivers\etc edit the hosts file… and for some reason locallhost had been switched. Delete that one line, and voila, back in business and ready to go!