September 18th, 2009
I recently ran into a frustrating issue when WordPress (2.8.4) started acting bad once the server was updated to the latest php 5.3.0. The main issue is pretty well documented if you search Google, and is not a WordPress code problem rather a php bug. My issue was that my “General Settings” screen stopped loading, and hung with a mostly blank page. This was nothing more than a pain. I’ll wait to update my php for a real fix, rather than rolling back to 5.2.
Here’s what I did to make the problem go away.
Open your /wp-admin/options-general.php file and look for this:
<select id=”timezone_string” name=”timezone_string”>
<?php echo wp_timezone_choice($tzstring); ?>
</select>
This “wp_timezone_choice” function is the culprit. Until the actual php bug is fixed, this will continue to fail. You can easily fix it by hard coding your timezone as a selected “option” like this:
<select id=”timezone_string” name=”timezone_string”>
<?php echo //wp_timezone_choice($tzstring); ?>
<option value=”America/New_York” selected=’selected’>New York</option>
</select>
Notice how I commented out the function and added the “selected option”. You can update the value to be what ever timezone you live in. Here is a list: http://us3.php.net/manual/en/timezones.php
Hope this helps someone, it made me crazy until I worked out this fix.
Cheers!
Tags: Php 5, WordPress
Posted in Web Development & Tech. | 2 Comments »
August 19th, 2009
It’s been about two weeks since I updated my home network with a file server and backup drive. So far, the performance is fast and the backup has been flawless. I didn’t have a ton of cash to spend on setting it up, so I went on the “frugal side”. Here is an outline of the set up if anyone is thinking of doing this.
Need
I realized not too long ago that all my music, client work, finances, pictures, emails and everything was in danger of being completely lost in the case of a drive failure. It hit me with an uncomfortable unease to think that I had no way of saving any of this data becuase I had no copy or backup of any of it. I needed to set something up, asap. Once I realized it was all at risk, I became all paranoid about even faintest “odd noise” my laptop made.
I also have a big media colection on my machine (80 or so gigs of mp3s). I share the library across the network to my wife’s laptop, but it’s availability was contingent on my machine being on. And, she could only “read” the files. This meant that I had to actually burn CDs when she wanted one. I wanted a way for her to be able to manage the same library as me, but of course did not want to actually duplicate it on her machine. I also stream media to my PlayStation 3 from my laptop. Again, my machine needed to be on for this to work.
I figured it was time to build a backup solution and media server at home to deal with all this. Besides, I’m a web developer/techie anyways. My home network was lacking to say the least.
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Tags: backup solution, FreeAgent Desk, Home Networking, Maxtor, Media Server, PlayStation 3
Posted in Web Development & Tech. | No Comments »
March 18th, 2009
I’ve been a developer for nearly ten years. I’ve used a ton of developer tools for code authoring, editing, statistics and debugging. I’ve come to realize that some of the best programs for web developers are not that expensive, in fact – they’re FREE! I wanted to make a quick post and list some of these tools. Hopefully it will help out some of you developers out there.
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Tags: Free Tools, Web Development
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