The protestors in Iran do not want to go away. I’m am hoping that this does not end the same way Tianamen did; that government is not famous for their patience.
Year: 2009 (page 11 of 17)
So Lily put the kids to bed and was complaining that they were fighting.
Me: They like to compete with each other. That’s why they fight.
Lily: After a while it drives me crazy.
Me: Did you ever compete with your brother?
Lily: There was no need.
Wow.
I’m just asking.
I don’t really blame the North Koreans for acting insane. That behaviour has always worked for them in the past. When will China and Russia say enough is enough and let real sanctions start?
With every release of WordPress there are always people who have problems. That not unusual since change can bring unexpected issues.
Most of the WordPress forum users are just looking for help and are in above their heads. Those users I can respect, asking for help should be encouraged. Providing help can be satisfying and I refer to it as “therapy”.
Then there are those other users. You know the ones, the pissed off users. These are the ones who seem to feel like there is an SLA that is not being honored by the “WordPress” guys.
Here is a current sample from the WordPress.ORG support forum:
“It wiped my website completely and it wiped 3 more website hosted on my server. Now really, do you test these things? And why is it still available for auto upgrade if you see what problems people have here ?”
“Who released this Fiasco?… Is this untested beta junk?”
“Who’s responsible for this crap ? Did anybody do any honest and real testing on it?”
“Thanks a lot, WordPress! I always love having my blog borked just for doing an upgrade, per the instructions. I’m in the process of rolling back to 2.71 and never upgrading again.
What idiot released 2.8?”
If I were these users, I would demand my money back. That’s no way to treat a paying customer.
Everyone should understand that the support is all volunteer driven. If you don’t provide details, if you are not willing to provide those details, and/or you come across as a petulant child, then don’t expect anyone to step up and help.
I’m a fan of WordPress software. It’s well written, mostly well documented, and the volunteer support generally is successful. If you provide some details of your problem then you’ll usually get a solution.
With version 2.7 and above, the software provides a built in auto upgrade. But it’s not fool proof and can go awry. When that happens, the blog user must become the blog system administrator. Not unusual: to properly host and appreciate WordPress you must develop some system administration skills. This is a requirement, it’s not optional.
So before users push that upgrade button they need to have a Plan B for if it goes wrong. That plan can be as simple as wiping out the installation and restoring the backup up made right before you tried to upgrade.
Here are some WordPress Codex URLs to keep in mind and read up on:
Upgrading WordPress
WordPress Backups
Backing Up your Database
Restoring Your Database from a Backup
Disabling Plugins when you can’t login
Version 2.8 was tested and vetted. But when you have +330,000 downloads, some of those users will have problems. It’s to be expected; the people who ran the beta code knew what they were doing. Many users just have not gotten there yet so they need more help.
So if you are using 2.8 and still have problems, take a look at this 2.8 Problems and Solutions FAQ that MichaelH quickly wrote up. From the feedback it seems like this is working well for the problem cases.
WordPress 2.8 is out. Check out the list of features. I was running 2.8-RC1 and updating via SVN (my usual method) was painless as usual.
Using SVN was as simple as logging in and switching from the /trunk to the tags/2.8 like so
cd wordpress/ svn sw http://core.svn.wordpress.org/tags/2.8/
Easy peasy.
I don’t think Microsoft will make the slightest difference to Google, but Bing is not bad. The video search results are cool.
Update 6/7/2009: Still broken.
Update 6/6/2009: I’ve used Flickr import three times and it looks like Facebook fixed the problem.
Facebook has really taken off with the 35+ age group (which I am part of). I have been connecting with people I have not interacted with in 20 years.
As a result, I find myself using Facebook as a means to keep my friends up to date. One of the things I have come to depend upon was the Facebook Flickr integration. Using this tool, when I upload pictures to Flickr account my Facebook friends get a notice and see my photos.
Normally this works sporadically. For the past two weeks it does not work at all. And I can’t find a link to let me ask Facebook “Hey, am I doing something wrong?” This functionality used to work but now it completely doesn’t.
I can’t really complain or get upset simply because I don’t pay Facebook, so I’m getting my money’s worth. But I wish they could provide something better than “Please try again later”. I suspect that the two site’s API changed but I can’t see any meaningful error messages to help figure it out.
President Obama took his wife on a date Saturday and some people are going nuts. The RNC I can understand since they are the “ZOMG we lost, now what?!” party. But regular folks who are in arms about this need to get a life.
Hopefully the Party of NO will let Judge Sotomayor get approved. She looks like a good choice but the GOP have already stated they’ll fillibuster anyone President Obama nominates.
