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I always upgrade my blogs with some amount of trepidation - should I or shouldn’t I?  Some blogs have upgraded fine but others have been a nightmare. Mainly because the templates I choose are not always compatible with the latest version.

So in a moment of craziness I decided to upgrade my Workplace-Ministry blog to a later version of Wordpress and was instantly faced with a blank white screen after it told me I could view my blog.  Huh?  My mind started racing to see what I could do and I started to type up a help message to my IT guy.  But then I thought perhaps I should see if I could try and fix it myself.  Fortunately I had not closed the window that I’d performed the upgrade in and had opened a new browser window (I love how Firefox uses Tabs!) to view the blog.

I checked my cpanel and noticed the amount of free space was very low.  I then went into the disk space usage area and clicked on the Wordpress section and it showed 0 megs.  mmm, perhaps that’s a clue.

I went back to the window where I’d performed the upgrade and wondered if I backed up through the previous views on that window and redid the upgrade whether that would make a difference?  So I did and with a quick prayer and a re-press of the Upgrade button it performed what it did only a few minutes ago.  I went back to the blank screen window and refreshed and there was my blog in front of me.  Whew!

What is the lesson in this? Well, apart from not panicking, it was not to close a window I’d been working in.  If I had I would not have been able to re-use the upgrade button because it would have considered the job had been done.  Thankfully I could go back to the beginning and redo it and it worked.  Well, another lesson learned for the day - and gratefully so!

Tags: About Blogging, Wordpress by Kathie Thomas
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It happened! The unimaginable!  I’d been creating new blogs in Wordpress 2.6 and slowly getting used to the new look and Dashboard changes and thought I would upgrade some of my blogs to this new version. I did a couple and they worked well so I decided to upgrade this one too.  That’s when it happened.  My categories went missing!  And I didn’t know how to get them back again.

They weren’t showing in the menu sidebar - just an empty spot and when I logged into the Dashboard and viewed the Categories list, there were rows of empty tickboxes with no names and a number at the end of each line indicating the number of posts for that invisible category listing.

Searches at Wordpress Support didn’t come up with any answers for me, although many were asking for help on the same thing, but Googling did produce some results with some step-by-steps on how to fix the problem.  But there were steps missing!  The first part was relatively easy and I was able to successfully make changes inside phpMyAdmin and get the categories list showing but there was no explanation on how to link the tables back up (perhaps that knowledge was assumed by the writers) and since I’ve never done it before I was not going to attempt something with no clear instructions on what to do next.

They also assumed that you had a backup file you could use to find out what all your categories were - wrong!  Mine isn’t writeable to the directory so I have xml files I have exported and can import but don’t have a back up file to refer to.  I must fix that issue one day too!

However, I discovered a really easy way of doing it in Wordpress, and thought I’d share it here for those who are not game to fiddle with the database on their server.

I did a manual fix.

1. After thinking about this a great deal I decided to create a new category to see what would happen.  It showed - that was good.
2. So I placed one of my posts with that and that worked.
3. Then I ticked all the other blank categories listed and clicked on the delete button. Everything automatically defaulted to ‘uncategorised’ which was still showing as blank (and is not removeable) but I knew that the first listing there was the uncategorised list.
4. After that I recreated my categories and reconnected everything - there were 118 posts so that wasn’t too bad and only took me 2-3 hours to do.

The good thing about this was I got to rethink all the categories I have listed here and reconnected some posts to belong to more than one category so in effect, my blog got tidied up in the process.

So, if you are too scared to touch the real techy side of your blog and want a fix that you can do, without calling in help, the above should work for you - it did for me!

missing categories, categories invisible, Wordpress 2.6

Tags: About Blogging, Technology, Wordpress by Kathie Thomas
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Do you have a blog theme addiction?

I have and I have it bad. I spend hours and hours and hours looking for just that right look and sometimes I ‘put up with a theme’ until I have time to go in search again.

Case in point - my Proverbs 31 Woman blog. I just can’t find the right look but I would like to portray a woman with old-fashioned values who is a mother at home and a business woman too. So she could be pictured with an apron, or with kids around her, and definitely in a home environment. But I’ve not see many blog themes that match that description. And then it also needs to have a blogroll that categorises blogs although I believe I can add a code for that.

And sometimes when on the hunt I find other templates I love and I end up starting blogs I really don’t need but love the template so I want to use it. Another case in point - Kathie’s Garden. This one is badly in need of new posts.

But sometimes I can find just the right template like the one for this blog - I’m happy with it, and for several other blogs I have or blogs I manage for clients. One of my latest ones is Block’s Indicator - I actually found about 5 different templates ideal for that one so we’re trying them out as the blog ages gradually.

I did eventually find a theme for Proverbs31-woman.com though that I like - although it doesn’t have the look I originally envisioned. But I like the way the categories are done.

So, tell me about your favourite themes or your blog addiction!

blog themes, blog templates, blog addiction, favourite theme

Tags: Wordpress by Kathie Thomas
6 Comments »

This weekend is a long weekend in Melbourne, Australia, and I decided I’d do some things I’d been planning on for quite some time - this year got busy without notice! And so I’ve spent the past 3 days on and off, browsing through themes at Wordpress’s Theme Viewer. I’d been there heaps of times before but had only looked at the thumbnails doing quick searches for particular styles or colours. But the thumbnails can be deceiving and it’s not until you click on the test run that you truly get an appreciation for the theme you’re viewing.

It is really, really worthwhile going through them, but be warned and be prepared to spend several hours going through them - my maths tells me there are 1469 of them to go through! Have fun exploring!

Tags: Themes, Wordpress by Kathie Thomas
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I love working with Wordpress. So many templates available with options for 1, 2 and 3 columns and a whole lot of extras. Makes changing the look of your blog almost as easy as changing your clothes - you could do it daily if you wish (the blog I mean)! And so, my new look blog - for a while at least. On my ‘to do list’ when I have nothing else to do I might actually spend sometime learning php and then create my own template from scratch. But for now there are enough choices out there to keep me happy.

If you haven’t yet explored operating a blog for your own business, you can get a free account at http://wordpress.com/ or, if you have your own website you could ask your web host if it’s possible to install Wordpress on the server. I do my own through Fantastico which was installed on my server by my host. Now I can set up Wordpress on any domain I set up for hosting and it’s quite easy to do. Not to mention in learning a new skill like this, it means I can also provide it as a service for my clients, as my proficiency increases. Something to think about, isn’t it? KMT

Wordpress, blogging, blog templates, VA services

Tags: Wordpress by Kathie Thomas
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