WordPress Troubleshooting

Steve — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 23:49:33 +0000

For the past couple of weeks I’ve had to do some WordPress Troubleshooting.

I’ve been having a little bit of trouble with one of my sites and I’m happy to say I have found a solution to my problems as of today.

I have no idea what tomorrow will bring however. I use WordPress on all of my sites. The 2 problems I’ve had recently were aggravating the hell out of me.

I thought I would share with you and just in case you have the same issues, this may help. I lost the ability to “preview my post” by clicking on the preview button.

When I write a post, I click the preview several times to view the article just to see how everything is looking. The preview page would just load forever and never give me a preview.

I don’t have time for this I thought. I imagined the worse. I assumed that deep inside my theme was some funky little code problem sent here by Satan just to make me miserable.

I’m not a code guy and I don’t want to be. I figured I would exhaust my ability to troubleshoot the problem and then when all else failed, I would hire an expert.

The other problem I’ve been having was the ability to view any changes I make to my site immediately. Widgets, etc were not showing immediate changes in Firefox. This problem was causing me to work from 2 different computers. I would make changes on one and could only view the changes on another computer running Internet Explorer. That issue was beginning to piss me off.

I’m not one to have a lot of patience. I like things to work. I like to crank my car, put it in drive and go. I like to turn on my Mac and start surfing. I’m a simple dude. I have destroyed 2 lawnmowers in my life because they wouldn’t crank. One while my wife was watching from the kitchen window and I didn’t know it. When I looked up and saw her in my rage, she just shook her head and walked away. I imagine part of her thoughts included the word psycho.

WordPress problem #1 and how I solved it.
The preview page would just load and load and take forever to give me the preview. To publish was also becoming a chore. The page would load forever and finally publish. It was a very aggravating problem to say the least. I tried 3 different browsers and 3 different computers. I re-loaded my wordpress theme and even changed versions of the same theme. No luck. I disabled about half of my plug-ins and still no luck. I reloaded a new copy of Firefox, my preferred browser.

Nothing I was doing was correcting the problem. I finally decided to disable all of my wordpress plugins. After disabling them all, I was able to publish and preview with no trouble. I found the culprit on the first wordpress plug-in I reactivated. It was the “Yet Another Related Post” plugin. I’ve never had any problem with this plug-in. Turns out it was due an upgrade, so I automatically upgraded the plug-in, activated it and it’s been working fine. First problem solved. I celebrated with an ice cold Blue Moon.

WordPress problem #2 and how I solved it.
I use WordPress Super Cache on all of my sites. I understand this plug-in will load your site faster to someone who has visited before. I disabled this plug-in and I was able to view changes to my site immediately. Apparently there is a conflict with Firefox and WordPress Super Cache. So now, if I’m making significant changes to my sites, I will disable this plug-in while I work.

I’m happy to report that my WordPress problems were not problems with WordPress at all but WordPress plug-ins and internet browsers. If any of you are having any of the issues I described, please try what I did to see if provides a fix for you.

BTW, all you people on Facebook and Twitter posting dead people quotes…just friggin stop it. I’m sick of it. Come up with something original out of your own mouth.

2009 Hyperlocal Blog

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Tools Of The Hyperlocal Blogger

Steve — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 21:49:55 +0000

Is it expensive to become a hyperlocal blogger? I probably can’t afford it even if I want to start my own community site. The first answer is NO! You probably already have what you need to start hyperlocal blogging. Your biggest expense will be your time. Time is valuable and you success will somewhat depend upon the time you are willing to devote to your site.

Do you have a computer? Do you have internet access? If you are reading this article, the answer is yes. I’m happy to say that I was able to become a hyperlocal blogger with the tools and equipment I already owned.

I use an Apple MacBookPro with a 17″ monitor.

I made a decision almost 2 years ago to switch from PC to Mac. Personally, it was the best technical decision I’ve ever made. I would never go back. If you are going to work with graphics and video, you may want to consider the Mac.

Woo Themes offers highly customizable WordPress themes for as low as $70. Their themes are awesome and so is their support. Someone just beginning would be well advised to use Woo Themes because of their support and forums.

I bought a $10 domain name from bluehost.com. In addition to my domain name, I purchased my web hosting package from bluehost also. They have several packages to choose from. The web hosting package I chose was around $107 for 12 months. You can add as many domain names that you want to the same hosting account and unlimited hosting storage. I’m extremely happy with Bluehost and I recommend to everyone. Read my article about how to get my free wordpress setup when you use bluehost.com.

I use bluehost.com to host all of my web sites, including this one.

An absolute must is a digital camera. I would expect that you already own one. If your digital camera shoots video, thats great too. I own a digital camera, a Kodak Zi6 flip camera and also a Canon XH A1 prosumer HD video camera. I’m almost tempted to say that a digital video camera is a must. It’s not really, but if you want to elevate your site with more features, you must add video. I recommend the Kodak Zi6 HD Flip Camera. I love using this little gadget and I never leave home without it. They can easily be purchased for $150 or less. I bought mine at Wal-Mart. The Zi6 takes awesome HD video and 2 megapixel still shots.

I use the Kodak Zi6 HD Flip Camera.

I would consider these tools as a minimum to start a hyperlocal community site. It’s not very expensive and as I said at the beginning of this article, you may already have everything you need to start your own site. I always use free stuff whenever possible, but if you have these tools above, you are ready to start. You are officially armed with the tools of a Hyperlocal Blogger.

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Where Personal Potential & Reality Meet » Wordpress Themes

WordPress Troubleshooting

Tools Of The Hyperlocal Blogger