I Still Hate Computers

pete

pete

Brassica Oleracea
Staff member
Administrator
First, yes, I am taking prescription medicine that is considered a "controlled substance," but that's kind of regardless of the following. But I thought I'd tell you so you can make up your own mind.

So, one of the things I've been wanting to do is move my blog to a different directory on my website because I want to put in a different Index (main) page. I've got a Wordpress blog. It's pretty simple to back up and restore, provided you don't mins playing with some SQL databases (just backing up and restoring them).

Three hours in. It's not going well.

OK, so I was very easily able to do the backup of my original blog and restore it to a different directory. Simple. I then had to restore those SQL databases I mentioned earlier for NextGen Gallery -- it's the most popular gallery plugin for Wordpress.

The next step was that I had to rebuild my menus, because I couldn't figure out which file happens to control those settings, nor could I find a reference Googling. That took a bit longer, but no big deal.

At this point, I felt I was finished. Then I looked at a page with a NextGen Gallery on it. Horror show. I've got pictures any ol' place. I double-checked and yes, all the same plugins are installed and all the other settings look identical to my blog in its original location.

So, what to do? Well, I decided to back up the new blog directory then overwrite all files (except the one that says where all the databases are) with the ones from my original blog. Here's the problem: while I have faster Internet downloads at home than the Fortune 50 company I work for, uploading sucks. And there are, oh, 8000 files to upload.

I walked away and came back after 1/2 hour. The computer's stuck at trying to upload a file because it's got an accent mark in it. Great. Wastes more time.

All software sucks. They just suck in different ways.

Well, wish me luck ....
 
Oh Pete. I'm so sorry to hear this. I just took a look at your Conn article, and see what you mean about your pics being screwed up a bit.

Take some Rx. and forget about it for now. You'll figure it out when you're feeling better. BTW, welcome to the Triple Script Club! ;) I myself am no longer a member, having joined the Legal Speed & Crazy High Doze Anti-Consultant Clubs, but the warnings are the same: DON'T OPERATE HEAVY EQUIPMENT! :emoji_smile:
 
Helen said:
Take some Rx. and forget about it for now. You'll figure it out when you're feeling better. BTW, welcome to the Triple Script Club! ;) I myself am no longer a member, having joined the Legal Speed & Crazy High Doze Anti-Consultant Clubs, but the warnings are the same: DON'T OPERATE HEAVY EQUIPMENT! :emoji_smile:
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I actually warn the people I work with: "I've just taken one of my happy pills. I strongly advise you to leave before me."

:D

A thing that's good, in a way, and sad in another is that I can actually tell how much I can take and be functional. When I take my suite of three head things right before be, I know that I can't be trusted with heavy machinery beyond an iPad ("Friends don't let friends post under the influence"). I've had to tell my oldest daughter, who lives with her mom, a couple times, "I'm sorry. I've taken my evening meds and I can't pick you up. I'll go ahead and call Elizabeth (my wife) and see if she can swing by on her way back."

==================

What I'm going to do with my blog is probably re-do the reinstall as plain vanilla as I possibly can and see if I can make it look as nice as possible with the WordPress default theme(s). If that gets to be too much of a headache (See? I tied this post all together!), I'll see if I can find a different theme and slowly repair the broken pages. One thing that's good is that the "automated" install of WordPress on my webhost now has a plugin that allows you to create an iPhone/iPad app out of your blog, which makes the reason WHY I switched WordPress themes awhile back (i.e. because the theme is compatible with iPad/iPhone) no longer valid.
 
Techie postscript:

I sorta found a solution (the section called, "Moving a Root install to its own directory"). Why do I say "sorta"? Well, the information isn't exactly complete:

There's a section that says, "If you have set up Permalinks ...." It should say, "STEP 1. Set up Permalinks. Use the 'post name' option. Otherwise you'll spend a couple hours playing with various combinations of .htaccess and index.php files. Oh. The reason WHY you should set up permalinks is so you can have at least a little clue where the software is trying to go, rather than just seeing a numeric code you have no chance of deciphering."

Steps 3 & 4 ... are just wrong. When you initially install WordPress, even if you use an automagic script install, those values are exactly the directory where the WordPress "index.php" (i.e. the file that shows you the blog) is at. In my case, it was "http://thesax.info" for both 3 & 4. If you move to a different directory, you use that directory. So, it's "http://thesax.info/blog" for both 3 & 4. The fun thing is if you do follow the instructions as WordPress has them written, you have to keep your "index.php" file in the original directory. Which was counter-intuitive enough to make me wonder if I accidentally took four of my happy pills instead of two. Why would anyone want to move his WordPress install to a different directory and have to leave his "index.php" file in the original location? The entire reason for me moving it was to move that index.php file outta there so I could replace it with a snazzy new index.htm file.

=============

Anyhow, I made it work, and I only have a little clean-up, rather than a lot.

Related, I mentioned that I had been out of work on vacation (which I was sick for, unfortunately) for four days. During that time, my co-workers racked up four or five machines that they couldn't fix and left for me -- and in at least three cases, the co-workers spent "all day" trying to fix them. I got all but one fixed by lunchtime, so I'd say the time wasted on WordPress was gained back in a different place :D. (And the one at lunchtime? The CIO had something else he wanted me to do ....)
 
Your co-corkers sound like one or two of the guys I have to work with. Any time I ask them for something to be changed, I get the reply 'Not supported' despite the fact that half the world's doing it, and it's (by L**x standards) well documented. Then they do an upgrade, break something and say they did nothing, it's because I'm doing something that's not supported and it's my fault. Latest was an SSH upgrade which killed some terminal software. Took the best part of half a day to get them to look at it and 2 minutes to fix. And then get annoyed when I call them cowboys...
 
I've just gotten used to it. The other thing is that I know if $tech doesn't know how to fix Y and he's spending an entire day working on Y, if I don't either explain the solution or do it myself, $tech might not be available to work on something else that I'd either rather not do or am too busy to do.
 
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