Tag: Exchange Sites

I Am Looking For a Php / MySQL Developer For Contractual Work

I have a laundry list of things to do on my websites. I do not have the time to do them, and so I am looking for someone with some experience to do them for me.

Sample jobs are: update wordpress, re-activate some domains, update some plugins, check consistency with Internet Explorer, deal with my host re some mod_rewrite issues, and so on. If you, or someone you know, is knowledgable in WordPress, PHP, MySQL, or any combination of the three, please email me at [email protected] . I will prefer that you live in Manila, and can be paid via g-cash.

I will hire you or this person just to execute this list, and for occasional jobs in the future.

How I Fixed That Annoying WordPress Permalinks Issue

I detailed here an annoying issue with Kikay Ex that happened after the Big Server Move a few weeks back. For some odd reason, after the move all the previous internal links were appended with ‘index.php’. For example:

what used to be

http://kikay.exchange.ph/2006/10/30/kikay-cams/

became:

http://kikay.exchange.ph/index.php/2006/10/30/kikay-cams/

The problem was that I was using a wp-plugin called ClickCounter which is attractive because if you mouse over a link, a little message will popup showing how many times it’s been clicked, like this:

It’s not completely reliable (it doesn’t count right-click ‘open in a new window’, for example), but it at least gives a fairly good representation of how popular a link is. A good guess, I suppose, is that it misses approximately 20% more clicks.

Continue reading How I Fixed That Annoying WordPress Permalinks Issue

Mobile Ex is no more.

It has occurred to me that if I were working on only one site, say, Kikay, or Movie, then it’d have probably been a super major outstanding grabe fantastic over hit by now. But then again I’m probably just making excuses, being as I am, not completely happy with the state of each individual site. Oh sure they’re loading and processing fine, but there’s so much, SOOOO MUCH I want to do to each one, I frequently just end up staring at my to do list, which should probably be named ‘wish I could do them’ list, because its become pretty overwhelming.

Which is why, you see now, I am in that ‘what if it was just one site‘ mode of thinking at the moment, because if it was just one, then everything that I’d want done would be (in theory) done, and I’d be concentrating on just marketing right about now.

At any rate, today I killed of Mobile.exchange.ph, because of 3 things: 1.) I just can’t handle the workload in maintaining that, 2.) I’m seriously starting to wonder about the feasibility of websites that feature gadgets these days. I’m just not sure that people are all that interested anymore. And finally 3.), it’s taking up valuable server space and resources.

So that’s it. I’m sad I had to do it. Again, I had SOOOO MUCH I wanted to do with that, but hey there’s only one me, and i’m a very stretched me as it is.

Continue reading Mobile Ex is no more.

We Encourage you to use Firefox.

I have made the ff. banners to be installed on the Exchanges:

I didn’t want to write the usual “Best Viewed by using Firefox”, because I didn’t want there to be any mistake. The sites still work alright on Internet Explorer (well at least I think so), but the term “Best Viewed..” might mean that I have only made them work on Firefox, which isn’t true.

I also didn’t want to use the standard ‘Get Firefox’ buttons over here, because those tend, I think, to be ignored, or mistaken to be paid promo ads. I always design my sites not for techies, but for the ordinary, non – Internet users out there. I don’t have to worry about techies. If you’re a techie, I presume you should already know that Firefox is the better deal. Its the ordinary user I want to help out, and saying ‘Exchange.ph encourages you..’ means that it supports and recognizes Firefox and would like (but is not forcing!) everyone to use it, whether or not Exchange.ph looks better on it or not.

Whew. That’s a lot to say huh.

Continue reading We Encourage you to use Firefox.

Parents Ponder, Phoebe’s going, and yes, Another server memory upgrade

First off, congrats to my main girl Jen for hosting a terrific parenting event for Mom.Exchange.Ph, sponsored by Verdana Homes, last Sat the 16th, at Coffee Tea Bean and Leaf (is that right? or something like that. I mix up that name often.), at the Convergys Building Makati. I peeled my lazy ass off bed early in the AM to get there by 9 to record the proceedings. A bunch of moms, some kids and a stray dad were present, along with fotogs and PR people. Jen did her mom thing with other moms and the resultant incessant chatter was indicative of true success afa im concerned. This is our first co-produced and sponsored event for Mom.Exchange and man am I am way happy and all proud of Jen. Parents Ponder is now a monthly thing and nothing but good things are gonna come out of this I tell you. If you’re a mom, and am interested in joining up, I’ve setup a page here.


Jen doing her thing.

Continue reading Parents Ponder, Phoebe’s going, and yes, Another server memory upgrade

I haven’t been updating this much because

I’ve been worried about my host server’s RAM consumption, which at 352mb. has once again proven not enough. Last night it started to kill processes again (usually mysql), and the sites weren’t connecting. I checked Analytics and at some point around 10PM, visits spiked to almost 100 just for kikay for that one hour, and dived after that, indicating a mysql crash (since the sites weren’t loading anymore, the visitors left). At this very moment Kikay is loading like molasses and I’ve already sent an email asking what’s up.

So anytime I wanna blog here, I actually think twice because I know it’s just gonna tax the db since we’re on the same host, even if just one bit. Last night I finally got email to work and stopped short of installing Spamassassin when I realized it can be a big RAM hog as well, even though I know it’s necessary.

Continue reading I haven’t been updating this much because

Annoying WordPress Permalinks Error Since Server Move

Warning, highly techie post. All those looking for my usual touchy feely posts please move along now, nothing to see here. Just documenting a disaster of a Permalinks error on WordPress below, which I posted at the WordPress Forum. Posting it below again to document it, to help anyone who has to go through same and so I can keep a record of this sorta crap.

All my 2.1.3 wordpress sites, which had been around since wp 1.5, used to use the structure:

%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/

ever since a recent server host move, the sites have started to insist on the ff. structure:

/index.php/%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/

Appending the ‘index.php’ to all my URLs is a complete disaster as I use the Click Counter by Ozh plugin to count my most clicked links. These all now go to 404 pages. I really wanna keep using this as it has been recording my hits since forever.

I tried putting it back to without the index.php but it doesn’t work out, resulting in errors.

PLease help!?

A Server To Move The World

may232007_enough.jpgToday’s the 3rd day after The Big Server Move And to those who don’t really know what I’m talking about, it’s the day I moved my domain Exchange.ph from just – barely – handling – it hosting at Mobilehive.com to hosting – for – the – big – boys Rimuhosting.com (I figured I had to explain that cause I read what I’ve written and realized I may have been fuzzy. Sorry about that, credit it to being overworked).

Ok here’s more details. Exchange.ph, due to the websites it contains (Kikay, Mom, Basketball, Mobile and Movie), was already suffering from extreme server loads, causing me to surpass my monthly download limits on a regular basis, sometimes 2x in one month. In total, the sites get up to 1,000 to 1,500 visits a day, averaging close to 30+ gb. a month worth of downloads. Actually, I wouldn’t know if that’s accurate, since everything stops when I hit 30gb. and any further requests would go to dev/null I presume.

I have documented (geeks like to document) most all my experience in The Big Move as I like to refer to it, in the past two posts. My main issues were importing my +-200mb. gz databases (each), the exporting and importing of which possibly developed a few white hairs, and causing me to actually get a zit on my forehead (that’s what happens when I get no sleep. Even back in high school.)

And now I can say with 90% surety that everything has gone well. Not bad for a first – timer, especially given the fact I had to do the whole thing six times over (because there are six sites total, including this). As a result I am now ready and far more confident that my sites are gonna do ok. No more 10 – 15 seconds to load a page. Kikay, by far the most popular, downloads in less than five seconds. I gotta tell you that is astounding. Well ok sure it can actually do better, but hey I think that’s pretty good at this stage, especially during the afternoons when an average 20 – 30 people are loading it at the same hour.

So what next?

Continue reading A Server To Move The World

OpenDNS Rocks the Mike Right

John Roberts of OpenDNS was kind enough to drop by to educate my behind on OpenDNS’ ability to refresh their cache, and consequently pointed me to cache.opendns.com, where I found the culprit!

I cleared that out, and apparently only Kikay had that problem. Mom, Basketball, Movie and the rest were ok. After checking them all out, this is the page that says everything’s ok:

I gotta tell ya deleting that record had the same effect as stamping out a cockroach! Or deleting a virus that had a chance to propagate again once accessed.

Continue reading OpenDNS Rocks the Mike Right

Just a few quick thoughts before I hie off to ZZZ land

Day 2 of the big server move is highlighted by three issues.

  1. Turns out php’s default 8mb allocation was the culprit when I was doing stuff like accessing wp-admin’s pages and it was returning white empty pages. I bumped it up to 16mb. and immediately, that wasn’t enough too. So I bumped it up to 24mb. and I haven’t heard a peep since.
  2. Around this afternoon all the sites suddenly got MySQL errors of the highest order. Stuff I’ve never seen before, like tables loading but not fetching data (“mysql disappeared” messages) or the default “I cannot connect to the WP db are you sure your password / username is correct” sort of stuff, aside from getting bog slow after initially being lightning fast early on. After a quick support email it turned out the installed 160mb. RAM wasn’t enough to handle the load, and they offered me a 96mb. upgrade for a discounted extra $10.00 a month. I said YeeaAAayyy aLLelujaaaaAhh and they set it forth onto the server posthaste. Looks ok so far although I’ve received some complaints of slowness, so we’ll see.
  3. Finally the biggest issue of all is DNS. And I mean 3rd party DNS and not my server DNS (thank God). After an hour or so of working on my sites, I try again and get 404 errors. After delving into it I realized I’ve been pointed back to my old server (!?!?!!). Yet another support email, and cause for alarm was raised, and they started asking me to check out stuff. After some settling down we both realized it was probably OpenDNS (which I use on my PC) maintaining an old record which pops up from time to time. Although I’m not particularly sure how and why that is, since I am dependent on that server it suddenly fetches the wrong record after the requisite 10 minute rotation. Now that is just plain weird. At any rate, the only solution is to just wait it out. I initially thought that it was some sort of failback issue, where it serves up a ‘second best’ record should the first one fail for some reason, but the tech support guys said DNS doesn’t work that way so that’s not it. I’m glad (although I was initially freaked) that it turns out the problem is confined to me. Which is freaky still in a way considering I’m it’s admin, and I’m the one having probs accessing it. Figures, right?

Anyway that’s it. I can’t keep my eyes open any longer. Tiring day, and the promise of another again tomorrow. Later then.