Narrative Disorder… in Japan!!

but ain’t they cute!!

I spend a fair bit of my days listening to Radio National podcasts while pottering around cooking or doing housework so the speakers on my PC are often quite high so I can hear it over both the distance and the noise of cooking or chopping or the dishwasher chugging away. I often worry that I drive my neighbours mad (though I’m sure they’d have said something by now, and I never hear a peep from their side) so clearly I NEED to spend $1000 US on this baby… hehe

The MIURO (Music Innovation Utility Robot) connects wirelessly to your PC, or you can plug an ipod into the top of it, and FOLLOWS YOU AROUND (avoiding obstacles itself)  adjusting its position to give you optimal listening pleasure!! You can pause it by qiving it a quick pat on the head, or FF or REW by patting it either on the left or the right respectively and you make it follow you by letting your hand linger lovingly on its head till it smiles! hehe

Here’s a demo video - it’s in Japanese but it’s fairly clear ^_^

I wanted  to be able to blog happily from Japan during our orientation week and to keep in touch without the fuss of mobile phone "roaming" issues so I pulled out my old tablet PC and have spent the last couple of days giving it a good tune-up.  I bought my tablet back in 2003, giving in to my gadget-girl proclivities and going for the first generation of these marvelous machines. I loved the idea of being able to handwrite my fiction and have no need  for typing it out later. When I was first shown the tablet, the salesman showed my the input panel which could be either an on-screen keyboard which could be pecked at or a space into which one could hand write. I was disappointed - the panel could be docked either at the top of the screen, which meant that one’s hand, wrist & forearm covered any document into which you were trying to write, or it could be docked at the bottom -where there is nowhere to rest your hand and which quickly causes cramping. So the savvy salesman showed me the "write anywhere" feature. I fell in love. One could open up any application and write anywhere on the screen and it had no trouble converting even my odd, psuedo-copperplate handwriting and inserting it as type at the cursor. You could rest your hand wherever it was comfy on the screen so writing without being at a desk was easy. I loved my tablet.

Then came Service Pack 2 and it’s little parasite Windows XP for Tablet PC 2005. In their "wisdom" Microsoft decided to removed the "write anywhere" feature. They replaced it with a small button which would appear under your tablet pen when you hovered it over a cursor for an annoyingly long moment (and only in certain compatible applications). Once the damn thing appeared, you had to tap it to open up a smaller input panel under your hand- seemingly a good replacement accept that the thing disappeared if you lifted your pen too far from the screen or paused for a moment to think.  No number of complaints on the forums could prompt from Microsoft even an acknowledgement that the new feature was not for at least some a satisfactory replacement (to put it politely.)So, my tablet became a $4000 laptop with a 12nd screen and none of the features that that hind of money would get, like an onboard disc-drive let alone a DVD player.  I hooked it up to a full-sized keyboard & mouse and made good use of it, but it wasn’t my dear tablet anymore.

So now I have a  need for a portable computer again, I figured I’d see what the state of play is now. After  literally  hours of updates it seems that very little has changed. The annoying floaty thing is not quite so delicate and stays around long enough to get a good run up an a thought but it still only applies to some applications (this one excluded, I’m afraid) and there is still no return of the original beloved feature. Microsoft, it seems, is  happy for a company called  Evernote to make a fortune providing a plug-in which provides the "write anywhere" feature for which we really should not need to pay. However, as I  hand write this post  on my tablet, on my knee in front of the tv, switching the input panel from the  lower dock to the upper as my hand begins to  cramp, then back again as it becomes too annoying glancing down and having to move my hand to check the conversion every few words - I will no doubt succumb at some point.  Frankly, beyond the satisfaction and creative flow  that handwriting provides, the idea of "populating" my blog’s database, and in  turn the "series of tubes", in longhand is just too delicious.

Last night I was up till 5a.m. getting the final step of my blog upgrade done - moving it to its own domain (see that up there? www.narrativedisorder.com ? that was HARD, that was lol). I’m not deluded that many people read it or that there was an urgency at all but it was a new challenge damn it! And it was one of those thing where you are just holding on to all the new info and if you stop before it all coalesces into sense you’ll never understand it!

In the end it actually wasn’t that hard but since I spent 7 hours and what felt like a large amount of our download limit attempting at least 6 different variations on "how to" guides, first from wordpress.org then from desperate google searches, and finding each one to be incompatible with my own hosting situation in someway or missing or assuming a vital element or understanding here or there, (deep breath) I figured I’d do my bit to help other people like me (with more courage than knowledge OR sense) and give you the "How to" I would have liked to find last night. Maybe it will help someone. If you read through this and feel trepidation about following the first few steps then you should probably either leave things as they are or get yourself a blog host who can do everything for you. After all, this is very similar to upgrading to another wordpress version which will need to be done at least every couple of years so you probably need someone else to do it for you.

Important note: my new domain is registered under and hosted under the same plan as my other domains and so the databases were going to be on the same server - I have no idea how that effects things but I’m assuming it has some effect (THAT’s what a newbie I am to this stuff - I probably shouldn’t have a self-hosted worpress but I love working this stuff out hehe)

The process is divided into the following sections (as soon as I wrestle out how to make these anchors for jump-to links I will ):

BACKING UP YOUR CURRENT WORDPRESS DATABASE
BACKING UP YOUR CURRENT WORDPRESS FILES
CREATING AND CONFIGURING YOUR NEW DATABASE
CREATING AND CONFIGURING YOUR BLOG ON YOUR NEW DOMAIN
NEARLY THERE - A FEW LAST, IMPORTANT THINGS

HOW TO:

1) FIRST BACK UP YOUR FILES AND DATABASE - I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH HOW IMPORT THIS IS!

If you are confident with backing up our database and files then skip to NOW TO YOUR NEW SITE

"Back-up" is simply jargon for making a copy of your files as they are at a certain time so that if you try to change something and it doesn’t work out you can return the files to the state they were in before you mucked around (or the server crashed or was infected or whatever) If this "how to" doesn’t work you will need these files to return your blog to the state it is in now - you should be doing this regularly anyway but I know I only learned how to do it recently and a lot of people don’t so, no judgement or assumed knowledge, here’s how to do it:

note: these instructions are for phpMyAdmin which is what many hosts will give you to work with - if it’s something else then find out what is right for you.

Remember there are 2 things to back up - your files (wp_content/themes etc…) and your Database

1. On your computer, make yourself a folder in which you will store your backups - put it anywhere you like which fits your organization (mine I put mine in the same place I keep all my blog back-ups and named it "blogmovefiles" to isolate it but if you need to put it on your desktop to make it clearer to you then do that)
2. Login to phpmyadmin of your old blog database in whichever way your host gives you (if this scares you or can’t work out how to do it from FAQs provided by your host, seriously consider getting a non-self-hosted blog)
3. You will see tabs across the top of the page (looking like a really poor old fashioned web page lol) but first look at the column on the left and find your database name (it will be in the left panel and won’t look like a button or a link - just text and will have an alphanumeric name which won’t necessarily make any sense to you) - click this and you should see your DB tables come up in the main window with check boxes beside them.
4. Click the "check all" link underneath your tables
5. Click the export tab
6. Click the Structure and Data radio button
7. Click "Save as file"
8. Click "Go"
9. You will see a "browse" window - click it and find where you want to save (just like you would to save any file you are downloading to disk) and click "Save"

When the download is complete - you have backed up your DB! Close the window phpMyAdmin is in.

 

The files are probably more familiar to you - these are the files which sit in the directory to which IE or Firefox point and they tell the browsers how to layout the page and how to communicate with the database you just backed up etc… If you have ever uploaded a theme to use on your blog (without using some plugin to do it) then you have seen your file director.

There are a couple of ways to do this: using an ftp application like filezilla or using whatever file management application your host provides you (my host has quite a good web-based application but I am used to ftp from the command line days so I prefer to use filezilla)

1. Login in to your current blog ftp site either using your ftp application or your hosts web-application
2. If you are using filezilla or similar ftp app: click through the local folder tree to open the file into which you are going to store these files - giving it a file next to your database back up is a good idea.
3. Click your way through the file structure on your site till you find your current blog folders and files (in other words to the directory which is also your blog address) highlight all the folders and files in that directory

If you are using your hosts file management system no doubt there will be an option to copy whichever checked or highlighted files and you will be given "save to disk" option withthe usual "browse" function to choose where to save - but you will have to work that out for yourself -this will start them copying form your site to your computer

4. If you are using filezilla simply drag the highlighted files and folders to the open folder on the left panel and wait for the files to flicker through the queue until it is done

Whichever method you are using, this will take quite some time so grab a cuppa and watch a video or occupy yourself somehow while it happens - but be around in case any errors pop up (which they shouldn’t)

Note that most ftp servers have a time-out limit which will be much shorter than the time it will take to do this. If you are using filezilla the right hand panel in which you could click through to your website (the remote host) will go blank but for a message saying that you are no longer connected to the site when the time-out limit is reached. You will notice, though, that the queue will keep flickering - this is because it will be in "passive mode" which basically means that it will keep going connecting and reconnecting by itself till it is done but you won’t be able to view your files. Don’t do anything, don’t try  to reconnect just wait for it to do its thing.

5. When it says it is done - verify all the files have been uploaded by comparing it to the local files and folders in your backup folder

When the queue is finished - congratulations! You have backed up your files!!

NOW TO YOUR NEW SITE

2) Create a new, blank database on your server - your host should give you a way of doing this and I am not going to give any advice just follow their instructions - with my host it is literally a one click process. IMPORTANT NOTE DOWN THE DATABASE NAME, THE NEW ADMIN USER NAME THEY PROVIDE AND THE PASSWORD These will all be odd alphanumeric things which should be easy to locate or at the least should also be sent to you via email when you create the database. The best way to note this down is to copy and paste into a text file you can easily access, say on your desktop - or make sure you know where your email is - you will need this information at the end.

3) Configure and populate your new database in one go! Essentially all you need to do is import the .sql file which you exported from your old database. Here’s how to do it with phpMyAdmin (you will have to work out anything else yourself):

1. Login to phpMyAdmin on your new database
2. Just as before, click the database name on the top left
3. Click either the Import tab or the SQL tab if there is no Import tab (I assume this is a variance between version of phpMyAdmin)
4. Find the "browse" button and click and navigate to your backup .sql file
5. Click "go"
6. When it’s finished, click the "structure" tab and you will see that your new database now looks like your old one did

4) Update your new database with your new domain info - the following instructions are essentially how to do find and replace function via SQL - don’t panic just follow the instructions carefully

1. Still in phpMyAdmin, click the "SQL" tab
2. You will see a largish blank box with something like "Run SQL query/queries on database <your db name>"  above it
3. Into the blank box copy and paste all of the following: 
   UPDATE wp_options SET option_value = replace(option_value, ‘ http://www.old-name.com’, ‘http://www.new-name.com’) WHERE option_name = ‘home’ OR option_name = ’siteurl’;

4.  Once you have pasted it in, replace http://www.old-name.com with your old web address (include /blog or /wordpress if necessary) - making sure to leave the apostrophes around it and similarly with http://www.new-name.com with your new blog address.

5.  Double check you have got all your spelling exactly right then click "go"

6.  You should get a nice confirmation message - IF you get a long wall of text with the word error scattered through don’t panic, just click the "back" button at the bottom and double check your spelling etc… of the old and new addresses and try again

7.  Once you get your confirmation message, highlight everything you pasted into the blank box and delete it so that it is blank again - you now need to do the same thing another two times with slightly different commands:

8.   Into the blank box copy and paste all of the following: 
UPDATE wp_posts SET guid = replace(guid, ‘http://www.old-name.com’, ‘http://www.new-name.com’) WHERE option_name = ‘home’ OR option_name = ’siteurl’;

9.  Again, replace http://www.old-name.com with your old web address (include /blog or /wordpress if necessary) - making sure to leave the apostrophes around it and similarly with http://www.new-name.com with your new blog address.

10. Double check you have got all your spelling exactly right then click "go"

11. Once you get your confirmation message, highlight everything you pasted into the blank box and delete it so that it is blank again - now for the last one!

12. Into the blank box copy and paste all of the following:  
UPDATE wp_posts SET post_content = replace(post_content, ‘http://www.old-name.com’, ‘http://www.new-name.com’) WHERE option_name = ‘home’ OR option_name = ’siteurl’;

13. Again, replace http://www.old-name.com with your old web address (include /blog or /wordpress if necessary) - making sure to leave the apostrophes around it and similarly with http://www.new-name.com with your new blog address.

14. Double check you have got all your spelling exactly right then click "go"

15. Once you have that final confirmation - well done, you have now changed your blog address in your database!

DO NOT TRY TO TEST YOUR SITE YET

Now, what do with those file backups

1. CREATE AND CONFIGURE YOUR BLOG ON YOUR NEW DOMAIN
2. Essentially this is your wordpress install and it’s really easy
3. Login to your ftp site using your ftp application (like filezilla) or whatever your host provides you with to upload multiple files in such a way that you maintain directory structure (this is why I prefer to use an ftp application - it’s so easy!)
4. In your remote host panel (right frame in filezilla and most other ftp applications) click through to the directory which you just typed in when you replaced http://www.new-name.com in the SQL process (DO NOT CHANGE YOUR MIND NOW lol)
5. In your local host panel (left frame in filezilla and most other ftp applications) find your backed up files and highlight them all, files, folders, the lot
6. Drag the files from your computer (the local host panel) to your site (the remote host panel)
7. Again you will need to find something to do while this uploads- it will probably take a little longer than your back-up took
8. When it says it is done - verify all the files have been uploaded by comparing it to the local files and folders in your backup folder
9. DO NOT TRY TO TEST YOUR SITE YET

NEARLY THERE - A FEW LAST, IMPORTANT THINGS

Easy things first:

1. Still in your ftp application, click your way to your new /wp_content/cache delete this folder then log out from your ftp site (you’ll be coming back but for now it’s safer to log out)
2. Open your web browser and delete your cache and cookies

Less easy thing now but critical.

What you now have is a lovely new database and a lovely new install of wordpress but they are not yet talking to each other.

1. The file that connects them is the wp-config.php file which is one of the files in the directory that is your wordpress address - this file needs to be changed
2. Find the database name, username and password which you noted down when you created your new database (if you didn’t note it down then go to your database administration panel which your host provides on your site control panel/dashboard and find it)
3. Now find the wp-config.php file in the back up you made and highlight and copy it.
4. Right click anywhere on your desktop and choose paste - you now have a copy isolated from your backup copy and safe to play with
5. Now, open this file in notepad (double clicking should do this but if you are prompted to choose a file to open it in then choose notepad) Inside it should look something like this:

<?php
// ** MySQL settings ** //
define(’DB_NAME’, ‘d1234567′);    // The name of the database
define(’DB_USER’, ‘u12345678′);     // Your MySQL username
define(’DB_PASSWORD’, ‘abc1234′); // …and password
define(’DB_HOST’, ‘MYSQLHOST’);    // 99% chance you won’t need to change this value
define(’DB_CHARSET’, ‘utf8′);
define(’DB_COLLATE’, ”);

// Change SECRET_KEY to a unique phrase.  You won’t have to remember it later,
// so make it long and complicated.  You can visit https://www.grc.com/passwords.htm
// to get a phrase generated for you, or just make something up.
define(’SECRET_KEY’, ‘letmein’); // Change this to a unique phrase.

// You can have multiple installations in one database if you give each a unique prefix
$table_prefix  = ‘wp_’;   // Only numbers, letters, and underscores please!

// Change this to localize WordPress.  A corresponding MO file for the
// chosen language must be installed to wp-content/languages.
// For example, install de.mo to wp-content/languages and set WPLANG to ‘de’
// to enable German language support.
define (’WPLANG’, ”);

/* That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */

define(’ABSPATH’, dirname(__FILE__).’/');
require_once(ABSPATH.’wp-settings.php’);
?>

6.   Very carefully without touching or moving anything else, change the following:

In:
define(’DB_NAME’, ‘d1234567′);    // The name of the database

change d1234567 to your new database name

In:
define(’DB_USER’, ‘u12345678′);     // Your MySQL username

change: u12345678 to your new database admin user name

In:
define(’DB_PASSWORD’, ‘abc1234′); // …and password

change: abc1234 to your new database admin password

7.   Save the file

8.   Now log back in to your ftp site using either filezilla or the file management facility provided by your host

9.   In the local host panel navigate to your desktop and find the wp-config.php file.

10.  Drag the file over to the wordpress directory - the file will begin to copy and you should get a confirmation dialogue asking if you want to over write the old wp-config.php file - select over-write and click ok (if you do not get this then you have uploaded it to the wrong place - simply find where you put it, delete it and try again)

11.   Log out of your ftp site

NOW you can go to your new blog address and test that everything works!

You will not have a cookie for logging in to that address so you will have to log in again - if you have forgotten your password simply use the "forgotten password" link and it will be sent to you.

Wow that’s a long post and it’s a long process but not actually hard and I’m pretty sure I’ve covered everything. Again, if you read through this and don’t feel that you can at least follow along then you should probably either leave things as they are or get yourself a blog host who can do everything for you.

GOOD LUCK!!!

Err… wow. I almost hate to admit it, since I always prefer open source if I can get something suited to my technical ability (i.e., I’m not brave enough to go linux), but I am seriously impressed. Windows Live Writer may not have a flash Flash upload media gui but it has something better - it does exactly the same thing simply (and without the flaws). With the same process as you’d use to insert a picture into a word processing file it uploads right into your blog server using the default path and name structure in the settings on your WP dashboard. It is UTTERLY compatible and takes no more configuration than inputting the blog URL.

Writing in this window is definitely much more enjoyable than using the dashboard to write a post. I can insert more media more easily than I can on the dashboard, my categories have been imported into Writer so no need to reenter them as I was concerned I would. 

I can control my layout more (see how this is an indented block quote? All I did was hit tab at the beginning of this sentence!) and use all the usual keyboard shortcuts for editing and formatting and all with the added bonus of my lovely cherry blossom graphic on the wysiwyg page - of course that’s not quite as it would appear on the blog but it feels more customized who doesn’t like that?

If you aren’t quite ready to publish, you can store drafts either to your blog admin and/or locally (which means you can keep blogging your "where is my adsl!!" rants offline when moving or having ISP issues hehe) You can also Open any already published post or page right from WLWriter and edit it then simply click publish to update your changes.

If you need to manage your blog outside of the writing process there is a simple link to the right of the writing window which takes you to your dashboard underneath a "view site" link. A button with a speech bubble icon (which looks as though it may light up when there are comments to manage) which takes you directly to the comment page of your dashboard.

And there is plenty to keep you occupied, click the "Add a plug-in" button at the bottom of the insert list to the right of the editor frame and you have not only hours of potential procrastination but inspiration for the potential of your blog with many plug-ins to enhance your blogging experience. For example after I have finally published this I will be gong back to my Geisha of Gion review and testing a couple of plugins which allow you to link Amazon info to book images.  These plugins installed smoothly and easily just like any other application and required no ftp into my wordpress file on my netfirms server which would be beyond many bloggers. This also means that if you have more than one blog on different platforms, or wish to change platforms you do not need to find plugins to do the same job for each platform and install them and work out how to use them twice!

I’ll be testing this for a while to see if there aren’t glitches afterall but at the moment I’m pretty well sold (can you tell?) If you want to try it yourself you can find the download page or more information by clicking here

Oh and by the way, you can set it to remind you to add categories and tags before you publish hehe

Proud clutterbug that I am I am nevertheless spending today trying to get my digital world in check. I can handle cluttered phsycial spaces because my memory is physical (I know I reached over here when I put that down…) but I’m really having trouble with email at the moment. Which addy to use when signing up to a forum or buying software (thus opening that addy up to spam possibilities) and which to use as personal email or for reciepts via email…? Sigh. While doing this, or probably more truthfully while procrastination from the sheer mind-boggliness of the task, I decided I was tired of dreary old Thunderbird and before I went the whole hog on Incredimail I thought I’d see if Microsoft’s next generation of Outlook Express (a program I always thoroughly abhored) was actually any good. When downloading WLM I was offered the chance to install Windows Live Writer - a desktop blogging tool which is apparently compatible with wordpress.

So this is essentially a test post to see if it posts at all and how it connects tot he wordpress dashboard. Certainly the layout of text and images is good but there seems to be no upload media option as from the WP dashboard (if flawed.) It looks as though if the picture above is to show I will have to use filezilla if I want it hosted on my server. It is possible that I could get myself a Skydrive account, another MS/windowslive project which appears to give everyone 5gig of password protected space. Whether you can use Skydrive to host images I have not yet investigated but I would prefer to host my images on my own site along with my other wordpress files.

Time to press publish and see what we get.