Tag Archives: upgrade

Most intrusive PC upgrades

Posted on August 15, 2007 by Kelson

Just some thoughts on the top 3 most intrusive pieces of computer hardware to upgrade or replace:

  1. Case: You have to take everything out, completely disassembling the machine.
  2. Motherboard: Disconnect every data cable, pull out every card, and sometimes even move the spacers that connect it to the case.
  3. Power Supply: Disconnect power from every drive and from the motherboard, and possibly move stuff out of the way so you can get at the power supply.

Then, of course, you need to do the whole thing in reverse.

One reason I haven’t upgraded my processor lately (a simple procedure by itself) is that whenever I do, it seems to need a new socket, which means getting a new motherboard. Which also needs new memory…

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Upgrading again: WordPress 2.2

Posted on May 16, 2007 by Kelson

Well, WordPress just released version 2.2 with a bunch of new stuff. I’ve upgraded the blog, and things seem to work so far — even on PHP5! They also included my workaround for the RPC bug in PHP 5.2.2.

I also upgraded the comments preview plugin, which now uses the actual post+comment page to show you the preview instead of showing a page that’s almost the same, but sorted in reverse.

At some point I need to test current versions of WP-Cache again, and see if WordPress’ internal cache works with PHP5 yet. And maybe it’s time to try a new theme. I’ve been tweaking this one pretty much since WP 2.0 came out.

Posted in Site Updates | Tagged , | 6 Comments

When tags vanish

Posted on April 7, 2007 by Kelson

Since upgrading to WordPress 2.1.3 a few days ago, I’ve noticed tags disappearing on some of my posts. I currently use Bunny’s Technorati Tags, which stores them in custom fields.

It turns out there’s been a known problem since WordPress 2.1 was released two months ago. Some plugin hooks have changed, and plugins that used to only get called during post editing are also getting called during comment publishing. I grabbed an updated version of the plugin, and it seems okay now.

Oddly, most (but not all) tags survived unscathed during the two months running earlier 2.1 releases. It’s only since moving to 2.1.3 that it’s been consistent. Oh, well, at least it prompted me to find the fix.

Posted in Site Updates | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

WordPress 2.1.1 Security Alert

Posted on March 2, 2007 by Kelson

Sometime in the last 3-4 days, someone managed to alter the download for WordPress 2.1.1, adding a remotely exploitable security hole. The WordPress team has declared the release “dangerous” and has issued an update, WordPress 2.1.2, taken from the clean source plus a few fixes. If you run WordPress 2.1.1, upgrade ASAP!

Things worth noting:

  • The SVN source that the developers use was not altered.
  • Older versions, such as 2.0, don’t seem to have been affected.
  • If you downloaded 2.1.1 when it was first released, it’s probably okay.
  • 2.1.2 also includes a fix for a cross-site scripting vulnerability discovered a few days ago, so it’s worth updating anyway.

I still had the tar archive of 2.1.1 from when I grabbed it the day of the release, so I compared its contents to the 2.1.2 archive. The two files mentioned in the announcement, feed.php and theme.php, aren’t any different, confirming that the initial release was unaffected. That’s also where I saw the changes for that XSS bug.

*sigh* It’s always something…

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WordPress Broken on PHP 5.2 Again

Posted on February 21, 2007 by Kelson

Upgraded to WordPress 2.1.1. Supposedly should’ve fixed the PHP 5.2 problems. In reality, they’re worse unchanged. Bug 3354 is marked fixed, but it seems to have only been fixed on the 2.0 series. Continue reading →

Posted in Annoyances, Site Updates | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

WordPress 2.0.7 security & feed fix

Posted on January 15, 2007 by Kelson

Just upgraded to WordPress 2.0.7. It fixes a security issue with certain versions of PHP, and it also includes the fix for the feed problem in 2.0.6 and a couple other minor fixes.

According to the announcement, WP 2.1 should be out by the end of the month. Looks like it’s almost time to see how many of my customizations will work with the new version.

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Pumpkin Patch Day

Posted on October 10, 2006 by Kelson

[Windows]Well, it’s the second Tuesday of the month. With Microsoft’s regular update cycle, that makes it Patch Tuesday.

It’s also October, the month leading up to Halloween.

I hereby declare today to be Pumpkin Patch Tuesday.

Gourdzilla

Update: Mozilla’s Josh Aas has carved the perfect pumpkin to go with this declaration.

Posted in Computers/Internet, Humor | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Incremental Updates and the Problem of N+2

Posted on June 2, 2006 by Kelson

There are two main ways to handle software updates: provide an updated installer, or provide a smaller updater that only includes the changes. (Either method can be automated.) Incremental updates have advantages, especially if you’re dealing with something as massive as, say, World of Warcraft, or Microsoft Office. But they do make things more complicated for the publisher.

One problem is the upgrade path. It’s one thing to provide an updater that goes from version N to version N+1. But what if someone doesn’t run the updater until N+2 is available? Or worse, N+3? Continue reading →

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PHP Upgrade

Posted on January 16, 2006 by Kelson

I’ve upgraded the server to PHP 5. As with last week’s MySQL upgrade, if anything seems broken, please comment about it here. If you can’t comment, email me at webmaster at this domain name.

Update: It looks like something in my setup disagrees with the combination of PHP 5 and WP-Cache 2. Pages were turning up blank the first time they were loaded, then perfectly OK the second time. Oddly, it was working fine under PHP 4.4, MySQL 5, and WordPress 2.

Posted in Site Updates | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

MySQL Upgrade and Caching

Posted on January 10, 2006 by Kelson

Finally upgraded this server to the latest MySQL 5.0 from the ancient, ancient MySQL 3.23 that RHEL3 still uses. Also turned on WP-Cache 2 since Bad Behavior is supposed to work with it now. (Though I’m a bit concerned about the Encrypted Payload feature in Spam Karma.)

If anything seems broken, comment about it here. If you can’t comment, email me at webmaster at this domain name.

Posted in Site Updates | Tagged , , | 1 Comment