Notice to Swank Web Hosting Customers

March 27, 2008 | Filed under: News

*UPDATE* - The server has been upgraded and optimized this weekend for better performance. It’s currently being monitored very closer should any other issues pop up. Also, we have verified that the WordPress comment notification problem has been fixed and notifications are now being received.

We want to let you know that the server transfer is complete. We apologize for any issues you have been experiencing in the past few days. We are working on stabilizing the server right now. It was better today than yesterday and it should only improve from now on. This transfer has been bumpier than we anticipated and we truly apologize for this. We are working 24/7 to get things back to normal.

As for other issues that have been reported, we have fixed most everything. The only open issue right now is people not receiving comment notifications from WordPress blogs. We are working to fix this.

Due to the transfer some permissions have changed. This can cause issues with uploading, editing themes or certain plugins (like the Image Headlines plugin). This is a very easy fix. You just need to change the permissions on your uploads folder (and any sub folders) and image-headlines folder to 777. To edit theme files, change the permissions to 666. If you don’t know how to do this , please contact us at hosting@swankwebhosting.com or submit a helpdesk ticket. We will fix this for you ASAP.

If you have lost any posts or comments we are sorry about this. The transfer wound up taking longer than anticipated due to holiday weekend. However, these are easily retrievable by subscribing to your feeds (yourdomain.com/feed and yourdomain.com/comments/feed). We’re sorry for the inconvenience, it’s not something that will happen again. Since the transfer has been complete since yesterday, there should be no more issues as far as posting entries/comments.

Please contact us at hosting@swankwebhosting.com or submit a helpdesk ticket if you notice any other problems with your site.

Web 101: Full vs Partial Feeds

March 24, 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web, Web 101

Over at the Blog Herald, there’s a great article on why people shouldn’t be using partial feeds. The author makes a lot of good points, essentially boiling it down to the fact that there are no benefits to using a partial feed. It doesn’t deter sploggers from stealing your content and it doesn’t bring extra traffic to your site; you are basically just frustrating your regular readers and alienating new ones. Read the full article for more.

What I find funny is his rationalizing of why it’s okay for some blogs (*ahem* the one he’s writing on) to use partial feeds. The only instance in which I think it’s okay to offer a partial feed is if you offer a full feed as well. I have seen several blogs that offered a full feed with ads and a partial feed without ads. I have no problem with that, it even kind of makes sense. Although, I can’t imagine there are an overwhelming number of people that hate ads so much they would put up with the frustration of a partial feed. But different strokes, right?

You should respect your readers enough to let them choose how they want to view your site. Offering just a partial feed takes that choice away and more often than not, they won’t bother reading at all.

WordPress 2.5 RC1 available

March 18, 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web

Matt has just made an announcement on the Dev blog that the WP 2.5 Release Candidate 1 is available for download and testing. He also goes into some specifics about the new version and what we have to look forward to when 2.5 is finally released:

“A customizable dashboard, multi-file upload, built-in galleries, one-click plugin upgrades, tag management, built-in Gravatars, full text feeds, and faster load times sound interesting to you? Then WordPress 2.5 might be the release for you. It’s been in the oven for a while, and we’re finally ready to open the doors a bit to give you a taste.”

“For the past few months, we’ve been working with our friends at Happy Cog — Jeffrey Zeldman, Jason Santa Maria, and Liz Danzico — to redesign WordPress from the ground-up. The result is a new way of interacting with WordPress that will remain familiar to seasoned users while improving the experience for everyone. This isn’t just a fresh coat of paint — we’ve re-thought the look of WordPress, as well as how it’s organized so that you can forget about the software and focus on your own creative pursuits.”

Read more at the Dev Blog.

He says that the new version is “basically done and stable, and could be released today” but that he’d rather wait and get some more feedback before the final version is released to the public (date TBD). I’ve read lots of people grumbling about the missed deadline (it was supposed to be released on March 13th), but personally, I would much rather wait a while longer and have a more stable release. I’m as impatient as the next person, but I don’t think rushing to meet a fairly arbitrary deadline helps anyone, so I’m glad the WP people are taking their time and releasing this when it’s actually ready.

In the meantime, though, if you are comfortable with upgrading WP or you just want to test the new version out and send in some feedback download the beta version here.

Try out WordPress 2.5 before it’s released

February 13, 2008 | Filed under: Around the Web

The next major release of WordPress is scheduled to come out next month, but you don’t have to wait that long to see it in action. Chris Johnston has put up a demo of the most current development version for people to play around with. Being that there is more than a month left, this is obviously a beta version and there will be changes and improvements made, but it looks like things are really starting to come together.

The most interesting aspect of the new version is the complete admin interface and design refresh. WP 2.5 is going to be a very different looking WordPress. I’m not completely won over by the color scheme (orange!?!), but I’m excited about the change and I think they can pull if off with (much) more polishing.

Besides the admin redesign, there seems to be improvements such as tag management, more intuitive media uploading/management and a reworked dashboard.

Go on over to the demo and try things out yourself. Chris says he will try to keep it up to date when new development versions are released, so it will interesting to watch as new features are added or polished as we get closer to the release date.