examine the lens

I recently migrated from Wp-hive (V 0.5) on WordPress (V 2.9.2) to WordPress 3.5 running on a self-hosted WordPress network.

While researching the migration away from Wp-hive, I searched the web extensively and couldn’t find anyone who had documented the process. This is a rough walk through, but it got me there. I’ve omitted any instructions that are well documented in WordPress.

There were 4 blogs on my former wp-hive sub-domain installation. Wp-hive was the best tool available at the time. When WordPress integrated network hosting in version 3.0, Wp-hive quickly became a legacy solution. I knew I needed to migrate and put it off until it was necessary. It wasn’t until my hosting company informed me that my blog software was compromised, that I decided to do the work to migrate. It wasn’t as difficult or as bad as I anticipated. I didn’t have many users and only one blog had very many photos.

The basic steps were:

• Backup Files
• Delete all spam, Disable any unnecessary plugins. Backup all files from the former installation, export database files. (using wordpress database backup plugin. I had to add the plugin). — note: before and after each step, I backed up database tables in case I needed to revert
• Create a sandbox environment on another hosting account. I manage my hosting using Cpanel and WHM. (In order to test the subdomain installation, I needed a URL/domain for testing the blog network.)
• Enable wildcard subdomains on the sandbox domain – I needed my hosting company’s help for this.
• Create a new database and user on the sandbox domain.
• Install current version of Wp on the sandbox domain (at the time it was 3.4)
• Enable the network on the sandbox installation of WP.
• Create as many blogs as you need on the sandbox.
• Split the images from the multiple tables in the WP-hive installation into folders matching the new folder structure.
  • Wp-hive:
    • /wp-content/uploads/#year/#month/ (blog uploads from multiple blogs are combined into these folders by month. The files need to be manually separated into the following folders:
  • Network:
    • Format for first blog in subdomain installation: /wpcontent/uploads/#year/#month/
    • Format for multiple blogs in subdomain installation: /wp-content/blogs.dir/#/files/#year/#month/
    • the first “#” is the blog number. To find the blog #, under the network admin menu, go to My Sites>Network Admin>Sites, mouse over the blog name to get the id #. #year is the four digit year number, #month is the two digit year number.
• Import the blogs (using wordpress importer plugin.)
• Using a plugin (using search and replace plugin), search and correct domain names and paths in the new file.
• Upload themes and test
• Test, test, test
• Once I was convinced that everything worked, I exported tables from my sandbox environment and copied the image files related to those blogs – in their new folder structure / using wordpress database backup plugin.
• Remove the subdomains on the original domain, so the wildcard subdomains will work.
• Setup subdomains on original domain – my hosting company helped here.
• Created new database on original domain
• Rename folder on previous WordPress installation on original domain
• Install WordPress on original domain
• Enable WordPress network on original domain
• Import the blogs from the sandbox export, upload the photos (using wordpress importer plugin.)
• Using search and replace plugin, search and correct domain names and paths in the new file.
• Added domain mapping to map to a couple of the blogs on the new installations.
• Add functionality like Twitter, Facebook, rebuild widgets

I now have 6 blogs running on the new network.

Please add your comments. Let me know if you find this helpful.

If you post your comments below, I’ll update this document to answer them. — (if there’s interest, I’ll do another post later about leveraging dropbox & Google Drive to keep documents handy in the cloud.)

Our family syncs iphones, android phones and computers (mac & pc) via google – it syncs them all and keeps them up to date. We also sync – multiple calendars, email, contacts. & have an exchange system running on the phone/desktop as well.

My comments all fall under the heading of “in my experience”, so I don’t guarantee any results, but they work for me.

It can be a bit tricky to get the accounts setup correctly on multiple devices, but my experience is that once it’s running, it keeps running.

FIRST: Set up your accounts on Google (or iCloud — We don’t use Icloud to sync these, because (1) Google was working first and (2) iMessaging threw us a bit of a curve ball with multiple apple IDs). Update, since I wrote this, I’ve heard from at least one user who said that iCloud manages his syncing very well.

NEXT: If you have a current set of data on a desktop/laptop or phone, set up that device to sync first. Check the online account to see if data populates. You can add people or calendar events for testing.

THEN: setup your send device – desktop / laptop, phone. When it is set correctly the apps (address book, mail, calendar should populate.)

Instructions for mobile and computer are below:

IPHONE:

On your iphone, under settings >> Mail, Contacts, Calendars
click “Add Account”

If your primary accounts are Google, you can use the mail and contacts app from Google

Rather than retype everything: Here is the Google support article detailing the process.

Calendar details linked here.

Android phone:
setups reside under “Accounts and sync” // drop box sync is setup here as well on Android.

MAC Computer:

Under Settings, choose Mail, Contacts & Calendars
click add account

Getting the link for the Calendar feed can be tricky, comment below where you’re stuck and I’ll update it.

PC Computer
Settings are determined by which client you use.

THE SYNC
There is good documentation regarding syncing using Google here.

A note about iOS email and migration from a desktop system. Your old email is archived on your old desktop apps, but you can only have up to the last 1,000 email messages on the phone, so you should have a desktop system somewhere to catch those.

Add your specific questions below or hit me on Facebook — and I’ll answer them or update this document.

Hard to tell if he was trying to make a point or just make us laugh, but I got both out of it.

I’ll be thinking about this one today.

I just finished a solo bike ride through the hills near our home in the country south of Nashville and west of Franklin, Tennessee. We live in an incredibly beautiful place!

My ride only lasted forty minutes, but this time of year, it gets dark so quickly that it felt like I left in the middle of the afternoon and returned after dusk.

The leaves were red, orange, brown, a little green and a lot of yellow. I was serenaded by a chorus of crickets and enjoyed the sounds of river rapids along a short stretch of the West Harpeth River. The animals were out today, I passed redbirds, chipmunks, squirrels, dogs, sheep, a donkey (not me), cows and horsesl. I saw no deer or wild turkeys. I waved at several walkers and runners–we commented on the hills as we passed each other. I also passed a recording studio owner who was out for a horseback ride (welcome to Music City.)  I tossed out silent prayers on behalf of several friends and neighbors who I’ve been thinking about quite a bit lately as I rode past their homes.

One of my favorite parts of my route is near the end of the trek, when I ride past a natural labyrinth landscaped into the backyard of a prayerful neighbor. We’ve talked to her once or twice over the fence, but I always enjoy passing her little sanctuary. I can’t help but think that the world is just a little more peaceful because of the quiet prayers prayed in her backyard chapel. I’d like to have a space like that one day.

It was a beautiful day for some outdoor exercise. Maybe I’ll take my camera out tomorrow.

I just watched this video I saw posted on Boing Boing. John Nese owns an incredible soda pop shop and he loves his work! Check it out!

The direct link to the You Tube video is here: http://www.youtube.com/v/gPbh6Ru7VVM

The store url is http://www.sodapopstop.com

Today as I was cleaning up the kitchen, my son wanted to use my laptop for a game on the internet. He’s 9 1/2 and he’s pretty computer literate. He asked my permission and since I had a work-related document open in a word processor, I asked him to minimize it.
Then I followed up with, “do you know what minimize means?”
He said, “of course.” He said something like, “didn’t you know what minimize meant when you were my age?”
And I said, “not like you do–I don’t know how old I was when I learned what minimize meant.”
He asked if I was in school. (I graduated from high school in 1980). I told him that the word has been around a long time as a non-computer word, but he and I talked about it’s origin as a tech-related word. “Computers didn’t always do a bunch of things at one time. You had to only do one thing at a time.” In hindsight I guess I could’ve told him it was more like my cell phone worked, but without all the icons.
(I didn’t make him listen to this reflection, but I’ll let you skim it: I think there may have been one high school in town that had a computer or two, but it wasn’t mine and computing was really primitive compared to what we do today. We had punch cards in college and I typed one long paper on an apple II in the spring of 1985. Not long after that I did some desktop publishing on an early mac, but you had to switch those floppy disks, between the application disc and the data disc, until later when you got dual drives and subsequently a hard drive. At work in the late 80′s to very early 90′s we had an IBM mainframe and later dos PCs. It would’ve been between 90 & 93 when windows first appeared on my desk and I owned my first mac sometime around then. Real multitasking on a computer began happening in my world sometime in the 90s.)

My habits evolved as the tools did.

On the other hand, my son has never had access to a computer that didn’t multitask. Sure he can focus on one thing at a time, but he always has the choice. He has so many more options than I did.

I wonder how all of this will make him (and his generation) different than I am and ultimately how the world will be different? Surely they think differently. I don’t have any earth-shattering thoughts or judgements to pass along. I could speculate, but I’ll save that for another day. Mostly it was just an interesting conversation that got me thinking about him and me and our world.

I am now using Google Reader to keep up with content on the web. I found that I was working to visit a few/several sites on  a regular basis and having some difficulty keeping up with what I’ve read.

The service is free. You just sign up at: http://www.google.com/reader – If you have a google account, you can sign in under your existing username/password.

To begin adding content, anywhere you see the RSS (really simple syndication) icon click on it and the feed url (webpage address) will be listed in your browser address field. Highlight the address and paste it into the “add subscription” field on google reader and you are done. Visit google reader as often as you like, whenever it’s convenient for you. New information will be there along with links to the original blogs.

Also, I’ve removed the rss feed from my blog to Facebook. First, I found that it fails sometimes. More importantly, If I’m going to spend time generating content for reflection or conversation, I’d like to be able to maintain the conversation. Hosting it on the blog will make it more permanent and gives me the ability to censor comments or save. Thanks for jumping in here.

The earliest conversation I remember about art and commerce was with my neighbor, Mr. Jerry. For as long as I have been alive he has been both a fisherman and a retailer. He is the father of three daughters who were my playmates growing up, so he and I saw each other often.

“Fishing lures are designed to catch fisherman, not just fish.”

my grandpa's gear

That’s what Mr. Jerry told me one day. I do not remember how old I was at the time of this specific conversation, but I was old enough to fish and young enough to be a little puzzled by his comment. I cannot remember the context of our talk that day, but our houses backed up to a bayou in northwest Louisiana and just about every day was an opportunity for at least a little talk about fishing. I remember reflecting on that thought for several days, the feeling of that thought sinking in and how its truth eventually resonated in my mind. I remember how it eventually made sense back then and it has stayed with me. At the time I didn’t begin to understand the full impact of his comment, but it still rings true for me today.

On one hand, if a lure doesn’t catch the shopping fisherman and find its way off of the shelf, into a shopping cart and out the door of a retail establishment, it doesn’t stand a chance of catching a fish. On the other hand if the lure is picked up and purchased, does it really have to catch a fish to be effective, or has it already done its job? The lure manufacturer certainly would lose repeat business if it did not eventually catch fish. So if you want to create popular lures, sooner or later one of them has to catch fish. If you really want to be successful in the lure industry, offer something that maintains some balance by appealing to both fisherman and fish.

Whenever I play the role of consumer I try to remember that comment. If I find myself on the artificial bait aisle of a store (and that does happen on occasion), I try to remain fish-focused as I shop. In a bigger context, I try to remain fish-focused when I am making any kind of purchase. Caveat emptor reminds me that it is really my responsibility to shop with a fish-focus mentality. I have to separate what looks like it is fishing for me from what might actually serve the purpose it claims to serve.

The artists, craftswomen and craftsmen among us would say that a good lure has to be designed primarily, maybe even exclusively, to catch fish. The focus of the merchant would be almost exclusively on catching the fisherman.

These days, my wife (singing is her artform) and I spend our days at the point of intersection of art (fish) and commerce (fisherman). For the last eleven years we’ve made our income creating and being paid to produce art/media — music and books (both performance art and recorded media). There has to be focus on the craft or the art and some days we get to focus on the art and forget about commerce for a while — (I’ll call that fish focus.) On some romantic level it would be wonderful to be focused solely on the art, but the artist without some sort of commerce is at best a talented hobbyist and art can be expensive to create.  If you live where we live, sooner or later you have to make friends or at least make peace with commerce. If you want to call yourself a working artist you have to reconcile this tension, because art and commerce have very little in common. Ultimately, you have to provide for both.

Further, it is my observation that in an environment of scarcity (whether that’s an economy, industry or organizational) the temptation is to pursue the quick fix with an effort to please the fisherman, even at the expense of the fish. I have worked in a couple of organizations where there was an environment of scarcity due to transition in the organization. Short term survival dictates a fisherman focus, but you cannot ignore the fish and thrive in the long run. You might look great for a while, but sooner or later you will be surpassed by someone who caters to the fish. The adage that the cream rises to the top would suggest that the person or organization who is good at feeding the fish will ultimately prevail.

I want to encourage you and me to continue creating the thing you create and to pay attention to the fisherman. But in these days when we have so many ways to spend time getting the word out, focus on the fish!

Here’s a few questions for reflection: What is your work or vocation?  Where is scarcity in your mix? Who is your audience? Who is the fisherman for you? Who is the fish for you? Are you doing an adequate job trying to catch the fisherman? How can you leverage your life or your organization to be more fish-focused? How could you better maintain the balance in your life and work between fish and fisherman?

P.S. My second son has inherited the fishing gene. He often asks me if we can go fishing today. I think he’d prefer doing that to most anything he could choose to do on any given day. He looks slowly through his great-grandfather’s tackle box and finds a quintessential lure and proclaims, “this one will catch a big one!” I’m looking forward to watching he and his brother grow into their vocations.

I like to think that I’m pretty good at keeping up with what’s going on. I spend time reading about trends and technology. I pay attention to the new vocabulary including the names of new efforts and enterprises aimed at changing the way we communicate and work. The marketing folks would call me an early adopter and in some ways I am, but I’d add that I’m just paying attention

It seems to me that the rate of change is accelerating. Technology including media formats don’t hold their place as long as they used to. (I’ve got some boxes of audio cassettes you can buy if you don’t believe me.) So if you want to leverage the tools at your disposal, you have to be pretty quick at learning about todays tools and being able to figure out how to apply them, because many of them will be change tomorrow.

I watch my sons use You Tube walk-through videos to learn to conquer the challenges in their video games. A few days ago I wrote about my seven year old son using You Tube to find a recipe. I wouldn’t have thought of that, though I’ve used You Tube to fix appliances at my house. You might be surprised to find out who in your surroundings can teach you. If we want to leverage our abilities, both individual and our cooperative, we’re going to have to be on our toes.

I stumbled on this music video on the web. This creation is worth a watch. It is a video promoting the EP of a band and somebody knows how to get these folks to work together (or at least how to get these folks to appear to work together).

I’d like to cooperate this well when I grow up.

This amazing video for the Japanese band Sour’s single “Hibi no Neiro” was cut entirely from Webcam footage shot by (and of) their fans.

If it doesn’t open click here.