Category: How-to

Umm…How to do something.

Update WordPress to 331

Man it has been some time since I updated the version of the site. You have to do that or expect to get spammed/hacked.

The tricky thing with my site is that I do everything via ssh and I lock down ftp except to one home directory.  Essentially I

  1. download the WordPress zip file to my local machine
  2. unzip
  3. upload to home directory via sftp
  4. export wordpress entries to xml, which gets me all my posts, comments, pages, and categories in case I hose everything
  5. then backup: themes, index.php, uploads, plugins
  6. cp -R the contents of the new ‘wordpress’ directory to the existing one
  7. jump to browser and go to /wp-admin/update.php
  8. message saying wordpress is updated, prompts me to update database
  9. update database
  10. done

I then delete my – themes, plugins, uploads, index.php directories and file since all looks good.

Now I’ll do the same method to update the plugins.

Yes, it’s a pain in the butt to do this all. Right. I could set it  all up so that I can run the auto feature of wordpress, but I don’t want to open it up – so I sacrifice.

CyanogenMod Update to HTC Incredible-HowTo


CyanogenMod has breached 1M users. At this time, that’s 1 out of 200 android users are using CyanogenMod.

So what exactly is CyanogenMod. From the website:

CyanogenMod is an aftermarket firmware for a number of cell phones based on the open-source Android operating system. It offers features not found in the official Android based firmwares of vendors of these cell phones.

Cool, right?

I have a HTC Droid Incredible. An older phone, but I like the form factor. I don’t like the big bricks out there nowadays. I don’t watch Netflix on my phone, so the screen size is just fine for me.

I decided to check out CyanogenMod. This is how I did it*.

  1. *Download Astro File Manager
  2. Once Astro is installed, back up all apps. I had done a factory reset so my apps were minimal. I also did not backup other things like images, texts, etc, which you can also do via Astro.
  3. Rooted my phone using UnRevokd method for my phone. I use OSX so it was VERY easy.
  4. Install ROM Manager
  5. Open ROM Manager and backup current rom

Then I followed instructions from CyanogenMod’s wiki page for my phone as folllows:

 

  1. Launch RomManager.

    2. Optional: Choose the first option in the app, Flash ClockworkMod Recovery to update to the latest version.

  2. Select the Download ROM option from the main menu in the ROM Manager.
  3. Select the CyanogenMod option, and then choose the latest version of CyanogenMod from the menu.

    4. Optional: When you select the latest version of CyanogenMod, check the Google Apps* option.

  4. Once the ROM is finished downloading, it asks if you would like to Backup Existing ROM and Wipe Data and Cache.
  5. If Superuser prompts for root permissions check to Remember and then Allow.
  6. The HTC Incredible will now reboot into the recovery, wipe data and cache, and then install CyanogenMod. When it’s finished installing it will reboot into CyanogenMod.

I could not get the download to come through ROM Manager due to the zip being corrupted.

I finally got the download to go via ROM Manager. It took me several times. Kept giving me timeout error or corrupted zip. I just didn’t let my phone dim or timeout, kept it up while the download took place. Something to consider. Otherwise go ‘Recovery’ route: http://wiki.cyanogenmod.com/wiki/HTC_Incredible:_Full_Update_Guide

At this point my phone rebooted, got the CyanogenMod splash screen but continued into a loop. It never got into the OS. I was posting updates on Google+ so a follower told me to check this: http://wiki.cyanogenmod.com/wiki/Troubleshooting (Thanks to Tony Love)

So I had to proceed with the following instructions found here and outlined as follows (i used ClockworkModRecovery):

  1. Pull the battery from the device.
  2. Boot into the custom recovery image. Refer to this article on more info on that.
  3. Download the latest version of CyanogenMod on the computer.
    Optional: Download the Google Apps for the device.
  4. Mount the device into USB storage mode:
    • ClockworkMod Recovery: select mounts and storage » mount USB storage
  5. Copy the CyanogenMod update.zip to the root of the SD card
  6. Unmount USB storage mode:
    • ‘ClockworkMod Recovery: select Unmount
  7. Wipe userdata:
    • ClockworkMod Recovery: select wipe data/factory reset
  8. Flash CyanogenMod:
    • ClockworkMod Recovery: select install zip from sdcard » choose zip from sdcard and select the CyanogenMod update.zip
  9. Reboot the device and everything should be fine.

 

Of course there was a bad zip. So I had to redownload the file to my computer, rename it ‘update.zip’, transfer it to root of sd card on phone, and then repeat the instructions above. I eventually got it running!!

Confidence will prevail. As long as you have ClockworkModRecovery installed, you should always be able to revert to factory reset. YAY!

    *Disclaimer – take responsibility for your actions. While I outlined what I did, you have to make sure your backup is good and that making this change to CyanogenMod does contain some risk of bricking your phone. No guts, no glory, but don’t blame someone else.

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    Howto Use Tweetdeck Effectively

    I do think that social media can be used by companies and organizations to help them monitor communications. I do want to make it clear that I don’t drink from the social media kool aid and think that if you’re not on social mediums that your company will fail.  Some social media ‘experts’ have such strong convictions that they often tout the millions of dollars corporate America is saving or profiting from their social media initiatives.  Just have an open mind and don’t be sold on it. Learn about it. See how your company can profit from social media and then use it constructively. Don’t do it because some guy shows you tons of links and forces the social media kool aid down your throat.  The March 16th, 2010 Wall Street Journal article: Entrepreneurs Question Value of Social Media, quotes the following

    “…survey of 500 U.S. small-business owners from the same sponsors found that just 22% made a profit last year from promoting their firms on social media, while 53% said they broke even. What’s more, 19% said they actually lost money due to their social-media initiatives.”

    It’s most important to know how to use social media in order to net a profit and not a loss. One tool that can help you is TweetDeck. TweetDeck is a 3rd party application that can run on your desktop pc – Windows, Mac, or Linux, iphone, and iPad. It is an awesome tool that also facilitates updating your Twitter, Facebook, Google Buzz, MySpace, FourSquare and Linkedin all at once, OR you can choose which account to update with a specific post. You can also set it up to monitor your channels like direct messages, mentions of your @handle, and search terms that are crucial to your organization.  This last part, search terms, will allow you to do a search, enter your company’s name, and then any time that term is used, you will be alerted and the tweet will show up in that column of TweetDeck.  That is key to monitoring who is talking about your industry or your organization. It allows you to thank clients that praise and do damage control for those that are disgruntled.  So what does all this mean? Let’s walk through a basic setup, it’s very easy. Continue reading Howto Use Tweetdeck Effectively

    Howto Setup VPS Web Server I

    Continuing from my previous post.

    This is part 1 of the series.

    Giving credit where credit is due, much of the info was found using Linode’s knowledge base.  We are assuming you have set up an account with your VPS, we’ll be using Linode info as a reference since that’s what I’m using. The next step is to deploy your linux distribution.

    1. Choose & Deploy Your Linux Distribution – see figure 6.3.1

    • Pick a distribution from the ‘Distribution’ drop down menu – A – We initially chose Ubuntu 8.04 LTS but later updated to 10.04 LTS
    • Enter ‘Deployment Disk Size’ – B – This is the amount of hard disk space you want to allocate to your virtual server. Looking back, I’d use it all. However, I chose to use half the space ( 8064)for a live server and hoped to use the other half for back up/redundancy.
    • Choose ‘Swap Disk’ – C – I used 256, middle of the road.
    • Enter your root password and confirm it.
    • Hit ‘Deploy’ – D – to make it happen.

    2. Boot

    The next step is to boot your machine. Ah, the excitement, right?  You will see a que that refreshes every few seconds informing you the status progress of the boot up process. Figure 6.3.2 is a screen shot of the area this would be depicted.

    VPS Status Que
    fig. 6.3.2

    The above screen shot, fig. 6.3.2, shows success after your VPS has successfully booted. Rock on!

    This is a short article. You now have Linux running on your VPS. The next step will be to login via SSH, secure SSH, fetch and apply updates to the operating system, and set the host name.

    How to Set Up Your Own Website Using VPS-Initial

    As I mentioned in a previous article, I recently ditched shared web hosting and secured a virtual private server (VPS) account. I shopped around, as I encourage you to do, and chose Linode. The reason? They were reasonably cost, my co-worker recommended them and has been impressed with their service, and they have a very good knowledge base. I have yet to use their support, but I have heard their support is good as well. With setting up a VPS, support may be key. Whether it’s good documentation, a great user base, or tech support, being on your own can be a little scary, so make sure you get some feedback from trusted resources.

    Logistics

    Setting up an account with Linode was easy. I didn’t have huge needs so I went with their base package. At the time of this writing it consisted of paying $19.99 with a 10% discount per month for signing up for a year. My package has the following specs:

    • 360 MB RAM
    • 16 GB Storage
    • 200 GB transfer

    I am going to set up sites for blogging and a low volume forum. So I’m not doing anything overly intensive. I can always upgrade if that’s the case.  Right now I have used 1GB of the 200.

    After setting up my account with Linode, I had to choose a datacenter where my VPS would be located. I chose Dallas. Literally, New Jersey and Dallas locations were within a hundred miles difference to me, and Dallas is in the same time zone. I went with Dallas. You have to make sure there is one available in your location preference.  Apparently some locations may fill up and hosting in that datacenter may not be an option.

    After giving them your credit card info and choosing a location for your servers home base, it’s time to consider your future set up. I got a site up and running only to start over again. Not a big deal unless you have a site that you’ve been updating for a couple weeks.  What I’m saying is, if you’re not overly invested in time, you can always nuke the server and start over no problem.

    In this series of articles it’s important to know my specific situation because I am merely relaying my experiences to you; therefore, your situation and setup may be different and I can’t guarantee that all this will be as easy as it was for me. Continue reading How to Set Up Your Own Website Using VPS-Initial