Not Geeky!

If you want to customize your Recent Post listing, one of the most popular Plug ins, is the c2c_get_recent_posts php function. However, of all the plug-ins that I’ve tried so far this is definitely not easiest one to use, that is if you use it with WordPress 2.7. (To be a bit more specific: I want to be able to show the 5 most recent posts (not pages) , with a date (format mmm-yy) and some text of the post)

I first started making the stupid mistake of forgetting to use some kind of plug-in to execute code in text widgets. So, when I had figured this out I installed Exec-PHP which made big improvement. (Why is this not a standard WordPress feature?)

However, the next problem was it was showing Pages as Posts so to speak.  Documentation says there should be an option to filter out the pages. However, this doesn’t seem to work with 2.7. So I tried to filter by specifying the Category. Then I found that you needed the category ID, which isn’t showing on any of the admin pages. However editing the Category of your choice gives it away: the url shows the Category ID and if that’s not good enough there always is another plug-in. Unfortunately this functionality is also broken with WordPress 2.7.

Last but not least I wanted to display the beginning of a post, say the first 5 to 10 words of the text. According to the documentation you’re supposed to use the excerpt function. Unfortunately it’s showing here the same text (of the first posting) with each post.

What does seem to work though is filtering by user. Once you’ve figured out which user has which ID you have at least some kind of filtering. I do hope a fix will be released soon. Scott, are you there? Please? Pretty, pretty please?

Hopefully I can give you an update soon…

[Update]
Shame on me!
Today I looked into the problem again. All of a sudden I discovered that I was using version 1.1. My admin panel told me there was a 1.5 available. I downloaded it. However things only got worse. I couldn’t see any postings anymore. Then I discovered that Scott had already released a version 3.0. But this version is NOT shown if you make use of the standard Plugin browser, you have to go to Scotts homepage!!

SO MAKE SURE YOU INSTALL VERSION 3.0! (if you’re using WP 2.7)

[Update 2]
Now, just one more thing: Date format in another language (Dutch). I’ve heard of the setlocale function but I can’t get it to work….

Yes this works really well, thanks Barry!

Also have a look here. For complete Dutchification…

Cheers,

Edwin

“Why do my permalinks not work?” I asked myself in one of my first postings, actually just after I had figured out what they were.  Somehow the problem got solved and I forgot all about it. The other day I got bussy on another website, set the permalink settings, and the very same problem occurred. Vloek!

As it appears, it’s all about the htaccess file.

It really needs the line:
RewriteEngine On

I copied the htAccess file from a proper working installation (root directory of your installation), and yes, a bit later it was working!

Proper functioning htaccess file!

Cheers

Edwin

It’s been a month now that I started this Blog. If there is one thing I particularly noticed it’s the fact that the tag “Start blogging with WordPress” is a popular one: it receives lots of hits. (And I might have disappointed people here) Most popular is however “You do not have permission to preview drafts“. A special reward goes to the Wordpress Statistics Post for attracting more lunies than anything else. Lot’s of comments, mostly spam. And I don’t know why.

The unanswered questions, taken from my previous post.

Q: So you have Tags and Categories. Am I going to make my Nokia N810 a Category or a Tag?

Quote from Mat, Co founder of WordPress: As best as I can explain it, categories are things you create ahead of time and only have a few of. Imagine them like sections of your site. The signs on aisles of grocery stores. Tags are one-off keywords attached to a post. You may add a tag to a post that you’ll never use ever again. Categories are meant to be permanent, tags are ephemeral.

I also found that tags are the words you would type in Google to find a particular article.

Q: What was the password of the mySQL database again?

I found what it was and I’m not going to tell you.

Q: How do I transfer the ownership of an article from one person to another?

At the, almost, the bottom of the edit post screen you can set the person who edits it.

Q: How about Britney Spears?

Apparently she made a comeback, but I’m not going to post about that!

Q: Will the PW videos be removed because of the copyrights?

This didn’t happen sofar, which is great. However the SNL Video did disappear.

[Update]However it remains to be seen how long this will last. Read this:YouTube is blocking all (premium) music videos to UK users after failing to reach a new licensing agreement with the Performing Right Society (PRS).

to be continued…

Cheers,

Edwin

Great, getting some feedback in the form of comments all of a sudden. However a closer look tells me that there are a few lunies around. Now all of a sudden I see the use of the Wordpress Plugin Akismet.

One of the funny ones:

“Nice information dear! My friend’s mother is dietician at Delhi Hospital said that 1 teaspoon of fenugreek seeds soaked in curds and consumed in the morning in empty stomach prevents diabeties and also helps diabetic patients to recover.”

(In case you are interested: vilo_alx@yahoo.com, http://www.bcool2gether.com/cooking.php)

Another one:

“Let’s set the record straight.Hollywood celebrities (like Sylvester Stallone) don’t rely purely on drug aids to get that ripped chiseled body that leaves the tongue hanging as your eyes are glued on the screen.They use “metabolic enhancers” like METABOLIC TRANSFORMER 3066 [see http://bestweightloss.info ], which are workout programs that dramatically enhance the metabolic rate of your body to efficiently burn off calories while keeping muscles growing.That’s the type of exercising routines celebrities use to get ripped fast.It’s not unrealistic at all to bring weight down abnormally fast with such exercising programs.Well what works spectacularly well with these workout programs is that they shrink fat cells which directly affect our eating patterns like the “honest greed” to satisfy that gurgling little beast in us.Do you think Brad Pitt par example busts his guts off the gym?He’s a slacker.He uses modest intensity and fitness programs like the prementioned to transform his body into a fat burning machine.He still bites and drinks but moderately.Don’t be fooled, you can get that hot looking ripped to the bone body fast just by following such “celebrity exercises”.A little action would do the trick:)Now is exercising that boosts the metabolic rate “the secret to lose weight”?Recent case studies conducted on several obese people come up with a resounding YES.”

(In case you are interested: skyhigh@europemail.com, http://weighloss.net)

If that already made you laugh this will for sure too:

Cheers,

Edwin

Vloek! Before publishing I just wanted to see what it looked like and there I pressed the Preview button. Error message: You do not have permission to preview drafts. (I am using WP 2.7.1 and MySQL 5)

The last change I had made to the system was changing the blog url path, because I wanted the website to say www.notgeeky.com and not notgeeky.com.

Blog Address

The preview mode still prefers the old address though. So by taking away the www. (on the url with the error message) you can still see your preview.

Update:
It looks like it might be something else. Just a couple of minutes I tried to reproduce the problem in Internet Explorer (I normally use FireFox), and everything worked just fine!

So perhaps it’s a browser related issue…

[Update]
Note: sometimes it gives a different error message:
Sorry, but you are looking for something that isn’t here. You can search again by using this form…
But the cure (that is temp fix) is still the same.

Edwin