I’ve been testing out a new theme over the past week, converting all of my widgets as necessary to support the changes in the theme formats, and finally built up the courage to enable the new theme on the live website.  So, you’re looking at it.  It’s called “Illacrimo” and the link to download it can be found at the bottom of the site.

While I was working on the conversion, I noticed a couple of small bugs in my Twitter Visual Stats plugin, so I made those minor changes and the new version of the plugin is linked to the downloads page.  If you have previously downloaded the component, please grab a new copy for your blog.  If you haven’t tried it yet, take a look in my sidebar to see how it might look on your site.  As always, let me know if you run into any other bugs, or would like to suggest some improvements to the widget. Also, I could use someone’s assistance in publishing the download to the Wordpress site. I have the SVN account created, but have no clue how to upload my content off of my Windows workstation.

Are you testing a new Wordpress theme or plugin that you don’t want to release to the world until you’re completely ready?  Test your Wordpress blog offline by setting up a simple test site using actual content from your live blog site using the import and export features of Wordpress.

Setup

If you aren’t familiar with the process of setting up your own offline webserver with PHP and mySQL, you can check out some free resources on XAMPP, which according to the website:

“XAMPP is an easy to install Apache distribution containing MySQL, PHP and Perl. XAMPP is really very easy to install and to use – just download, extract and start.”

Find the XAMPP software at: http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html

Export Your Live Blog Posts

Your Wordpress blog (version 2.x) has a built-in feature that allows you to export your entire list of posts into an XML format that can then be read into another blog, which you will already have running offline.

On your live blog site:

• Open the Tools menu
• Click on “Export”
• Click the “Download Export File” button and save the XML file

Import Your Exported Blog Posts

Now, log into your offline site and import the file:

• Open the Tools menu
• Click on “Import”

You will see a list of options like the following (click to view full size):

To work with the above exported file, choose “Wordpress” from the list and continue below:

• Browse for the location of your exported file from the export steps above.
• You will have the option to download and import all of the linked images as well, which is a good thing to do ONLY if you have a small set of posts that you’re importing, otherwise this step could take quite a while to complete.

That’s it! Hopefully, you will now have a copy of your production blogs posts in a non-production blog site running on your local PC or laptop which you can then use to try out new code and themes without affecting the users who are currently on your site.  Happy Blogging!!!

A collegue at work prompted a conversation on Facebook the other day and it got me worked up a bit.  He wasn’t defending the site at all, but simply asking for input on our thoughts about using the site.  I had a few thoughts of my own that I’d like to share here.

First off, I’ll admit Facebook is a pretty cool site for catching up with long lost buddies from high school and for sharing pics and now posting videos for others to view.  It has its benefits over sites like Twitter and Brightkite where you can personalize your content in a more meaningful way for your friends to see.  But when it comes to open development for Facebook, have they jumped the shark?  Let me explain…
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Darren’s Script Archive (tufat.com) is a really good source of cheap Flash applets for your site.  There are some free resources on the site, but the majority of the code is simply $5 to purchase for unlimited use.  I have personally tried the osDate software, which is completely free, to build a community website.  The software was really easy to set up and customize and allows full user searching.  As the name suggests, osDate is geared toward making love matches, but I’ve seen it used to allow people to search for the perfect pet to adopt, so the uses for osDate are endless.

Another cool script is the flash chat applet.  You can stick the flash code right in your webpage to allow users to interact directly with you in real time.  With a little additional coding, you can create your own live support area for your customers that’s available when you are, and it will only cost you $5 to implement. Chat sessions are stored in a mySQL database for historical reporting.

There are a lot of other applets which I personally haven’t used in the past, but that you may find useful in your next project.  Check it out!

I decided to take the plunge into the newest iPhone firmware, version 2.2, shortly after the QuickPWN announcement was made. It’s getting surprisingly simple to Jailbreak these days, and the releases of QuickPWN are coming out quicker after each official release from Apple.
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