Reading this news gave me an idea to test deploy WordPress 1.0 on my local computer using Xampp just to check out this grandmother of all WordPress versions. How was WordPress then in 2004 (version 1.0 was released in Jan 2004)? Everything looks so different! I do wonder if there is any site out there still on some ancient WordPress version, but you know, this takes the cake…

Although so many things are missing if you compare this version with the current WordPress version now, somehow this version feels fast, tight and cute. There is no dashboard, no theme preview (called templates then), no rich text editor (you gotta know HTML), no widgets, no pages, options are limited, admins are called levels, and NO plugins! But still, it sure is a classic.

Check out the screenshots of this grandmother of WordPress versions.

The login screen as it was...

And this was the bookmarklet tool in WP 1.0...

With all the glossy magazine style WordPress sites now that any schoolboy can deploy, old time WordPress users might recall with a tinge of nostalgia those days, and marvel at how far WordPress has come along since. And even though in the past I did write about the inadequacies of WordPress as a CMS, I never had doubt one day it would take the throne of best overall open source CMS on the net.

A title long time coming but never in doubt!

Fatal error: Call to undefined function is_site_admin() in /home/user/public_html/domain/wp-content/plugins/sem-google-analytics/sem-google-analytics-admin.php on line 20

The problem is caused by the now obsolete function of certain plugins (like Semiologic Google Analytics – A great plugin by the way) which utilize the is_site_admin() function. The WordPress 2.8 admin only uses the is_admin() function.

I have to give props to Ixibo for mentioning this, and sparing me having to delete/rename the plugin that was causing the problem. Yes, a common solution for wayward plugins is to delete or rename the plugin folder. You don’t need to do that in this case or deactivate anything.

Simply find the copy of the plugin on your local computer, and open up the plugin files with Notepad and do a Search and Replace operation. Just search for all instances of is_site_admin() and replace them with is_admin() and then save the new files somewhere and FTP those files back into your hosting.

Voila. Your WordPress Admin should now work again.

I’m writing this guide for those of you who haven’t upgraded in a while, and hopefully it’ll be helpful if you need to manually upgrade, and want to avoid posting a frantic “please help me” thread at the WordPress forums. It’s really easy, but people keep messing it up, and that’s why there are so many problematic WordPress upgrades (or so I notice).

1) Preparation. The best way to upgrade WordPress manually is to prepare everything before you do anything else. So back up everything by going to Backup in your hosting panel, and just backup 2 things – Your database and your files (Do a full site backup). Unzip them, and make sure they are all fully workable.

The Backup icon in cPanel

2) Create extra public html directories. You will be switching the database to point to a new index directory shortly. This method helps a lot if you’re upgrading through multiple versions of WordPress and need to do it in stages, like if you’re upgrading from WP 2.1 to WP 2.7. You’ll need to do an upgrade to WP 2.3 and then WP 2.5, and finally WP 2.7. Never do large upgrades in one leap; it will mess up your database!

In the example below, I’m using Filezilla as the FTP client. Let’s say you are upgrading from WordPress 2.3 to WordPress 2.7. Right click and create 2 new public_html directories and name them public_html2.5 and public_html2.7 (just examples). We’re assuming that we are upgrading to WordPress 2.5 and then WordPress 2.7.

Create extra index directories using your FTP client

3) Upload all WordPress 2.5 files into public_html2.5, with the exception of wp-content. I assume you have a full backup copy of the site files. Upload the wp-content folder that you earlier downloaded, into public_html2.5 along with the htaccess file, sitemap files, the wp-config file, and anything else that are specific to the original public_html directory. What you now have is a fully working index directory that after renaming, will function as your index directory.

4) Repeat step 3 for the public_html2.7 directory but for this one, upload the WordPress 2.7 files into it, and repeat everything in step 3. Just leave out the wp-config file though. You’ll upload the wp-config file in step 5 below.

4) Log into your WordPress backend and deactivate all plugins, and switch your theme to the default, stable Kubrick theme (to avoid any problems). At the same time, in your FTP client, change the name of the current, old public_html directory into something else. And then rename public_html2.5 into public_html. Have your browser window open and with the URL www.your-site.com/wp-admin/upgrade.php keyed in. The upgrade screen will appear, telling you your database needs to be upgraded; just click on the Upgrade button. Your database will then be upgraded from WordPress 2.3 into WordPress 2.7.

The "Upgrade WordPress Database" screen

5) After upgrading, download via FTP the wp-config file from the new public_html directory (with the newer WordPress version), and then upload it into public_html2.7. I just take this step as a precaution to ensure that whatever changes done on the wp-config file by newer versions of WordPress will also be maintained. Then, repeat step 4 by renaming public_html2.7 into public_html, and changing the current one’s name into something else. Then go to the WordPress upgrade url (http://yoursite.com/wp-admin/upgrade.php), and upgrade the database again to WordPress 2.7. You should encounter no problems if you did everything right.

6) That’s about it. Log into your site and switch on the Maintenance Mode plugin (a useful plugin), and then activate all your former plugins or upgrade them if necessary. Switch back your old theme, and make whatever changes you need. The real upgrade process only takes a few minutes, if you did all the preparations beforehand. Don’t forget to deactivate the Maintenance Mode plugin afterwards.

Finally, log into your hosting control panel, and delete all the old index directories which you renamed earlier. They contain the older WordPress versions and you won’t need them anymore. Also, don’t forget to check your folder and file permissions and make sure they are secure and accessible. For example, your wp-content/uploads folder should either be 755 or 777, depending on your webhost’s server settings; otherwise you won’t be able to upload images.

This method of upgrading WordPress is fast and seamless, and I hope this was helpful to anyone who needs to do manual upgrades spanning several WordPress versions. Remember to ensure all your FTP uploads are smooth; many post-upgrade WordPress problems stem from files getting corrupted during the FTP process. Creating extra index directores and switching the database as necessary, you can smoothly upgrade WordPress over 3 or more versions within 20 minutes or less.

The whole upgrading process would have been faster had I just gone into cPanel and deleted the two major folders (wp-admin and wp-includes) which take up the most time to delete – via FTP.

The best news I’ve heard in a while is that upgrading WordPress will soon be a one click affair. I can’t wait to see this feature in action when the next WP version comes out. This is the one thing that would make life easier for everyone unless you’re using the WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin all this while.

If there was one little issue I noticed so far, it was that the plugin Viper’s Video Quicktags doesn’t notify you that there is a new version out, in the Plugins admin page. A little odd, but I can’t complain. WordPress 2.7 is really cool and I like it.

1) WordPress is not very secure – OK, we have many good reasons why we must always update WordPress; the top reason being that WordPress is quite simply, NOT the most secure CMS around. The past several months have seen a number of complaints by people who had their blogs hacked. The good (and bad news) is that WordPress has so many developers and users that no problem goes unheeded for long, but that also makes it a more open target.

2) The WordPress updates are too frequent – Although necessary, it still annoys me to no end. The only way it wouldn’t annoy is if there was a one button push to update the entire blog, just like the plugins. As long as that feature is not a reality, upgrading WordPress will always be annoying. Especially for those that have dozens or more blogs. Quite disturbing is the fact that older WordPress versions will NOT be supported at all, including WordPress 2.5.

3) WordPress is relatively resource intensive – This is one of the fundamental weaknesses of WordPress. On shared hosting, it is not very noticeable, but if you run a dedicated or VPS server, you will soon realize how much memory it actually takes up. A common problem encountered is the “Memory Exhaustion Problem” which indicates your WordPress has exceeded its memory limit threshold, and you need to allocate more memory to it, and also deactivate some plugins. Chief plugin culprits that suck memory are Popularity contest, and Global Translator plugin, Also, if your blog is heavy on pics, Google XML sitemaps plugin may cause problems.

4) The WordPress Tiny MCE wysiwyg editor won’t behave – This is another annoying thing stemming back from the earliest days, so much so that people had to resort to using the bare HTML editor to write (and still do). For example, if you want to center a picture in WordPress, you need to switch to the basic HTML editor, because the wysiwyg editor keeps interfering with the HTML code. Either that or editing the CSS file.

I need emphasize a bit more on WordPress security. A good plugin that helps to scan a WordPress site is WordPress Exploit Scanner. Only does basic trouble shooting, but it’s better than nothing. A good idea is to submit your blog in Google Webmaster Tools because if your blog has been hacked by spammers, it tends to show itself up in Webmaster Tools, rather clearly.

Even though WordPress is still one of the best blogging scripts out there, it is far from perfect. Let’s hope its development is progressing in the right direction, both for its sake and the millions of bloggers who rely on it everyday.

I simply don’t think releasing upgrades every month is cool. Never did. I was in fact glad they didn’t release WordPress 2.4 back then. Can you imagine how troublesome it can be to have to constantly upgrade? I’m sure many plugin authors and all those who make WordPress based applications will agree with me.

I don’t disagree that the list of improvements is impressive. It’s pretty impressive alright, but if they are going to be releasing upgrades every month, then please make upgrades as easy as possible. Just to add, there IS a plugin right now that does the job, but I’m speaking of making it a default feature in WordPress.

Maybe, it will be a possibility in WordPress 2.6 (who knows), so I guess I’ll just have to wait a couple of months at the rate they’re going.

Ahh, don’t you just love WordPress?