Real Estate Blog Lab

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I’m wondering how many of you have downloaded and tried using Google Chrome to write, edit and maintain your WordPress blog.

This is my first attempt to do so. I’m finding it to be an interesting experience to say the least.  It keeps wanting to put extra spaces between my paragraph breaks especially if I switch between HTML and Visual.

When I opened the editor to write a new post, I entered the title then down to the body of the post.  I wrote a word and when I backspaced over the word and one more backspace it took me to the Dashboard, not the top line of the editor.  I tried it several times and it repeated this action each time.  ”Don’t do it”

I’ve also noticed this browser seems to learn.  One time it will not know what to do, but the next time it will do it even to the point of saying some URL’s are not available, but later it will open them.

I’ve also noticed that making options changes might require you to close the browser completely and re open to see the changes take effect.

The first time I tried to write a post in Chrome I clicked on the link button and it wouldn’t allow the pop up window to appear so I could enter the link.  However, later it worked fine.

It is stripped down,  No bells, no whistles, and even the Google things you might expect incorporated are not available like the Google Toolbar or Google Gears.  I’ve done a couple of saves and it seems a little faster than FF with Google Gears or Flock without Gears.

Preview a post can be a wild trip at times.  I’ll let you see what it does for yourself.  Maybe nothing, maybe . . .

I know I was going to watch Dirty Harry and call it a night, but I had 20 minutes to wait so thought I’d take Chrome for another quick spin around the blog.

Has anyone put this browser through the WordPress meatgrinder?  Or was that were weekend GEEK project?

Gotta Go time for the Dead Pool.

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Thanks for letting me return to my youth and enjoy that momentary trek back in time.

Yesterday I wrote about Wordpress Version or GoDaddy Hosting. I love how quickly Google indexes some things and already today had a response by comment from someone at GoDaddy and a missed call (I was at the Dr. office, they don’t like cell phones there much) and a second comment in response from the person at GoDaddy leaving the comment. The tech from Godaddy said he would call me later this evening to see if he can help address the slowness of the blog.

Here are some of the things I’ve done today which have had some effect but not the kind Kirk wanted from Scotty.

1. Google Gears was already installed, but I was using the Flock browser and not FF. I’m using FF. (Still like Flock better)
2. I removed all plugins that were not being used. I have tested a lot of them over the past couple of years and removed everyone not in use.
3. I took out the database calls in the header file and replaced them with static HTML
4. I installed the Dashboard Management Plugin and removed almost everything from the dashboard except incoming links and write new post
5. I created a new database on a different server backup the lab database and restored on the other server (clean lay down of the data)
6. Tied to 5 above, the new database is MYSQL 5.0 the old one was 4.0 The new server is PHP 5 the old one was PHP 4
7. I activated the WP Super Cache plugin and configured it.

Most of these are considered to improve load times rather than navigation inside the admin panel or editor. The saves in the editor and navigation from editor, to comment management, to dashboard, to plugins is where a lot of the wait time comes in.

By putting the database on another server I split the calls to the server between images and database calls which are not on two separate servers.  Of course the down side: “Now I have to have two servers functioning to load the blog.” HUM!

I just pressed “Save” and it took 20 seconds for the save to take place and the editor to be available to continue.  I think some of this must have to do with saving Post Revisions of a single post.  I really wish this was an option to be turned off.

I also wrote a quick draft post in a 2.2.2 WP blog today and none of these issues were apparent.

Google Gears  Auto Save and Post Revisions

I thought Google Gears was to move much of the editing functions to my HD, yet with every save or move I see “Waiting on www.realestatebloglab.com” at the bottom of the screen.  The only thing it should be doing there is saving the post.  I get the same message when opening a blank editor to write a new post.  I also wish I could set the time between auto saves because it save a lot and hesitates while doing so.

Comparative Load Times

I have to wonder if WP wasn’t experiencing some of these issues in development. Maybe that’s why we even have the TURBO option. I hope this is something that can be addressed in the next release, but I fear it is going to be more bells and whistles with more whistle time while waiting.

Save and Log In Again.

Finally ready to preview this post, pressed Save once again and after 30 seconds was sent to the login screen.  After logging back in there were a couple of words missing from my last edit.

Maybe all these auto saves aren’t such a bad idea after all.

Have a great evening, I’m going to go watch Dirty Harry for the fifth time this week.  I think it is the “Dead Pool” tonight.  I feel like I’ve been swimming in it all day.  Oh, Geez here goes another attempt at save.

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I just opened the Lab to the Dashboard.  It took 30 seconds to get to the Dashboard.  Then I clicked on Write New Post, it took 20 seconds to open the editor.  If I click “Save” it takes from 20 to 40 seconds to save.  All the while the message in the bottom of the screen is “Waiting for www.realestatebloglab.com”

I don’t know if the slowness is due to the size of the blog, the slowness of the web, the version of WP, or the hosting.  But I do know this:

I’M REALLY TIRED OF WAITING ALL THE TIME TO GET WORK DONE!

I’ve tried IE, FF, Flock, and Chrome (it doesn’t seem to allow popups)  none of them seem to be any faster.

I’ve been sending out emails this morning to friends asking about hosting company options then it hit me:  “Why not write a Lab post about this issue and see what others are experiencing” before I pay to have another hosting company, move the some of the blogs and find I still have the same issues.

I tried Scribefire this week, but it doesn’t have support for “Captions” on images.  I’ve become a huge fan of captions.  They let me throw in quick pertinent information.

Anybody noticing the same things?  Anybody who isn’t experiencing this have a different hosting company than GoDaddy.  I should add I’m on the $6.30 a month shared hosting package for all the blogs, I have two of those.

Any suggestions?  I anqiusly await any input.  I’m sure there are others that will be interested in this topic as well.  At least I hope so.

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This past weekend I combined two blogs into a single one.  It all went, it didn’t all go smooth.  But in the end they are now combined and happy campers.

I’ve told the story in  a couple of post about the process if integration and the duplicated posts, categories and unpublished posts (I found those today).

Since the integration the admin panel seems slow and I often get apache error popping up which a refresh so far has handled.  I decided one more step in the process might be appropriate.

Lay down the Data To a New Database

There are a lot of ways to backup a database.  Most are pretty easy to do.  What I’ve found a bit daunting is Restoring the database.  Today after an hour of feeling my way around the various methods for both backup and restore landed on the one I wanted to try.  It worked, flawlessly and fast.  You can do this too.

1. I created a new database.
2. I went to the hosting package, databases, selected the existing old DB, clicked on the pencil to the right of the database name and chose the “Backup” button at the top of the window.
3. Backup was pending, then completed in a couple of minutes.
4. Verified the file created and placed in the root directory for the hosting package folder named “_db_backups”
5. exited from the existing database
6. clicked on the new database and the pencil to the right.
7. selected import and the newly created file is the one available.
8. select that file and click “go” in the lower right hand corner
9. restore “pending”  in a couple of minutes “done”
10. made a note of the database code to be placed in the wp-config.php file
11. changed the database in the wp-config.php file and FTP the new config file to the blog directory (I changed the name of the original file rather than overwrite it)
12. Went to the blog, everything looked the same. (As it should)

It has the effect of doing a defrag on your database.  It also means I have a backup database up to today if for some reason I need it.

So far no apache errors, the editor seems to load and save faster than it was before the new database was created and attached.

If you are going to integrate two blogs I would recommend doing this procedure to give yourself a nice clean copy of the database.

The graphic at the top is a combination of two screens.  The first above the line shows the database name and pencil to the right.  Under it is the window that is opened when you click on the pencil.

Good Holiday Geek Project

It is also something you can do once a quarter or once a year depending on how desperate you are for something to do on the next holiday weekend.

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Holiday weekends are tough on Geeks. We are supposed to be doing things outside, with family, going to community or family outings and cookouts. When all we really want to do is that geeky project we have been putting off and now we have the time to do it. Saturday, I pulled the trigger on integrating two blogs into one. It wasn’t as pretty a picture as I had hoped but all is well.

The Combining of Tucson Real Estate in the News with Tucson Real Estate

I wrote about the testing process and how that had gone on last Monday, my internet day in Hell so to speak. I planned and planned and did more testing on how to pull of this integration project.

I thought I had it pretty well worked out DUH!

First I created the 301 redirect file for all the blog posts 250 + of those. Then I did backups and more backups and wrote down the procedure like it was a check off for a NASA lift-off.

When I ran the test integration last week I noticed the pages which were duplicate on each site were integrated so I had 2 contact pages and 2 sitemap pages and 2 archive pages, etc. I didn’t want to have to delete all these duplicates once the integration was complete. I deleted each of the duplicate pages from the original blog before exporting the files.

The procedure I followed to the best of my memory LOL

1. Delete the duplicate pages from the News Blog (the one being integrated)
2. Export the pages, posts, categories, comments, tags using the Export Function under the Manage tab.
3. Backup the receiving blog database using the WP Backup plugin
4. Backup the content using the same Export function above
5. Import the file created from the News Blog into the Tucson Real Estate Blog
6. Upload the new .htaccess file with the 301 redirects
7. Process complete go do something else (This didn’t happen)

Where it all went wrong

Everything proceeded according to plan till I got to step 5. After the first 65 post were integrated I got an Apache server error. I think it timed out. I repeated the process it passed those first 65 posts and said “already exists” it added another 65 posts till I got the same error. There were 250 + posts to integrate so it took 5 times running the import process to get to the bottom of the list and have the “All Done” message show up at the bottom.

Duplicate posts 5 copies

Not all the post were imported 5 times, it seemed two or three posts which were on the bubble of the 65 time out limit each time were added each time I did the import, even though it said “Already exists”.

The solution: I went to the manage tab and went month by month and removed all but the first import of the post. Everything about those posts was imported so it didn’t really matter which one I deleted just so I got it down to one.

The News blog had 7 months of content predating the other blog that is where I found the most duplicates, once I got to where those post were integrated into existing post the duplicates stopped.

Duplicate Categories

This got a little trickier. It duplicated the categories as well but it showed 4 of them with no posts in the category and all the posts in the first one created. This meant I had to be careful to delete only the empty duplicates (which I did).

I had one category show up as empty which I knew had 9 posts associated with it. Rather than try and figure out what this might be caused I I decided to close the browser now that the duplicate posts and categories had been taken care of and reopen. That did it. That category filled with the 9 posts.

The .htaccess file and redirect 301 saga

I thought it might take a little time for the new .htaccess file to “catch”. I was wrong! I got 500 server errors immediately and after waiting an hour switched back to the old file, immediately everything was back. What to do.

Try adding a few redirect lines at a time instead of all of them at once.

First 10 went well. Second 10 didn’t Then a light bulb went on.

The Easy Solutions that took hours to figure out

I had moved all the posts and categories and the permalink structure was the same on both blogs, (THIS IS IMPORTANT WHEN COMBINING TWO BLOGS) Maybe all I had to do was redirect the main directory change and that would be all I needed. A single line instead of 250+ lines.

I took the old .htaccess file and added this line

redirect 310 /tucson-real-estate-blog/ http://www.tucsonazrealestateblog.com/

The important part was that final / at the end of the redirect. It worked prefect. Hours of creating a huge .htaccess file with lines of 301 redirects wasn’t necessary and besides, it didn’t work.

What’s happened since Saturday Aug. 30, 2008

The reader reported from Feedburner have gone from 32 to 74 as of this writing.  The news blog was showing 87 readers when I made the integration.

The blogtopsites went from 56 to 27 as of this moment.  Traffic to the site hasn’t doubled but it has increased significantly and I suspect as the week progresses the desired effect of combining Google juice and incoming links will have the desired effect.  I’ll write an update on the progress in a month.  (Note to self Oct. 1 blog post on the integration of the two blogs).

Blogroll Change Request

If you have linked to Tucson Real Estate In the News http://www.barbaralasky.com/tucson-real-estate-blog/ in your blogroll, would you please change the link to http://www.tucsonazrealestateblog.com I would really appreciate it.

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