Although these may sound like trivial items to many groups, unfortunately the powers that be where I work have not, until recently, been convinced of the power of online marketing and started to take it seriously. Now in many ways this shift does make my work a little harder with added oversight and more pressure, but it is a challenge I have looked forward to for years.

It has been a good day!

Take note of the "Web Dev" folder in the toolbar on the left. Notice it doesn't actually show up in the toolbar.

You can download the plugin here replace-target.zip

For the latest download, please check out my project page at http://www.chriswiegman.com/wordpress-replace-target-plugin/

My solution to this problem has been to use my own wp-signup.php page within my sign-up theme. Here’s how it’s done:

Before you start, make sure your server supports Apache mod-rewrite. An easy way to do this is to simply go to a post on one of your blogs. If you don’t see ?= anywhere in the address you should be OK. If not, go to http://www.yoursite.com/wp-admin/options-permalink.php and see if permalinks are available on your server. If they are not you will need to get this enabled by your server administrator before going any further.

Next, the most important part, open up the .htaccess file in the root of your Wordpress MU installation in your text editor. You may need to create the file if you haven’t been using any redirects previously.

Find the line:

RewriteBase /

Right below it (before anything else) add the line

RewriteRule ^wp-signup\.php(.*)$ wp-content/themes/[your theme name]/wp-signup.php$1

Save the file.

Finally, copy (don’t move) wp-signup.php from the root of your Wordpress MU installation to your theme directory (usually wp-content/themes/default). Make sure you leave the original file in place. Moving the file alters the Wordpress MU core installation which is never a good practice.

Now you may edit the wp-signup.php file to your heart’s content. Redirects to the new file should be seamless to your users.

If you would like to see how I’ve used this take a look at http://blogs.aviation.siuc.edu/wp-signup.php. Now my needs were simple, we just wanted to clarify some of the text to reduce confusion for our users. There is a lot more that can be done to make this form yours.

* edited Feb 27th, 2010: added a couple of important lines *
Never write on a deadline when you don’t have to. I forgot to change 2 important line.

In your new wp-signup.php page (the one in your themes folder) find the following 2 lines:

require( dirname(__FILE__) . ‘/wp-load.php’ );
require( ‘wp-blog-header.php’ );

and replace them with the following:

require( ‘../../../wp-load.php’ );
require( ‘../../../wp-blog-header.php’ );

This will ensure that Wordpress MU can find the files it needs to process your data.

In the web the idea of an expert is often a misnomer. It seems that to web people the expert title is often given freely to any person who knows more about a specific topic than you do. For example, I was once labeled a Joomla! expert after a single installation of the software without even launching a site on the platform. Why? because I had done it and the other person hadn’t I must be an expert.

On the flip side, after coding CMS systems for 11 years I was told the other day that I was a rookie as I didn’t code in this particular person’s language of choice. To this I had to say really? Simply because I don’t know your language I am a rookie at all things web? How strange.

A single install of Joomla! does not make you an expert in Joomla!. However, the ability to look at the code of Joomla! and be able to understand it and modify it could very well make you an expert in PHP. On the other hand, the ability to code a million line PHP application may make you an expert in your application, but if you can’t read and understand anything else you might never truly grasp the language and will never be recognized as an expert. This last example I see all the time as a CS student in code which is never written, but merely cut and pasted together to perform some function. After all, if you can’t explain or understand what you’ve done than you really haven’t done much at all.

So then, what really makes an expert. In my humble opinion and expert is someone who through their merits and experience is recognized by their peers as a leader in their field. Someone who can not only do the work, but actually understands what they are doing and can communicate that idea to others. So, web people, when throwing around titles such as expert make sure they’re going to a deserving soul and not simply someone who can follow a readme file. Anything else is just insulting to those who really have mastered their craft.

1. Akismet
   The one plugin that is now included with a base install of Wordpress, Akismet is the ultimate in Wordpress Spam protection. It creates a “Spam” box in your Wordpress comments and has the unmatched distinction of being the only spam blocker in any app I use to not miss a bad comment.
2. WP Security Scan
   Every new Wordpress installation has it’s problems. Whether it’s weak passwords, file permission problems, or some other glitch it doesn’t take much for an attacker to exploit an insecure Wordpress installation. WP Security Scan will find the most pressing problems and offers instructions and scripts for repairing them before they bring down your site.
3. Login LockDown
   Another security plugin, login lockdown prevents brute-force attacks on your Wordpress administration pages by locking any account after a specified number of bad login attempts. After using Wordpress MU in a public University I can tell you first hand that Login Lockdown not only improves the security of your site, but can also help reduce server load by reducing the number of allowed bad login attempts.
4. Header and Footer
   Header and Footer is a handy little plugin allowing for inclusion of custom code in the header and footer of all your pages. Items such as Google Analytics code, Yahoo Site Explorer meta tags, and numerous others can be added, removed, and changed at ease with this simple little plugin.
5. Clean Options
   I’ve added Clean Options to the list somewhat reluctantly as it may be a little much for some novice users. However it is an incredibly handy tool to have on any blog or site that has been out there for more than a little while. As other plugins are updated, added, or removed many of their options stay in place in your database. Do this enough times and it can start to impact the performance of your MySQL database. Clean Options fixes this by removing unused and obsolete options from the database allowing for a much more streamlined options table.

Of course these aren’t the only good plugins out there, and in fact putting this list together wasn’t as easy as I originally thought. A few of the plugins that didn’t make the cut include: All In One SEO Pack, Wordpress Mobile Pack, and Wordpress.com Stats among others. Have something else that I missed? Let me know so I can give it a try.

Looking back there are a number of goals completed, a number still to go, and a few that I never even anticipated. In the case of our redesign we started in April, the main site is still to be done. This is due primarily to the uncertain outcome of our university’s web standards committee. We don’t want to over-invest in a product that will not meet whatever standards they decide to come up with. While waiting however I’ve had time to really refocus and expand our web presence while [hopefully] being able to provide a far more useful product to all of our customers. We’ve installed and launched Wordpress MU for individual, group, and class sites. We’re nearing the launch of a MediaWiki installation to be used as our local intranet. Finally, we’ve greatly expanded our social media presence and finally convinced the powers that be that our marketing dollars are better spent on the web than limited magazines and other media.

Stepping away from the web I’ve made a lot of headway in a number of projects. We launched (and then decommissioned) a Squid proxy to restrict internet access during the day due to very limited bandwidth. It worked almost too well and was quickly removed for mostly political considerations. We’ve also begun the rollout of non Microsoft desktops to our faculty and staff in the form of Ubuntu as the primary OS. Only 3 desktops and our webserver have been migrated so far but considering that we had never looked away from MS before that it is definitely a good start. Finally, we added a windows update server to provide more control and better use of our bandwidth while still maintaining the ability to make sure all systems are completely patched.

Now on to the future. My first priority is, as always, our web presence. Pending the outcome of the campus web standards committee I hope to get a new main site in place very quickly. In addition, depending on current content contributions, I would like to see our new Wiki launch at the beginning of the Spring semester. It has been in the making for a little while now and promises to provide a much more complete and, more importantly, standardized method of intra-department communication. Beyond that I would like to see our file services migrated to Samba and Linux away from MS Active Directory as well as continue the gradual migration of departmental desktops to the Linux platform.

With all that I’m sure it will be another busy semester. However as with every semester I look forward to the challenges and can’t wait to see the outcomes!

Yeah, originally I wasn’t even going to try 7, but I believe in forgiveness and decided I would install it at work when it was released to corporate customers in August. In the two months since I have spent far more time installing updates and optimizing the system than I have in actually using it to be productive.

Before I dropped it however I’ve made it my mission to find one think I liked about it. After all, it can’t be all bad, right? Well, there are actually a couple of things I found that I could live with in my little experiment. First is Notepad++. This excellent little text editor is one of the best I have found for any system, however as good as it is it isn’t enough reason to stay with Windows (after all every system has some good text editors).

Second, Windows 7 will save my department a lot of money and time over the next few years. This is due to the fact that it has finally demonstrated both to me and the people I work with that Microsoft software is no longer worth the investment. Instead we have started the process of migrating our remaining servers to Linux and will soon start migrating our desktop and server software to either Linux, or in a few cases, Mac OS (we have about 3 or 4 users for whom Mac would still be a better choice). Already we’ve had a couple of users switch from Win 7 to Ubuntu and their feedback has been nothing but positive. They report it to be faster, far more stable, and in all the cases so far they find Ubuntu to be much more user friendly. Of course at some point there will be a few roadblocks in our way, however the end result will be a faster, more efficient system capable of maintaining, and in some cases even increasing productivity for less money than we are spending on our current setup.

Here are the highlights of my experience so far:

Boot time is about the same as Vista, when attached to the company domain we are still often seeing boot times of 5 minutes or longer (from power on to being able to launch an application).

Disk IO is still horrible. In fact, many simple file operations (copy,delete,move,etc) often take longer than they did under Vista. This is a problem I’ve have a number of users report regardless of hard drive, etc. In addition, the reliance on a formal defragment procedure on a modern file system is archaic compared to other systems such as EXT3/4, HFS, etc.

Software maintenance is still a nightmare as upgrades of many 3rd party apps continue to expose the weaknesses in the Windows registry.

While hardware support seems to have finally caught up to the newer kernel (the 7 kernel is virtually unchanged from Vista) it still cannot produce consistent performance on even multiple uses of the same device.

Applications, especially Java, are still painful compared to any other system I’ve used in the last couple of years. The launch time of application such as Netbeans and Eclipse can be measured in minutes rather than seconds.

The list can go on, but in a nutshell 7 is still a sub-par OS who’s only redeeming quality is the widespread adoption which allows for the most comprehensive library of available software. Even that quality is fading however as both open-source applications and the growth of Linux and Mac are making development for systems other than Windows much more compelling (I haven’t even installed a Windows VM on my Mac since Snow Leopard as I just do not need it anymore).

While the iPod Video is the best I’ve had it isn’t the only MP3 player I’ve owned. I bought my first MP3 player way back in 1998 or 1999 and it was a 32MB gizmo from RIO. In addition my wife and I each own 1GB iPod Shuffles that we use for the gym and other places in which bringing the larger classic doesn’t make sense.

All that being said, my iPod Video had one problem, it wasn’t big enough for my CD collection. When I first bought it I had about 50GB of music, but over the last 4 years my CD collection has grown to the point that, when ripped, it takes about 70GB of space. Time for a bigger iPod.

When the new iPods came out last week It was time for me to upgrade. I ordered a 160GB iPod Classic from Amazon the day they were released and last Monday it arrived. I feel guilty putting the old 60GB out to pasture as it has literally followed me around the world, but it was time and Apple’s latest offerings have not dissappointed.

So what has changed other than capacity? It’s not the sound quality, it’s not the design UI, it’s everything else. The new iPod is smaller, faster, and all around better than what I had with a sound quality that hasn’t changed a bit. For example, to completely fill my old iPod takes about 2 hours from my Mac. To copy all 70GBs of music to my new iPod however takes about 45 minutes. In addition, where the old iPod would take 30 seconds or so to boot after being left for a couple of days, the new iPod does so almost instantly and without any of the subtle hard drive sounds that now make my 60GB iPod seem so old.

Although I haven’t had  the time to compare the longevity of the two devises I must say that on design and hardware alone the new “Classic” is a long way ahead of it’s Video counterpart. Hopefully in 4 more years it will be just as sad of a departure as the 60GB has been.

Fast forward a few years later and things have changes. First we went to a PHP/MySQL combination on our windows server and were using a number of, shall we say, rudimentary techniques to force issues such as SEF friendly URLs, etc. Then last spring we decided we didn’t want IIS at all anymore and switched to a LAMP stack on Ubuntu server and in the process eliminated our use of WebDav, FTP, and RDC relying solely on SSH for all non Apache tasks.

As we move to a new server now I find myself asking the question as to whether the dual NIC setup is worth it given the independant structure of the various services and the fact that we don’t allow any non-public data on the machine. What do you guys think? Should I continue to segregate the CMS and SSH services by IP therefore restricting their access to the campus CAN through a hardware firewall, or should I just use a single IP without using up scarce IPv4 addresses/etc.

Please let me know what you guys think in the comments?

Day in and day out we go through our lives at work and home without much reason to change. Although what we are doing now might work, we often don’t have much incentive to learn anything new. Blogging helps by forcing you to learn something new as you investigate material for your writing. For example, us techie bloggers can find all sorts of new tricks and tools in the quest to research the topic of our latest post. More often than not these can be some pretty cool items we would never have heard about otherwise.

2.) Blogging educates others

Blogging is about educating others. It is about taking something you have learned and passing that information out to others in your field, interest group etc. There is no better way in today’s society to get you ideas published than by doing so yourself on the internet.

3.) Blogging makes you a better writer

Most of us were not trained as writers or journalists and lets face it, when we try we can often use some help. Like so many other skills in life writing is one in which practice makes perfect. and in an economy where the ability to efficiently communicate our ideas and experience through writing is so crucial a little practice can go a long way.

4.) Blogging increases your visibility

You might be the best in your field, but if no one knows about you what good does it do? Whether your an experienced professional or new rookie, writing in your field gets your name out there.

5.) Blogging can be fun

Not much to say about this one except it is a cool experience to see one of your posts make the front page of a service like Digg.

Southern Illinois University Carbondale (SIUC)

SIUC has had a long history on the web dating back about 20 years. The current version of the site does it’s best to help users navigate with links targeted to the demographic of the visitor. As a whole the site does a descent job at getting users where they need to be, however with a decentralized web structure in which each campus department, unit, etc is tasked with the development and maintenance of its own site it tends to confuse users as they browse for various academic programs and other information most students would need. It does so by not providing any central summary of programs, but instead directly links users to various departmental sites which often bear little or no resemblance to the main SIUC site.

Other than the decentralized nature, the site does do an excellent job of trying to make navigation as simple as possible as no department is more than 2-3 clicks away. In addition, although not quite in school colors, the main page has a pleasant design and color scheme that avoids both being overly harsh or overly generic, a problem seen on far too many sites today.

Overall, SIUC has an excellent long-standing web presence limited only by it’s decentralized nature.

This is where I stand right now with our primary website at work (http://www.aviation.siu.edu). I have been actively developing this site on my own for about 10 years with some very basic concepts. First, there was no direction from anyone in the department. This means that in everything from features to server configuration and more I had free control over it all. Heck, I couldn’t even get a critique if I begged for it. I know to some this might not seem like a problem, and for years it hasn’t been to me. What is a problem is that with only one person working unguided on a site of 1000’s of pages it can lead to numerous unused features and an administration that is slow to react with trends in online marketing. Second, I’ve been designing and redesigning a custom content management system for the site since the beginning. This also has never really been a problem, but combined with no direction it has lead to a system with little documentation and virtually no connection to other common systems users our familiar with such as Wordpress and others.

Now things are changing. The administration in our department has realized that putting all its advertising money into magazine ads isn’t the most efficient use of their budget. Consequently they are turning their sites to the web. Although I haven’t been officially asked to do anything (and still find very little guidance as to their vision) I recognize this shift in ideology and know that I need to work to making the most use of our advertising budget and at the same time work to redesign not only our site, but much of our entire marketing strategy.

So where do I start? First I realize that I cannot do everything by myself if for no other reason that a second person can see things I cannot. Consequently I am getting help from a small team I’ve put together. Although beneficial, at the airport this is quite a change in philosophy and like any such change requires a little getting used to (I must say that of everything that’s changing, a team is the most positive change for both me and the department as I like working in teams normally). Second, although the CMS I have used is nice, there is a lot of good open-source products on the market now that provide the features we need as well as excellent documentation and other features making it easy to incorporate information from more sources.

Putting this all together has left me with quite a headache. Stepping back from 10 years of one direction and refocusing on a new one has not been easy at all. The good thing however is that I realize when it’s done we will have a better product for the entire SIU Aviation community (even though it might take a little longer than I originally hoped).