Monday, September 24, 2007

Blog: TechDadBlog updated to WordPress 2.3 with some issues

by Michael Sheehan on September 24, 2007

in General, Open Source, Software

I took the plunge and installed WordPress 2.3. For the most part, it was pretty straight forward. Do follow the standard upgrade instructions (including deactivating your plugins). I didn’t do that and left the Ultimate Tag Warrior enabled. After running the upgrade.php, I had issues still, referencing UTW. So I went to the plugin directory and deleted the plugin manually. Once deleted, I was able to view through most of my blog.

A word to the wise, if you used any tagging plugins (like UTW), take a look at the IMPORT tab under Manage. There, you can get many of your old tags into the new tag system. Doing this fixed a bunch of errors I was having on click-throughs on my tags.

I currently only have one issues (that I have found thus far) which probably has to do with the new Category/Tagging process. There is an error that says:

WordPress database error: [Table 'weblog_td.wp_categories' doesn't exist]
SELECT cat_ID FROM wp_categories WHERE cat_name=’Asides’

Which looks like an easy fix once I understand the new DB structure.

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iPhone Question: “Unlocking” and “Jailbreaking” the same thing?

by Michael Sheehan on September 24, 2007

in Apple, Cellular, Gadgets, General, Hardware, iPhone, Software

Apple today released a statement that said the following:

CUPERTINO, Calif., Sept. 24 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple has
discovered that many of the unauthorized iPhone unlocking programs
available on the Internet cause irreparable damage to the iPhone’s
software, which will likely result in the modified iPhone becoming
permanently inoperable when a future Apple-supplied iPhone software update
is installed. Apple plans to release the next iPhone software update,
containing many new features including the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store
(http://www.itunes.com), later this week. Apple strongly discourages users from
installing unauthorized unlocking programs on their iPhones. Users who make
unauthorized modifications to the software on their iPhone violate their
iPhone software license agreement and void their warranty. The permanent
inability to use an iPhone due to installing unlocking software is not
covered under the iPhone’s warranty.
    (C) 2007 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, Mac,
Mac OS, Macintosh, iPhone and iTunes are trademarks of Apple. Other company
and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

So, the critical words, as I seem them, from this statement are “unauthorized,” “unlocking” and “unauthorized modifications”. We all know about the various tools (free and pay) that allow you to unlock your iPhone to use different networks. This is a huge can of worms, but is, actually very commonplace in the cellphone marketplace. You can buy all sorts of unlocked phones from eBay that work on a variety of carriers. Also, with Google potentially jumping into the cell phone market with the “gPhone” and buying up bandwidth soon, it makes me think that Apple might dig its own grave with this breaking of unlocking.

But that is not the nature of this post. For several weeks, I have been enjoying the ability to add, use and delete 3rd party applicaitons on my iPhone. So that makes me ask, with the new version of the firmware (1.1.1) coming out “this week,” what does this mean to the emerging new community of 3rd party developers of native iPhone apps? If I were to make a decision here, here is how I would define “Unlocking” vs. “Jailbreaking.”

Unlocking – the process of changing the firmware and/or hardware of the iPhone to allow it to be used with other carriers

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Blog: WordPress version 2.3 scheduled to be released Sept 24, 2007

by Michael Sheehan on September 24, 2007

in General, Open Source, Software

A fairly significant update to WordPress is slotted to be released today (09.24.07) with some interesting new features, including:

  • Plugin Update Notification
  • Tags!
  • Improved Post and Draft Management
  • Pending Review
  • Advanced Visual Editor Buttons
  • Pretty URLs
  • Updated Default Blogroll
  • Other “advanced user” stuff

More details on the features/changes are below:

Plugin Update Notification

Not only are you now notified about new versions of WordPress, you now get notified of new versions of plugins. The only caveat is that the plugins must be hosted on WordPress.org. I personally wonder how this will work in conjunction with a GREAT plugin that I use called “PlugInstaller” which lets you check for new version, activate/deactivate but also fully DELETE a plugin from your plugin directory. This is a great way to easily clean up your old plugins.

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