This is the error you’ll get if you try to install WordPress 3.2 on a PHP4 server:
Parse error: parse error, unexpected T_VARIABLE in /path/to/your/directory/wp-includes/load.php on line 566
It’s because the clone keyword doesn’t exist in PHP4.
Author Archives: Ian Dunn
admin-ajax.php Response Fails When Called from Domain Alias
I’m writing a WordPress plugin that uses AJAX and I had everything setup and working fine for awhile. I came back to the code a few hours later and all of the sudden I was getting a failed response, even though the code hadn’t changed. I got the correct JSON response when I loaded the […]
What Really Makes a Password Strong?
Bob Yexley turned me on to passphrases a few years ago when he linked to what became a seminal article on the topic by Robert Hensing. The argument is that passphrases — random words strung together to form a phrase, e.g., monkey stars hatchback questioning — are both more secure and easier to remember than what are […]
Don’t Force Links to Open in New Windows
Sven Lennartz has a good post at Smashing Magazine detailing why links shouldn’t be targeted to open in new windows. This is a big pet peeve of mine because it takes control away from the user. Insecure site owners force it on their users, thinking it will keep people on the site longer, but the correct […]
Uploading Files with Custom Post Types
If you’re building a custom post type and want to let the user upload files, you’ll need to add enctype=”multipart/form-data” to the form tag, using the post_edit_form_tag filter. Otherwise the $_FILES array will be empty.
Creating Custom Post Types With Extra Fields
Richard Shepherd’s post on creating custom post types in WordPress is the first good example I’ve found that covers adding extra data fields.
Why RSS is Important
Kroc Camen makes a good argument for why RSS is important and points out how web browsers can better support it.
How to Erase Sensitive Data from a Hard Drive
Aaron Toponce has documented a way to overwrite sensitive data on a hard drive that is fast and gives you a running progress meter.
How to Backup Placemarks in Google Maps
Google doesn’t give you a link to export placemarks that you add to a saved map, but you can change the ‘output’ parameter in the iframe URL from ’embed’ to ‘kml’ to download an XML file with all of the map details, including the placemarks and custom icons. I got an error when trying to […]
Software Bloat
“A Printer driver is a folder with one ‘.ini’ file, and a couple of ‘.dll’s and that’s it. It is not a 50 MB download. It is not an IE Toolbar, and Side Pane. It is not half-baked photo software. It is not a splash screen when your computer starts. It is not a tray icon.” – Kroc […]
Excessive SEO is Ruining Google Search
Sadly, I have to completly agree with Jeff Atwood’s assessment of the recent decline in the quality of Google search results:
People whose opinions I respect have all been echoing the same sentiment — Google, the once essential tool, is somehow losing its edge. The spammers, scrapers, and SEO’ed-to-the-hilt content farms are winning.
W3Schools Isn’t Official or Accurate
Divya Manian gave a presentation yesterday at WordCamp Seattle about generating proper markup when creating output from plugins, and she mentioned a site called W3Fools.com, which is basically a protest against W3Schools.com. I didn’t realize until I saw W3Fools, but W3Schools isn’t actually ran by the W3C, and it contains a lot of inaccurate information. […]
Choosing a Video Format for the Web
Nettuts+ has a good article detailing the current state of the various video codecs supported by desktop and mobile browsers. Basically, there’s still no single format with universal support; Flash is still the best option for the desktop, and H.264 is the only option for mobile devices. In the future browsers will natively support HTML5’s […]
Determining WordPress Paths and URLs
I often need to include a directory or URL path when writing a theme or plugin, but I can never find all of the different options in one place, so I’m pulling it together from various Codex pages and xref. Constants ABSPATH – /var/www/vhosts/example.com/httpdocs/ WP_CONTENT_DIR – /var/www/vhosts/example.com/httpdocs/wp-content WP_CONTENT_URL – http://www.example.com/wp-content WP_PLUGIN_DIR – /var/www/vhosts/example.com/httpdocs/wp-content/plugins WP_PLUGIN_URL – http://www.example.com/wp-content/plugins TEMPLATEPATH – /var/www/vhosts/example.com/httpdocs/wp-content/themes/parent-theme STYLESHEETPATH – /var/www/vhosts/example.com/httpdocs/wp-content/themes/child-theme […]
Using Chained Properties Inside $wpdb->prepare()
If you’re using $wpdb->prepare() to query a custom table, you can’t pass the table name in as an argument because it will be single-quoted, which would be a MySQL syntax error. Instead, you need to insert the variable directly into the double-quoted query string and let PHP parse it out. That creates a new problem, […]
Capturing WordPress Plugin Activation Errors
If you’re developing a plugin and there are any PHP errors/warnings you’ll get a message like this when you activate it: The plugin generated [x] characters of unexpected output during activation. If you notice “headers already sent” messages, problems with syndication feeds or other issues, try deactivating or removing this plugin. You don’t actually see […]
The Correct Way to Roll Cables
This video explains the right way to roll cables, alternating over- and under-hand loops to maintain the natural curve of the cable. Using this method helps avoid knots, makes it quicker to unravel, reduces wear on the cable and makes it easier to get a clean, symmetrical coil. The video is geared towards audio cables, but […]
How to Find a Twitter User’s RSS Feed
Twitter has always offered RSS feeds for user’s tweets, but unfortunately they stopped publishing the URLs awhile back. The feeds are still active, though, so you just have to manually figure out the URL. The first thing you’ll need to do is use this website to find their ID based on their username. Then, just […]
Reserved WordPress URL Parameters
Using a reserved WordPress URL parameter (like “year” or “m”) on the front end will cause a 404 error.
Directory Permissions for WordPress under Plesk/Linux
Jason Diehl describes the right way to setup directory permissions on a Linux box running Plesk so that WordPress can automatically create the directories it uses to store uploads. Basically, you need to make sure that PHP’s safe mode is turned off and that wp-content is owned by apache, in the apache group, and chmod’d to 777.