Watch the www
The www broke my site.
I have a Learning Centre containing articles, tips and other material for people using Macs and other technology, such as email, web browsers, and so on.
It runs on WordPress and resides at http://mactips.info/learn or http://www.mactips.info/learn, both are equally valid.
The other day a reader emailed:
I just wanted to comment on your excellent beginner’s guide on iPhoto. … But after I submit the comment there is just a blank page — the comments don’t seem to be working.
Of course I tested the comments, with several web browsers, and found that my reader was quite correct. Then I started troubleshooting: I disabled and enabled various plugins, switched back to the default theme, updated WordPress to the latest version, re-uploaded some files that seemed specially relevant.
When nothing worked I then started scouring the WordPress forums. Plenty of people had posts involving blank page problems. None of the suggested solutions made any difference to my problem.
I checked my server’s .htaccess file. Other blogs on the same server didn’t have the same problem, and only a few months ago others had successfully left comments on the Learning Centre. I looked at all the server settings I could think of that might be relevant. The mystery only deepened.
Finally I stumbled on this ticket in the bug tracker: comment posting leads to blank page, and this vital clue from one of the posters:
My server was redirecting from www.hippobomb.com to hippobomb.com and I did not have that set in my URI options! I had www.hippobomb.com/blog which was incorrect… I changed it to hippobomb.com/blog and she’s workin’ fine now.
And, indeed, the same fix solved my problem! I removed the www from the URI in the General Options section of my WordPress Dashboard, and all is now well.
The Learning Centre didn’t always run on WordPress — a few months ago I switched from a clunky system that was wrong for it and set it up on WordPress. The previous, successful comments, were probably imported from the old system, and perhaps the comments have never worked with this new setup. I’m enormously grateful to my reader who took the trouble to let me know about the problem.
I hope this post encourages you to test your own WordPress install, and to double-check your settings. Maybe I can save you the couple of hours it took me to fix my problem.
IE7 can read Feeds
WordPress automatically creates an RSS feed file and gives you the option to provide either a full or partial feed (see Page 29 of our book). Readers of your blog may choose to use a feedreader, instead of checking in every day with a web browser. It’s a very efficient and speedy way to keep track of multiple websites. The number of people using feedreaders has increased only slowly though — perhaps as it generally requires finding and installing additional software, and then working out how to use it.
Mac users could simply use Safari’s built-in feed reader, but Windows users, till now, were forced to install additional software.
It took a long time for Microsoft to move from version 6 to version 7 of Internet Explorer (for Windows), but the new release brings welcome new features. For a start it finally adds tabs, bringing it up to speed with other modern browsers.
Now, too, users of IE7 can subscribe to RSS newsfeeds with the browser, as Virginia DeBolt explains in her article (with screenshots), Tip: IE7’s New Feed Reader.
Once Microsoft starts pushing out this new version, substantial numbers of people will begin using it, and the proportion of visitors reading your blog via RSS may increase.
If you run a blog but haven’t yet explored the world of RSS feed reading, then it’s a good time to start. Work out for yourself how you feel about full feeds (my much preferred option) and partial feeds (as Maria prefers). See how feeds work by following some blogs. See how important the headline and opening paragraph are if you’re providing only partial feeds.
You may find that following feeds changes how you write.
WordPress 2.0.5 (Ronan) has been released
Some people prefer to wait before updating software, but if you’re the type who likes to get straight into things, then you’ll be interested that WordPress 2.0.5 - Ronan has been released:
It’s new release time. The latest in our venerable 2.0 series, which now counts over 1.2 million downloads, is available for download immediately, and we suggest everyone upgrade as this includes security fixes. We’re breaking the tradition of naming releases after jazz musicians to congratulate Ryan Boren on his new son (and first WP baby) Ronan.
What’s new? We have about 50 or so bugfixes, which you can review on our dev tracker here, mostly minor bug fixes around feeds, custom fields, and internationalization. If you’d like a nitty-gritty view, check out Mark’s blog post on the changes.
[Via WordPress Planet.]
To resize a photo in iPhoto
Open iPhoto from the Applications folder on your Mac. Import your photos. For help and guidance with this refer to the iPhoto Help menu.
In iPhoto select the photo or photos to resize. Note the Information panel at bottom left of the window that displays the file name, size in pixels, file size and other details about the photo. If you have more than one photo selected you’ll see some aggregated details.
The screenshot shows my selected photo, with its details: 3888 * 2592 pixels, and a whopping 2.7Mb. [Note: click any thumbnail for a larger version.]
Next choose Export from the File menu, and click on the File Export tab, that you can see in the screenshot.
Choose JPG as the format and click the radio button Scale images no larger than. Choose a size for the longest side. The other side’s dimension should change to suit. You may find something between 480 and 800 pixels is appropriate. You may need to experiment a bit to see what works best for you.
Make sure the Use extension checkbox is checked, then click the Export button. Choose a name and location for the exported file and click OK.
Once iPhoto has exported the file you may like to check the file size. One way is to select the photo in the Finder and choose Get Info from the File menu. The screenshot shows my exported photo is 799*533 pixels, and 132Kb. That’s an appropriate size for use on a web page, though I’d prefer the file size to be a mite less. For comparison, on the left, you can see the information for the 2.7Mb original.
To resize a photo in Picasa
Download and install Picasa for Windows. Import your photos. For help and guidance on these processes refer to the Picasa support.
In Picasa select the photo to resize. Note the blue stripe near the bottom of the window that displays the file name, size in pixels, file size and other details about the photo.
The screenshot shows my selected photo, with its details: 3888 * 2592 pixels, and a whopping 2.6Mb. [Note: click any thumbnail for a larger version.]
Next click the Export button at the bottom of the window, and visible in the first screenshot.
Choose a location for the exported file, and the name of the folder you wish to save the exported files in to.
Next choose Image Size Options and Image Quality. When you click the Resize to radio button you can either type in a size in pixels or use the slider to sleect an image size. You may find something between 480 and 800 pixels is appropriate. You may need to experiment a bit to see what works best for you.
Next choose an Image Quality from the pop-up or by using the slider. Without a preview, it’s a little tricky to make a good choice here, but start with Normal (a good balance of quality and size), and see how that works. The screenshot shows my Picasa settings.
Once Picasa has exported the file it displays it in a separate window. The screenshot shows my exported photo, together with a thumbnail. If I put my cursor over the thumbnail I can now see that the photo is 800*533 pixels, and a mere 54.1Kb. That’s an appropriate size for use on a web page.
Picasa has also added my new ’small’ album to its list of folders. If I select the photo in Picasa, I can see the file information in the blue stripe across the bottom of the window, as shown in the last screenshot.
Preparing images for WordPress
Many people take photos with their digital camera and want to add them to their blog. WordPress makes it easy, with its upload form and ability to create thumbnails, but there are still a few things you should know to make sure your visitors have a good experience.
Size matters most
It’s a useful rule of thumb that the bigger the photo in pixels, the bigger the file size. Modern digital cameras are capable of taking some very large photos. For example, my new 10 megapixel camera at its highest setting takes pictures that are 3,888 * 2,952 pixels. They range in size from about 2 megabytes to about 4 megabytes, depending on subject matter.
It would be just crazy to try adding any of those photos directly to my blog — it would take most visitors forever to download my blog page, and then they wouldn’t even be able to see the whole photo on their screen. And in any case, both WordPress.com and many servers where you have installed WordPress will almost certainly refuse to allow you to upload such a huge photo.
Sometimes you can’t upload big pictures
The VQS support blog is installed on a GoDaddy server and I was able to upload a 2.6Mb test image. When I tried the same thing on my test blog on my New Zealand server I simply received an unhelpful error message: The uploaded file exceeds the upload_max_filesize directive in php.ini. WordPress.com also has an upload file size limit of 1500Kb. The two screenshots show the error message on my server, and the much more helpful error message at WordPress.com.
I could of course take lower resolution photos in the first place, but I prefer to take the best quality photos I can and work from there. If I want to print photos, then I need the largest and best quality originals I can muster.
Resize your photos
If you want to upload photos to your blog, then you should prepare them first: reducing the dimensions in pixels and reducing the filesize. Both changes go hand in hand: the fewer the pixels, the smaller the file size.
For best results it helps to use good image processing software, such as Photoshop Elements, but you can do a fair enough job with free software, such as Picasa for Windows and iPhoto, which comes ready installed on the Mac.
A good size
The best size for your pictures depends on the layout of your blog, your reasons for including the picture, the nature of the photo itself, the amount of space on your server, whether your visitors are using dial-up or broadband, and your personal preferences. I quite often like to limit my photos to a maximum of 800 pixels on the largest side, and to keep them below about 75Kb, if possible.
The next couple of posts show you how to resize photos on Windows and on the Mac.