I was running fine previously. I know the adage, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” But that never stopped me in the past, and I wasn’t going to let it stand in the way this time either.

So I utilized the (actually pretty cool) automatic upgrade feature of WP. That has worked in the past for minor upgrades, so had confidence it would work now. The first step is always, make a back-up. Sure, I’m sure I have a back-up, so I don’t want to waste time on that now. I probably didn’t skim the instructions since it is all “automatic”, why bother. I can always read them later if I have trouble.

Trouble I did have, too… The upgrade sputtered and stalled. I kept forging ahead, and trying a few times. Finally it seemed to work. Then there was the matter of plugins. There was some overlooked instruction (probably right after the ‘back-up first’ statement) that I failed to notice. Mind you, I don’t know if that was the culprit, but I think caching and other nuances may have been involved.

I struggled to upgrade the plugins, with the same spit and sputter as the core modules. Finally I gave in and closed the admin window, and attempted to start the blog. It was then I realized that I messed up, big time!

The blog was just a white screen when opened. There were no errors, but there was not a speck of content either. I pondered what could have gone wrong and struggled to back out. Finally I gave up in defeat and headed for bed.

This morning, I decided to try again. There was no way to login, no way to access administration or configuration pages. No errors, but nothing was displayed. I logged on remotely to the server. The files “looked” fine, but looks can be deceiving. I finally stopped wasting time, and decided to restore from my backup that I was sure would make everything whole.

I restored from a point, yesterday at 18:00. That was before I started monkeying around. Still no blog. I continued back in time to noon. Still nothing. I went back to midnight of the day before; absolutely nothing. Sure the files were there, but there was some deep underlying issue. I then attempted to use my SQL database backup that gets mailed to me every 12 hours. I went back to the morning before my upgrade (since nothing would have changed) and it still wouldn’t work after importing the DB.

After reading and looking for others who may have suffered the same as me (I found none, of course) I read detailed instructions for the installation / upgrade. I decided to take some drastic measures and deleted all WP files on the server, short of my content, files, photos, etc. I then SFTP’d the new software to the server. After playing with and adjusting permissions, it “seems” to work now. The version has been upgraded, and all the plugins as well.

I’m going to run a backup now. At least I have a site that appears to be functioning at the moment. I might run into an issue here and there, but for the most part, it seems to be running fine.

Leave a comment and let me know if you stumble on any broken parts or pieces.

The other item of note is that this post is from my new iPad.

I’ve had the device since Monday, and really haven’t played with it that much. I did try to get it setup, added or upgraded a few apps, watched a movie via Netflix, and looked around for tips and tricks as well as productivity apps.

Still have a ways to go, but I will admit now that this on-screen keyboard (in portrait mode here) really works quite well.

Lots more to explore, but two thumbs up (and maybe a high-five if this posts!). I’m sure I’ll post more thoughts as time goes on.

– Posted from my iPad…

When I saw the iPad in Anchorage, I thought I might have a chance to snag it today.  My fear was I would try to out guess UPS and sit at the office all day waiting, when they had no intention of showing because they “knew” the office was closed on Saturday.

However, I watched closely, looking for “news” that it was on the truck for delivery, just like (my favorite) FedEx does.  Well, when it didn’t show for a few hours I stood down from making a quick run to the office. I really quit watching the status and settled back to read reviews and get ready for Monday.  Well, wouldn’t you know it, there was an attempt today!  No word it was on the truck or anything.  That was at 13:29…

Missed my iPad, since the office was closed.

So, after about ten minutes trying to find a phone number (they really don’t want you to call) I finally found one.  Surprisingly it answered right away and there was no hold. (I guess it is Saturday, and they really make it difficult to even find a number, so that probably isn’t surprising after all; they don’t have many callers.)

Spoke to a nice agent who offered to look up the tracking info and let me know if the “2nd attempt” would be today (Saturday) or next business day, Monday. The latter was my guess, and that was confirmed.

Oh well, back to reading the reviews and finding out what others think of theirs… Looking forward to Monday once again.

But in any event, my iPad is “officially” in Anchorage! According to UPS tracking info, and information from FlightAware, the package was on UPS80, a 747-400 that arrived at PANC at 07:27. I’ve looked at the information, after an hour, and my guess is they won’t even put it on the truck today. However, if I see a change in status, I’ll definitely make a run for the office. It would be worth a gamble, just in case.

Here is the UPS information:

UPS tracking info for my iPad

UPS Flight 80 - KSDF to PANC - 2010-04-03

Above is the FlightAware information for UPS80.

On Wednesday afternoon, I went to show a guy at work my status, and lo-and-behold, the billing information date showed April 1, and that it had not left China. Origin scan still shows 18:11, March 29 in Shenzhen.

On Thursday, the information changed to show billing information received April 2, with the origin scan still March 29 at 18:11. Thursday evening, Alaska time, the update shows a departure scan on April 2, 16:10 in Guangzhou.

Now, I believe, *someone* is willfully manipulating shipping / tracking data. UPS will depot the iPads, such as in Anchorage, or your local hub, to clear Customs and stage for release on the third. I don’t care mine is sitting; Apple set the expectation of receiving on April 3.

The fact that it’s staged doesn’t bother me. UPS, as does FedEx, have the facilities to depot large shipments such as this… What is most disconcerting is the manipulation of the shipping data for whatever reason. The ability to do this makes ALLshipping tracking info suspect in my opinion from this point forward.

If they want to “play games” and build the suspense, or for any other reason, manipulation of the data is wrong. The delivery date is out there, live with it. I strongly suspect UPS may have had a hand in this, probably more so than Apple. Can you imagine their hubs and depots being deluged by anxious recipients knowing their iPads where behind closed doors at their local UPS hub, and wanting to pick it up early?

In any case, I ordered mine around 05:45 Alaska time on March 12. I guess it was too early and I didn’t realize April 3 was a Saturday. I had it delivered to the office, which isn’t open on Saturday, and so I won’t get mine until the 5th anyhow…

I have the tracking info, and it was “picked up” at 18:11 on March 29 in Shenzhen. Supposed to be delivered “by April 3.”

Unfortunately I had mine delivered to the office along with all of the accessories I ordered. I wasn’t sure how to handle that when I placed the original order. Over this past weekend, I thought of calling Apple today (Monday, the 29th) and having the address changed to the house. At first I didn’t realize that April 3 was on a Saturday. Then they beat me to the punch and shipped before I could call.

So, when it’s all said and done, I probably won’t have mine until the 5th. Oh well, those sly devils… But I’m not going to go sit at the office all day on Saturday, waiting for UPS. I did that once before and they never showed; they said they knew it was an office and no one would be there on a Saturday, so didn’t attempt delivery.

Oh well, soon enough… But I really can’t wait to see the device.

Lauch of the iPad

I want! It does fill a niche. Looks really cool…

Ok, I’ll buy in and put some gas in Steve’s jet. When can I order?!?! I want to be the first kid on my block with one.

As mentioned, it certainly wasn’t without pain, and took a couple of days.  Going live, to flush out the bugs, so not sure if everything works.  It seems mail is back on track (and was corrupt on the old server) and *finally* got the web side of the house up.  It took a lot of frustration, research, and good ol’ luck (IMHO) to get back online.

But the upside…  WordPress pages (which rely on PHP and MySQL) load, literally, 10 times faster!  It’s amazing!  I was hoping, and expecting significant improvements, but the additional horsepower and RAM certainly do make a difference.

Still not sure if all is well, but using this as a test post.  With fingers crossed, and a few prayers…  Here we go!  

I suppose I could / should have done a full erase and clean install, and can always do that if I experience problems.  But I took the easy (read that, lazy) way out and just inserted the Install DVD and went to work.

It took just a bit over an hour.  Of course, on the surface I don’t see anything different, but will poke around and check out the subtle differences (if there is much to find.)

Bottom line, I started with an ‘older’ Developer Preview build; 10A421a.  I hadn’t applied the last couple of upgrades since that version was running fine.  The only other thing I checked was Safari, to see if there had been much (or any) change.  Before the installation, Safari reported 4.0.3, build 6531.7; after the install, build 6531.9.

Upon reboot, SnapzPro had an update available.  I also installed (my sorely missed) Server Admin Tools for 10.6.  I was pleasantly surprised to see there were no compatibility issues with the tools and my OS X Server,  a PPC running Server 10.5.8.  I had read a few articles where often the new tools don’t work with the “old” server operating system but that isn’t the case.

I’ll go through the rest of my installed software and check to see if anything else has a release to coincide with Snow Leopard.  To sum it up, Snow Leopard is an affordable upgrade ($29USD) and in addition to taking a considerably smaller footprint (about 3GB less) than Leopard 10.5, it is quite snappy and several new features under the hood.

Snow Leopard pre-order announcement

Ok, what we die hard Mac fans have been waiting for, the next release of OS X!  There was a reported leak on the UK Apple Store the other day that indicated Snow Leopard would be available, ahead of the announced “sometime in September” timeframe we had been hearing.  They pulled that, but it was spot on.

Today I received two emails, one directly from Apple this morning (Alaska time) and this afternoon from MacMall.  Both announced ‘pre-order now’ to get your copy on Friday the 28th.  Of course, I plopped down the $29 to Apple (which included shipping.)

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve been running the Developer Preview for a while on my 17″ MBP.  It works great and I haven’t suffered too many issues with the beta.  For the most part, all my software runs fine.  There is the new release of Remote Desktop, and with the anticipated release of Server Admin Tools for 10.6, I will be all set.

Icing on the cake, in my small world, was the addition of the beta build of VMware.  I had been selected, but to date, hadn’t installed it.  Since the release version of Fusion doesn’t run with the 64-bit OS X kernel, I decided to see if this is addressed in the beta.  Sure enough, I started up VMware beta and it works great!  I loaded all my images, including 32 and 64-bit versions of XP, Vista, Windows 7, and Ubuntu.  Updated all the VM Tools and things are running stable.

So, run, don’t walk and pre-order your copy of 10.6.