Archive for the 'Nerdy/Geeky' Category

Successfully imported Wordpress 2.7 into Joomla 1.5

Published
by
Chalupa
on July 30, 2009
in Advice, Joomla, Nerdy/Geeky and Wordpress
. 0 Comments

In my last post, I exported mojoBlog to Wordpress, I successfully got mojoBlog converted into Wordpress and then exported Wordpress into an XML file.  Following the instructions from http://www.daydreymer.com/index.php/Technical/Tools/wordpress-export-to-joomla/All-Pages.html, I was then able to take that XML file and convert it into an SQL file to import into my Joomla 1.5 database.

Here are a few hiccups along the way that might help you out if you’re trying this.

  • Make sure you setup your Section/Category where you want all your blog posts to reside in Joomla.  The SQL generator has a place where you can enter the Section/Category IDs.  I did not do this the first time and all of a sudden I had 385 orphaned articles in Joomla.
  • When importing my SQL file into my database through PHPMYADMIN, uploading the file didn’t work, but if I copied/pasted the file into the textbox that seemed to work just fine.
  • Lastly, I was receiving a really weird error when trying to import in my database.  Turns out there was some weird javascript inside a particular blog post that was screwing everything up.  I was able to just edit the SQL file and remove the javascript code.

I’m not sure if I could be much help to your particular situation, but feel free to leave a comment if you’re having some problems and I can try.  I don’t know how many people are using mojoBlog, but the support seems to have dried up and it’s been over a year since version 0.17 was supposed to be released.  If I were you, I’d move your mojoBlog to Wordpress, if not Joomla.  Getting mojoBlog migrated to something else will allow me to update my Joomla 1.012 site to Joomla 1.5.  If you haven’t seen the new version, you’re in for a surprise.  Things are much, much better than they were before.

I’m continuing to post to my mojoBlog blog and need to figure out a few more things before I can migrate everything.  I still working on figuring out how to import my comments.  Supposedly !JoomlaComment can do that.  That’s my next project.

I exported mojoBlog to Wordpress

Published
by
Chalupa
on July 30, 2009
in Nerdy/Geeky and Wordpress
. 0 Comments

I feel like I just worked a technology miracle.

I’m trying to export my mojoBlog content to Joomla.  I finally found one tool that still exists and works.  I wasn’t able to access the site today at work, but was able to at home.  So if you try the link and it doesn’t work, maybe just try again later.

Bye Wordpress! is a tool available at DayDremer.com.  The exact link is - http://www.daydreymer.com/index.php/Technical/Tools/wordpress-export-to-joomla/All-Pages.html

After downloading an .exe file, all you have to do is tell it where the XML export of your Wordpress blog is, choose where to save the Joomla-friendly exported file to, choose your options and click GENERATE.  The problem with mojoBlog is the export feature does not exist.  This is a stripped down version of Wordpress made available for Joomla users.  I finally got around it, but it’s not pretty.  Here’s what I did.

Step 1: Export mojoBlog to Wordpress

  • I exported my mojoBlog database tables to my desktop using the PHPMYADMIN tool for my website.
  • I found the installation files for Wordpress 2.7 (I don’t know if the version number matters, but I figured 2.7 was going to be safer than 2.8) and copied them to my server.
  • I imported my database tables (see Step 1) using PHPMYADMIN to another database.  This is where they needed to be for the Wordpress 2.7 installation.
  • I checked the wp-config.php file for Wordpress and made sure my database settings were correct.
  • I followed the standard instructions for a Wordpress upgrade.  I navigated to http://www.mysite.com/wp-admin.  This initiates the upgrade procedure.  Everything seemd to work fine, but the upgrade windows said “mojoblog” on them.  After the upgrade was complete, it was redirecting to my old Joomla site where mojoblog is installed.

Step 2: Modify the database

  • Somewhere in the database files there were references to my old site.  I needed to change these to point to this new instance of Wordpress I just installed.  I found a few instances of my old site URL in the wp_options table so I edited those entries to point to the new URL.
  • I checked http://www.mysite.com again, but things were still weird.

Step 3: Re-run the upgrade

  • I navigated back to http://www.mysite.com/wp-admin again and this time I saw the standard Wordpress upgrade screen saying my database needed to be upgraded.  So I upgraded the database.
  • It then took me to the login screen but I was not able to login with my administrator account.  I had forgotten that all user accounts for mojoBlog were handled by Joomla.  So my user table was empty.  I needed to create an admin account.

Step 4: Create an admin account

  • I went into the wp_users table and inserted a new entry for the user “admin.”  I wasn’t sure on some of the fields, but I happened to have another Wordpress site setup, so I opened wp_users table there and tried to copy the settings.
  • I tried logging in and was able to, but I didn’t have sufficient privileges to access the Control Panel.  Wordpress was seeing my account as just a normal user.
  • I checked the wp_usermeta table and had to create an entry for the admin account so it knew this user had administrator privileges.  I now had access to the Control Panel for the blog.

Step 5: Backup Wordpress to an XML file and follow instructions at http://www.daydreymer.com/index.php/Technical/Tools/wordpress-export-to-joomla/All-Pages.html

From here I was able to pick up and start following the instructions for the Bye Wordpress! tool.  I had a slight hiccup where the program wouldn’t open on the computer I was using, but I was able to move the file over to my laptop, along with my Wordpress XML backup, and do everything there.

Next step is to try and import my file to Joomla.

Think I’m sticking with Joomla

Published
by
Chalupa
on July 30, 2009
in Joomla, Nerdy/Geeky and Wordpress
. 0 Comments

For the past two days I’ve been trying to work out exactly how I could move my Joomla site over to Wordpress.  It was going to be complicated.  Even after I figured out how to export my mojoBlog content, move all of my Joomla content into WP categories, acquire a menu system to mimic the old site, and import the users….I was still left with the SEF stuff.

This may not seem like too big of a deal, but I’ve spent the past two years trying to make a web site people want to come to and have acquired a Google Rating of 4.  I’m pretty proud of that and am not looking forward to losing that.  I know there are plugins that could help, but the truth is I know I wouldn’t be able to figure out all the redirects.  I have over 400 content items without even considering the blog, not to mention all of the internal links withing those content items.

After talking it over with Soulman, he sold me on upgrading to Joomla 1.5.  Everything on that site works wonderfully except for the blog.  He helped me to consider a few blogging options, both free and not-free, and I’ve been working out the details.  I should be able to port all of my mojoBlog items into Joomla core content and I think I’ve found a way to export all the comments.  I think I can tie the comments to the posts, but I haven’t tested it yet.  Other than a couple of tiny other hurdles that should be behind me soon, there isn’t too much more to figure out.  Looks like I’m going to stick with Joomla on this one guys.

Edit: Turns out every tool, I have found, that used to be able to import Wordpress content into Joomla doesn’t exist or doesn’t work anymore.  If you have any leads on something that will accomplish this, I’d love to hear it.

Joomla to Wordpress

Published
by
Chalupa
on July 29, 2009
in Joomla, Nerdy/Geeky and Wordpress
. 2 Comments

I’ve had a Joomla site running for a little over 2 years now.  What started off as just a content-based site gradually turned into a content site with a blog which then morphed into a heavily updated blog with some content.  If you’ve used Joomla, you know it’s hard to get decent blog tools without paying any money.  Being a fan of Wordpress, I settled on mojoBlog shortly before the developer stopped having time to work on it.  It’s a great, little stripped-down version of Wordpress, but it’s also full of bugs and just doesn’t quite do what I want.

Lately I’ve been kicking around the idea of exporting everything to Wordpress.  I can’t upgrade to Joomla 1.5 because mojoBlog won’t work.  If I did upgrade to 1.5 I would have to pay some money to get the blog setup and running again.  Last night I found an importer/exporter that will take Joomla content items and bring them into Wordpress 2.7.  I know that’s not the most recent version, but it’s easy to upgrade from there.  The hardest part was finding an old installation file.

From there, I just need to figure out how to tweak the template so things display how I want, import users, and figure a way to keep my permalinks.  I’ve found a few plugins that I think will be very helpful both in menu style, user roles, and multiple permalink formats.  As I’m testing these out and finding things I want to use, I’ll report back with what I’ve found and what works.

Self reference doesn’t match document location

Published
by
Chalupa
on June 21, 2009
in Advice, Nerdy/Geeky and RSS
. 6 Comments

<atom10:link xmlns:atom10="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" rel="self" href="http://mysite.com/feed" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/mysite.com');" type="application/rss+xml" /><item>

If you have ever ran your RSS feed through a feed validator and received the message: “Self reference doesn’t match document location” and have no idea what that means, I may have a few tips for you.

While this is just a recommendation and not an error, it could still cause you problems depending on how you’re using your feed.  I host my RSS feed on my own site, run it through FeedBurner and then distribute the feed to different sites for distribution.  One of those places has been having problems with my feed lately and I’ve had this recommendation showing up after trying to validate it through http://feedvalidator.org.

I didn’t think it was worth worrying about, but I recently fixed it just to make sure it wasn’t causing any problems.  It took me a while to figure it out, but it’s basically a self-referencing link.  If for any reason the URL of your feed does not exactly match this, you’ll get the “recommendation” message.

  • The first thing to check is to make sure that link is the URL people use for your feed.  If you’re doing fancy HTTP or .htaccess redirects, you should be giving people the destination URL, not the one that redirects them to something else.
  • The next thing to check for are spaces in your URL.  Even though some operating systems allow spaces in file names, it’s a general practice to try and avoid them.  Try using dashes or hyphens.
  • The last thing to remember is your links are case-sensitive.  If you’re sending someone to http://mysite.com/feed but your RSS feed references itself as http://mysite.com/Feed, you’re going to get the “error” message when you try to validate your RSS feed.  The hard part can be tracking down where this is set,  depending on how your feed is created and how you’re manipulating it.

I hope these few tips can help you out.  Generally it’s hard to find any help when looking around for an answer to a question like this.

Joomla + MojoBlog + Google Search

Published
by
Chalupa
on March 22, 2009
in Blogging, Joomla and Nerdy/Geeky
. 4 Comments

I have a Joomla 1.0 site and use mojoBlog.  It’s been working out pretty well with the exception of SEF URLs and searching.  I know this is because mojoBlog is a component and isn’t well developed yet.  The SEF issue isn’t that big of a deal because Google still crawls the pages and people can find what I post.  The searching has been a little weird.

I really like the included Joomla search module.  It’s works great but I just realized it doesn’t return results for any of my blog posts.  I had tried setting up Google search before, but it didn’t work too well.  I then tried to set it up again today and was still having problems with it finding my blog posts.  The weird thing is that if I do a normal Google search, go to the advanced options and search just my site, I can find blog posts.

I took the searchbox code Google provided and popped it into a module and created a static page for the search results.  I also popped the provided search results code onto the static page.  When I do a search with the module it goes to the static page, but doesn’t show any results, it just shows an empty search bar.  Then when I type my search into the search bar on the static page, no results for blog posts.

Am I doing something wrong here?  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Edit: Turns out sh404SEF was trying to re-write the URL for the landing page.  After I told it not to, everything worked fine.

Excerpts from the Help Desk

Published
by
Chalupa
on September 29, 2008
in Internet and Nerdy/Geeky
. 1 Comment

I work in the IT profession.  I take phone calls and try to help people.  I create extensive documentation that makes me go crazy so we can try and avoid some of those phone calls.  Whenever I have to call up tech support, which I loathe, I always try to let them know that I’m “in the know” so they might skip some of the rigamorale.  Usually they have no idea what I’m talking about because they are script monkeys.

Recently our connection to Al Gore’s greatest gift to the Earth, the WWW, has been extremely slow.  Last night she gave out completely and much to my dismay, never came back on.  I tried all my tricks to no avail, so I gave Comcast a call after I got home from work.

Script Monkey: “So what’s your problem?”

Chalupa: “Well my internet quit working last night.  I’ve tried all the usual stuff.  I’ve restarted my computer, released and renewed my IP, reset my modem and router, etc, etc.  I’ve even tried plugging directly into the modem and I still can’t get anything.”

Script Monkey: “Ok, I think I can help you.”  <papers shuffling>
“What is the operating system of your modem?”

Chalupa: “My modem doesn’t have an operating system.  Do you want to know what brand it is?”

Script Monkey: “um, yeah”

Chalupa: “RCA”

<silence>

Script Monkey: “That doesn’t make any sense.  It’s supposed to be Vista or something.”

Chalupa: “If you want to know what OS I’m running, I’m on XP with SP3.”

Script Monkey: “Service Pack 3?  I’ve never heard of that.  Ok I need to you go to your computer and click on your Start button.”

Chalupa: “Ok, are you wanting me to check my IP?”

Script Monkey: “I need you to click on Run.  It should be at the bottom.”

Chalupa: “Do you want my IP address?”

Script Monkey: “Ok, now I need you to click on that and hit OK…..oh crap I gotta find the code you have to type.”

Chalupa: “Are you wanting me to check my IP or release it or something?”

Script Monkey: “Oh, here it is.  Type in ipconfig…..space….oh wait, no space.  Then hit OK”

Chalupa: “Are you wanting the IP address of my modem or my computer or my router?”

Script Monkey: “You don’t see an IP thingy?”

Chalupa: “There is an IP address, but this is the IP of my local machine and my router.  Since that’s all internal, it won’t really help you trying to find my modem”

It went on and on like this for a while.  And when she was telling me to hit “ok”, there is no ok.  Fortunately I was able to decipher what she really wanted and got her the needed info.  They kept insisting there was nothing wrong on there end, but after putting me on hold for several minutes, my connection magically started working again.  Luckily it only took me 2hrs to get things working.  Gotta love the Comcast.  How come whenever I call the techies I feel like I ended up helping them more than they helped me?

Battlestar Galactica

Published
by
Chalupa
on April 4, 2008
in Nerdy/Geeky, News and TV
. 2 Comments

It’s coming, it’s coming!

First however, I must bring your attention to a new Wii game, or should I see wee-ing game.  Jeremy assures me this is just an April fools joke, but I wouldn’t put it past our friends in Japan to create something like this.

Now, back to the good stuff.  Battlestar Galactica Season 4 premieres tonight at 10pm EST.  If you’d like to catch up and you have been watching the marathons on Sci-Fi from 8am to 6pm every day this week along with the season 3 episodes from 1am-3am……you can catch the last two episodes of season 3 at 8pm EST tonight, before the new episode.

I know there has been some grumbling about the past season sucking.  I have to totally disagree.  It seems like I heard at least one person say every show was going downhill with the writers strike.  I’m a big fan of BSG and thoroughly enjoyed every episode.  Robby’s coming over tonight to take in all the Battlestar goodness.  It’s too bad this will already be the last season, but at least they’re sticking to a plan.  The whole point is to find the planet Earth, which was also the original plot in the original series*.  They’re going to find Earth by the end of the season so there’s really no point in keeping on once the originally stated goal has been reached and I applaud them for it.

* Yes, this show is a re-make if you weren’t aware.  There have even been some guest appearances by actors from the original show.

Audacity tip

Published
by
Chalupa
on November 19, 2007
in Advice, Audacity, Nerdy/Geeky and Technology
. 2 Comments

I’ve been trying to use Audacity, a few audio editing program, lately to edit my podcast. I had been doing all of the editing with Adobe Audition at work, but really wanted to just do it from the comfort of my own office chair.

It’s a pretty nice program and you can’t really argue with the price. One thing I was frustrated with though is some of my audio clips were sounding all warbly and degraded after I exported my project as an MP3. I finally figured out what was happening. Most of my clips were recorded in mono. A couple of clips I imported were stereo. After I split those stereo tracks and deleted a channel, then the warbling disappeared. Another thing I was playing around with was the bit-rate and sample rate. That can also make a difference, but definitely split your stereo tracks into mono if you’re doing multi-track editing.

Joomla and Google

Published
by
Chalupa
on October 5, 2007
in Advice, Google, Joomla and Nerdy/Geeky
. 0 Comments

If you have a Joomla site out there and you want to start using some Google tools like Analytics or Adsense or the Webmaster Tools check out the Extensions area at Joomla.org before you start trying to do things the hard way.  I found that lesson out the hard way.  There’s some free components and modules that’ll let you easily change your URLs so they’re SEF (Search Engine Friendly), add Google Analytics, create a sitemap, etc.