How to configure WordPress Mu with Google Blog Search Pinging Service

By default, WordPress Mu pings Ping-o-Matic only and it is no longer possible to add new sites with the wp-admin interface: “Sites get pinged by default. That option [to add other Pinging Services] was removed to simplify the interface.” (donncha)

Thus, adding a new Pinging Service (in this case Google Blog Search Pinging Service) requires an update to the *_options table for each blog. Richard Pendergast clearly shows how to do this over on the DevLounge.

For example,

mysql> SELECT option_value
FROM [secret]_2_options
WHERE option_name = "ping_sites";
+----------------------------+
| option_value |
+----------------------------+
| http://rpc.pingomatic.com/ |
+----------------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)
mysql> UPDATE [secret]_2_options
SET option_value = "http://rpc.pingomatic.com/\nhttp://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2/"
WHERE option_name = "ping_sites";
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)
Rows matched: 1 Changed: 1 Warnings: 0
mysql> SELCT option_value FROM [secret]_2_options WHERE option_name = "ping_sites";
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
| option_value |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
| http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2/ |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

WeoGeo has relaxed browser requirements and now allows access to the site with Internet Explorer version 6 (IE6). We’ve (by “we”, I mean Scott :) ) cleared up the major problems with IE6 but recognize that there are a few minor issues remaining. Also, if you discover some that aren’t listed here, we’d like to hear about them!

Known issues:

Advanced Filter bottom buttons are obscured
page isn’t centered vertically
can’t highlight text with mouse (IE7 has this problem also)
larger-font size causes displacements in layout

Open source software is only as good as its user community. This is likely no revelation. It has probably been expressed by others, more eloquent than I, elsewhere. However, my recent participation in the WordPress Mu community and in particular tracking down a really sneaky bug yesterday has prompted me to dwell on the subject.

Of course, a user community is composed of individuals and having some great ones at the core makes a huge difference. This is definitely the case with WordPress Mu. There are really helpful people tirelessly monitoring the forums, answering questions, re-categorizing posts and topics and eventually submitting tickets for the truly worthwhile problems. I wish that I could list those people by name but I’m afraid of leaving some out. I’ll just say that I’ve had help from Dr. Mike in the past and ask for readers (of which I have two, Hi Mom and Dad!) to submit their own favorites.

I think that a community is also impacted by the platform for discussion. In virtual communities, this is usually software and the bbPress forum has some great features for this. Of course, it also has its faults but I won’t dwell on those. For open source-development though, my all-time favorite is Trac. I spent two hours yesterday tracking down a problem caused by Paul’s post, How do you deliver 100 40GB imagery files? This was the only post causing the bug and I couldn’t for the life of me determine what was different about this post than others. It should have been obvious: the post ends with the word, “files”. Duh!

I eventually determined that a rewrite rule was at fault, and in perusing the versions of .htaccess on Trac, I found a Ticket and fix by orvar, describing exactly the problem that I was having. My thanks you orvar and to the awesome WordPress Mu community.

The WeoGeo buyer’s site had a soft launch yesterday and today I’ve launched account consolidation for WeoGeo and the three community components (blogs, forums, and wiki). There was a preview of this shiny, new feature back on 4/25/2007 for consolidated login. Now when users register on the WeoGeo.com website, they are also given accounts and logged into the 3 community sites.

While these features seem trivial to me in hindsight, they were quite a bit of work! They involved reverse-engineering and mimicking each of the three community sites’ session/cookie tracking. I was new to PHP but I got a great deal of help from the WordPress Mu Forums, PHP.net, and Paul Hudson’s PHP in a Nutshell. I’ve learned a lot in the process and I think I’ve now earned my yellow-belt in PHP.

I’m researching programmatic posting for new WeoGeo data and came across this:

WordPress-on-a-Rope « Shannon Whitley:

WordPress-on-a-Rope provides a soap interface for web service clients. Most of the code has been taken from the XMLRPC interface and modified to work with the PHP soap server.

This article talks about the place of blogs in the new open and “transparent” era of corporate communication:

Wired 15.04: The See-Through CEO:

The See-Through CEO Fire the publicist. Go off message. Let all your employees blab and blog. In the new world of radical transparency, the path to business success is clear. By Clive Thompson

I’ve been developing this new version of our blog for some time and it finally went live today. Note the login at the top. This actually logs into the forums and wiki components of the WeoGeo community as well!

The next step is upgrading those two sites. I noticed that there are some dead links in the header and that will be my first task tomorrow morning.

-d

from WordPress MU Forums Topic: Patch to fix lack of admin email notification by Walied

Easy workaround to create your passport without the patch is to run the command on MySql

UPDATE wp_users SET user_pass = MD5('choose your password here'), user_activation_key = '' WHERE user_login = 'admin';


Then you can login with your new password you have choosen in the MySql Command to your Admin Dashboard

—

Thanks, Walied! This saved my day!
-dandye

I’ve been looking over the Weogeo site for improvements. I’m especially interested in its Forum, Blog, and Wiki. I welcome any comments from other users!